December 20th, 2022
Angel dust, known as PCP, is a potent hallucinogen that was blacklisted from pharmaceutical use due to its harmful properties. To answer the question ‘what is angel dust?’, its origin and history tell the story of the true dangers the drug poses. Thus is the reason it was swiftly removed from all medical practices.
Originally founded by physicians in the 1950s, angel dust was once administered as a potent sedative during surgery. Further research findings on the drug halted its use in the medical field, before being listed as a controlled substance. Those studies cited its addictive properties and numerous potentially fatal health risks as grounds for its removal from professional administration.
Angel dust is a white substance that can be consumed in several forms ranging from pills to powder. This makes it easy to conceal angel dust as an OTC drug or other seemingly insignificant substances such as detergent. It also poses a risk of being ‘laced’ with other drugs otherwise unknown to the abuser before partaking.
What is Angel Dust’s health risk exactly? Allow this piece to answer all your questions about its dependency risks, and dangerous short-term and long-term side effects. In addition, you’ll learn about the unprecedented joys you’ll find in recovery.
What Are The Unpleasant Side Effects Of Angel Dust?
Angel dust has varying, yet equally unpleasant effects that are unique to each individual. A common principle, however, is it alters one’s state of mind so drastically that the user becomes dissociated from reality. That means all clarity of thought and the mental processes of separating fantasy from reality is corrupted. Coupling distorted reality with hallucinogens is what makes angel dust one of the most potentially self-harming drugs on the street. Bearing that in mind, here are a few of the dangerous and possibly fatal side effects of PCP.
Loss Of Feeling In Your Arms and Legs
One of the most common unpleasantries associated with angel dust is the potential loss of feeling in your arms and legs. Though you still maintain full motion of your extremities, you can have the inability to feel objects or your own body. Such an experience can be very frightening, especially for first-time users. In perspective, panic, hallucinations, and detachment from reality is a highly self-harming and potentially lethal cocktail for all users.
Circumstantial Detachment
Beyond altering one’s sense of reality, angel dust renders the user oblivious to the realities at hand, distorting people, objects, and speech perception. This means the user will often be unaware of the presence of family members, friends, or their surroundings. This can lead to irrational decisions that pose a danger to the influenced party and everyone around them.
Attempting to reason with an individual exhibiting such behavior puts you in potential danger. If you notice any odd or unexplainably irrational behavior, do not take matters into your own hands. If possible, remove you and the surrounding party from the situation and contact the appropriate officials to get the struggling party the help they need.
Erratic Paranoia and Anxiety
A bad experience with hallucinogens can cause erratic paranoia and anxiety. When under the influence, there’s no controlling these bouts of paranoia, leaving you completely at the mercy of the substance. That’s why every use of angel dust is a potential life risk as these paranoid delusions can turn fatal quickly.
Slurred Speech And Sluggishness
PCP can mimic the feeling and effects of alcoholic intoxication in some. That includes a feeling of sluggishness, slurred speech, and severe nausea. Furthermore, sluggishness can be a continuously lingering effect even after short-term effects have subsided. The key to an energetic and happy life resides in your road to recovery.
Sudden And Extreme Irritation
Anybody under the influence of angel dust can become easily irritable at the drop of a dime. It doesn’t take much to get under a PCP user’s skin, especially if the individual is having a bad experience or “trip”. If so, that person can even become violent in the most irrational way.
What Are the Dangers Of Angel Dust?
Angel Dusts’ short-term impacts have long-term consequences, sometimes even for first-time users. These consequences vary by individual, presenting both mental and physical health risks. Once acquired, many conditions are irreversible. If you’ve developed some of these conditions, getting medical help now will still add years and happiness to your life. Here are several life-threatening conditions PCP use can do to you.
Accidental Overdose
The potency of PCP makes it very easy to accidentally overdose, leading to hyperventilation, coma, and even death. The fact that PCP potency on the street varies drastically per additional symptoms of an overdose consist of shallow breath, pale complexion, nausea, perspiration, or a sudden increase or decrease in heart rate or blood pressure.
