Maybe this belongs in a different forum. There is a specific answer, but there’s probably not enough info here. I will find out what’s going on, but I’d like a rough idea beforehand and would really appreciate some ideas.
Dear friend #1 (“she”) is telling me about dear friend #2 (“he”). Wife and husband. Family, in fact. They live in the US. FWIW, she is ‘middle class’ I guess. He is a bit less educated and originally from overseas (a muslim country) but very smart. For many years a hard-working and sensible person, but always laid back, liked a few beers and Marlboro lights and the occasional spliff.
According to her, he has displayed the following symptoms over the last 2 years, in roughly this order:
- not paying fair share of bills, etc
- started talking in slurred speech, as if suffering from a stroke
- became extremely angry (not previously typical) when this has been pointed out, angrily denying anything is wrong
- drinking more heavily, car scrapes, lying about whereabouts
- getting irritable, worrying his kids (early-mid teens), retreating to his den alone
- found to have leucoplacia (a type of mouth cancer), then apparently lied about it being OK
- started screaming at kids - nothing physical but very nasty (“I’ll kill you…”)
- sniffing
- surreptitious hair test odered by her shows ‘positive’. I don’t know what for (hence this post), but a Google search indicates most of the serious drugs seem to show up in hair.
- his buddies knew all along (they’re part of the same scene) but kept it from her
They are now divorcing. Really sad, because he was a great guy. Destined for prison maybe now, I guess.
I will discuss it in depth with her in person asap. For various reasons, communication via email/phone is awkward right now.
So, I’d really appreciate it - any informed opinion in the meantime on what substance he is abusing?
its hard to say. Maybe its something else that happened to him and the drug abuse is a symptom just like all the other things you listed.
To my knowledge most hair drug tests only test for 5 drugs. Coke, heroin, PCP, marijuana & amphetamines. Thats assuming it was a basic test, not some advanced test.
My bet would be amphetamines. or maybe coke. I doubt its PCP or marijuana.
Sniffing could imply coke.
Coke, meth, amphetamines, and heroin may all be snorted. I have never heard of any irritability factors associated with long term heroin use if the person is getting their fixes. I don’t know much about coke, either, I’ve stayed far away from it and have never known a coke addict first hand, but a person on coke can be aggressive. Amphetamines and methamphetamines, however, have long-term use issues. Amphetamine psychosis is the term to look up here. Nasty. Some of the racemic methamphetamines cause the body to smell strangely, too, but that wasn’t mentioned.
Additionally, all these drugs can also be smoked, which may account for the cancer, though that might also be totally unrelated.
A fountain of drug knowledge can be gained directly from erowid dot org, or indirectly through their links, which are to chemistry sites, the DEA, etc. Erowid portrays itself as a factual source, but there is a lot of anecdotal, pro-use information there. Read wisely.
Leukoplakia is not necessarily cancerous. Are you sure his has progressed into mouth cancer? But either way, it does suggest an immune difficiency.
Since we’re all just guessing here anyway, here’s mine:
Increased drug abuse leads to increased risky sexual behavior which can lead to HIV which can cause leukoplakia. That scenario can explain everything on your list.
Hmm.
No expert, the Mango, but I’ve worked around a wide assortment of drug users and abusers.
My best guess here would be either cocaine or crystal meth. Other types of stimulants might also be a possibility.
It’s a shame that this is happening. Seems to me that the guy would maybe just be approaching middle age, and is now getting into this sort of thing. Maybe he’s having some sort of mid-life crisis, and using the drugs to try to numb out the feeling of getting old?
I didn’t know that, but the drugs I listed, besides being snorted or smoked, can also be injected (why you’d want to, I don’t know, but there you have it). Of course, shared needles are also a source of Bad Things.
Well the slurred speech and irritability and sniffing sound almost like solvent abuse.
Coke tends to make folk overconfident and basically they become total wankers also very intolerant, so I’d doubt it was that since you dn’t mention this kind of behaviour.
Heroin can make folk uninterested, except for just the one thing, and they can become listless. What condition are this persons teeth in ? Use of Heroin from foil for any period will result in damage to the enamel, and an injector will tend to become complacent and leave obvious clues such as works and skin damage.
Amphetamine use tends to get greater and greater quite rapidly, and can cause psychotic episodes, along with mood swings of massive innapropriateness.
What is happening to this persons personal hygiene ? and also their weight ?
are they eating normally ? more or less than normal ? How is their skin, especially around the mouth and nostrils ? Do they have a disturbed sleep pattern ? and perhaps TMI do they make bowel movements regularly or perhaps miss out for days complaining of gut pain, and when they do go they take absolutely ages?
This person could easily be using more than one drug, something to get high, and something to come down, and there might well be some experimentation with various cocktails such as speedballs.
Multiple drug abuse is very common, heroin users seem to have just the one priority, but we might have prescription drug abuse such as temazepam which also causes slurred speech and mood swings.
After two years, if those are the only symptoms she has noticed it will be hard to say, but your mention of leukoplakia indicates that this is something he is sniffing. Whatever it is, it gets to his mouth because when you sniff you get ‘the drip’, and you have to swallow it. I’d say it could be cocaine or speed.
Cascave the one thing about that is that solvents really aren’t expensive. Really hard to say with so few details.
Probably cocaine or one of its cousins, given that he sniffs a lot and has been aggressive. Coke users get nasty. (Heroin users, not so much. A lot of them are actually kind of normal as long as they get their fix.)
The drinking could be increasing because his coke use is increasing. See, the more coke someone uses, the more they want. You won’t find a cokehead that snorts X amount of lines a day and that’s it, they’re cool, and they do that for years. It always increases. However since they get so hyper, they eventually want to come down off that high (maybe to sleep), so they have to use depressants. Excessive drinking would also explain the slurred speech.
The mouth cancer could be unrelated. Does he dip?
Someone oughta check his nose. If he has no nose hairs, bingo. Coke.
Is it clear that he doesn’t have an undiagnosed mental disorder? A lot of them can still develop at that age, and if he is indeed using drugs, it could well be more symptomatic than anything else. Some of those symptoms almost suggest mania, so it could be bipolar disorder. (Obviously the opinion of an uninformed layperson, don’t take my word for it.)
Hope she ends up ok here; this is a terrible thing to happen.
My very educated guess would be coke (crack). The reason I’m so damn educated on the subject is my X used it for a few years before I actually caught on, he hid it very well. I knew something was wrong, just couldn’t pinpoint it, but all the same symptoms were there nyou described. I actually thought that he was gambling all his money away - cause that’s what he told me and I actually believed him. In retrospect, of course, it all makes sense. I haven’t heard a word from him for other a year now (and we have a daughter together - he was once the best dad ever, ever) and I suspect that he’s still involved in drugs. 3 rehab attempts apparently didn’t help him and the fact that he lost everything, and I do mean everything, wasn’t reason enough to quit. I wish that I would have known earlier cause I might have been able to do something to help him - when I did finally find out it was beyond me being able to help him. Once, we were the perfect couple, people could not believe we actually split up - and it was totally inconceiveable to most that he was into crack.
Hope it works out for your friend - man-o-man its a tough road for everybody involved.
Many, many thanks to you all - I guessed coke or speed. I’ll find out, anyway. Is the drug use the cause or a symptom of the problem? Really good question. Kind of academic, unfortunately, but I do wonder. I know she and the kids will pull through - they’re tough.
To quote Lost in Cyberspace “he was once the best dad ever”. That’s exactly it.
Loads of thanks again - this has helped me.