Aftereffects of long term cocaine use

The company I work for hired this guy about two months ago. He is, to put it mildly, a bit strange. He’s always jangly, like he’s had way too much coffee, he blinks incessantly, and he talks nonstop and at breakneck speed. He’s extremely thin and hardly eats anything, and he gets angry really easily–not at other people, but at how things are in our workplace.

He told me once that he did a lot of coke in his younger years, but that he’s been clean for a lot of years. So I wonder if all the drugs somehow caused a change in his brain that makes him so hyper. I tried searching on this but couldn’t come up with anything that addressed this particular type of situation. I have never done drugs so I know nothing about the subject.

I’m most certainly NOT asking people to say up front whether they themselves used drugs. I’d just like to know if this is the possible cause for his actions, or if it might rather be a medical condition like, say, hyperthyroidism or mania.

I’ve had occasion to talk with people who did a lot of coke in their younger years, and they sounded a lot like your guy here - because they were still using, their professions of cleanliness notwithstanding.

[Mitch Hedberg]

I used to do drugs.

I still do, but I used to too.

[/Mitch Hedberg]

If indeed he has not done it for “a lot of years” I doubt this is an after-effect of the drug. Think of all the celebrities who have confessed to long-term cocaine use in their past and yet now come across as more or less normal by celebrity standards. IF cocaine abuse does produce long-term effects I would predict they would be depressive effects, resulting perhaps from damaged dopamine receptors or synapses in the brain.

Unfortunately, your description of this man sounds a lot like a portrait of someone who is using cocaine at that very moment.

He might be still using.

But also, this description seems to fit a lot of the people who end up starting to use cocaine.
Different drugs appeal to different personality types.

I know a guy who is just hyper and jangly and prone to repeat himself and natter on. He also does a lot of little things like tapping his fingers on the desk (I used to wonder if maybe mild undiagnosed Tourettes). He wasn’t using anything - I’m fairly sure of that, knew him for years.

Another vote for still using. Possibly adderal instead of coke.

Yes, a more common side effect of cocaine abuse is that things you used to really enjoy doing now no longer give you pleasure, unless you’re also high while ‘doing’ them. Probably the most insidious long term psychological damage that drug can cause…

Cocaine use damages the heart. Lots of coke users die early of heart disease. I doubt that has anything to do with the OPs coworker’s behavior though.