If you or anyone you know is exhibiting any such symptoms, immediately go to the ER. Don’t let the insignificant concern of being ‘caught’ be the last mistake you ever make. Ignoring such symptoms is likely to be a fatal mistake. Your life is more important than legal repercussions.
Feeling Indestructible
PCP’s euphoric feelings of indestructibility present a self-destructive danger to any user. Under the influence of angel dust, anything can feel physically possible. This leads to attempting dangerous feats one would not otherwise consider. Thus the reason for the several reported accidental suicides associated with angel dust. Each use puts you and those in your surroundings in danger.
Permanent Health Risks
Angel Dust’s short-term effects put additional strain on vital organs such as your heart, lungs, and other vital functions. PCP exposure puts you at high risk of heart attack, heart disease, respiratory distress, and other even more serious conditions. All of these conditions are potentially life-threatening and irreversible. Talking to a recovery specialist today can prevent further damage and in some cases restore one’s health.
Seeing Things That Aren’t There
As alluded to earlier, angel dust removes all sense of logical circumstance and reasoning. In addition, as with all hallucinogens, PCP replaces your circumstance with false images that appear more real than life itself. This exacerbates confusion and leads you to believe that the fantasy your poisoned mind is seeing is real. In turn, your lack of common reasoning could lead you to self-harm up to and including death.
Angel Dust’s Addictive Properties
PCP’s highly addictive properties are among the main reasons it was blacklisted from the medical field. To make matters worse, angel dust dependency is not an issue you can attempt alone. In fact, battling PCP dependency requires some form of medical assistance.
Do not attempt self-cessation on your own. Doing so could exacerbate pre-existing mental conditions or create new ones, including serious health problems. In correlation, it could send you into a discouraging downward spiral of deepening your addiction. Getting professional recovery assistance can change your entire outlook on rehab.
Free By The Sea Recovery assistance will open your eyes to the truth that sobriety is just the beginning. Medically-aided recovery has the tools, medications, and support groups you need to achieve and maintain sobriety and accomplish life goals. Compassionate treatment receptionists are standing by to provide the reassurance and options to conquer your strongholds and so much more.
Mental Health Problems
One of the primary side effects of angel dust rests in its harmful impacts on the brain. PCP’s destabilization and disruption of your neuronic functions result in a variety of mental health problems. Many of these conditions are either irreversible or can take several years to recover from. These conditions include depression, bipolar, and other mental disorders.
The severity of mental disorders potentially caused by angel dust can only be determined by a trained specialist. If you suspect you could be suffering from any of the aforementioned conditions, Free By The Sea could save your life. A trained recovery specialist can do more than aid your angel dust recovery process.
They can simultaneously help you restore your crossover struggles with mental health. You and your doctor can help you accomplish things you never thought possible. The real question is what is angel dust keeping you from accomplishing?
Get Freedom From Your Strongholds At Free By The Sea
Regardless of one’s stage of dependency, it’s never too late to prevent further damage to your body. Each use takes precious time away from your life the more you expose yourself to PCP’s harmful properties. Start adding years back by freeing you from the bonds of PCP dependency.
Reaching out to a recovery expert can be your lifeline to avoiding the risks to be named. More important than the question, ‘What is angel dust?’ is the question, ‘What is angel dust’s hold on your life?’
PCP abuse can root itself into the addictive persona so deeply that it prevents you from doing the things you truly enjoy. Most importantly, it risks the potential of preventing you from reaching your potential in life. What is angel dust preventing you from achieving in life? Free By The Sea can be your tool for revealing the extent of your potential that was once blinded by your strongholds. You can unlock the door to boundless possibilities by contacting us and getting the therapy you need today.
Dr. Richard Crabbe joined our team in 2019 as our psychiatrist and medical director. He attended the University of Ghana Medical School where he became a Medical Doctor in 1977. From 1978 through 1984, he was a medical officer in the Ghana Navy and provided a variety of services from general medicine to surgeries. He received his Certificate in General Psychology from the American Board of Psychology and Neurology in 2002.
