If you use drugs, you’ll probably say you know your limits and can handle them. Some people can — maybe you can — but whether you know what you’re doing or not, drug use can increase the risk of HIV and STI transmission, accidents and other injuries.
If you’re feeling ill, tired, worried or depressed, if you’re on your own, or if you have something important to do in the near future — like going to work — the effects may not be what you want or expect.
While drugs may make you feel better in the short term, they may also make you feel worse. The effects of any drug can depend on a number of factors:
- The drug itself
- How much you take
- Where you do it
- Who you do it with
- What you think the drug will do
- What you’ve mixed it with
- How you’re feeling at the time
- What you’ve eaten that day
- Any other drugs or medication you’ve taken, prescribed or not
Borrowing from tomorrow
As much as we would like to think otherwise, recreational drugs, party drugs or a chemsex session don’t create energy; they allow us to borrow it from tomorrow’s supply. And then, when tomorrow comes, it’s payback time. The key is to minimise the impact of the ‘weekend cocktail’ on the week.
A weekend without sleep, proper meals, hours of dancing and drugs won’t do your body any favours. It’s hardly surprising that when Monday morning comes, we’re feeling trashed, damaged or fucked — delete as applicable.
After the highs of Friday night to Monday morning, there’s nothing like a heavy dose of reality, and the misery this entails, to bring on the midweek blues. When we take drugs at the weekend, the aim is to do what we can to reduce the harms and ensure the impact doesn’t carry over.
