Experiences - smoking altering brain chemicals permanently?

[windowpeeker3]

swim was pondering about this earlier today. When swim first started smoking crack, he could enjoy the high and felt virtually no paranoia at all. as swim increased the amount smoked and increased usage, the amount of paranoia swim felt increased A LOT. swim is now at the point where even after one hit, swim is overwhelmed with intense paranoia and if swim takes a couple hits, he is filled with a feeling of impending doom...like just waiting for the men in black suits to pull up and kick down the door...or as the username says, swim will just stare out a window because swim "knows" they should be looking for something

what swim is wondering is has swim's crack usage altered the chemicals in their brain so much that they will always feel the bad side effects without being able to enjoy the high?

swim used to be an intense coke IV'er, almost everyday for 2+ years until swim moved to an area where heroin was huge so swim started speedballing...swim eventually did a lot of damage to the veins so swim decided to stop shooting and in the process, picked up the pipe. the whole time swim used to IV coke, they NEVER got paranoia from it. not once. but it seems that the 1.5 years swim has been smoking crack, it's been getting worse and worse, a couple times swim had a psychotic break and lost touch with reality

[Aurum]

Once heard something similar (permanent changes due to crack usage) but to be honest it was from a guy who would spout out supposed knowledge on any given subject, a self appointed expert in any and all fields. His claim was that usage created ("burnt") "holes" in users brain that did not heal and that these holes resulted in changes thought patterns and behaviours. SWIM has run the gannet of substances (currently on subutex) and experienced similar feelings - super paranoid - was snorting all day and then once home and alone would wash up some rocks and smoke and have a joint or two - literally evey car would warrant a trip to the window "just to check" and heaven forbid someone on the street should talk as they passed - would result in much window gazing and panic stashing. This was before H began to be used to level SWIM out, this became an instant fix for any geeking caused by the pipe - of course meant pipe and H usage went through the roof (but that's another story) - swim not had any real breaks with reality but becoming "the secret lemonade drinker" evey time the pipe was used quickly lost it's appeal and until H was shown to "fix" this issue swim had stopped piping as the after effects outweighed the brief initial rush. Best answer to avoid unpleasant geeking is to not pipe at all - don't use H to fix yourself as swim did as it will just open another whole bag of worms..