I took cocaine and speed to help me revise

After spending yet another day in the library, getting done the grand total of naff all, I realised something had to change. The clouds hung low in the sky, ominously grey, and my exam was a week away. I knew, literally, nothing. Surrounded by the bowed heads of students deep in the blissful throes of knowing that they were guaranteed firsts, or, if things went badly, 2:1s, there I was, a Warwick imposter, teetering on the precipice between a 2:2 and a third.

On the bus home, things went from bad to worse. I desperately dredged the depths of my mind looking for some semblance of knowledge, say, a critic, who I could smugly whip out mid answer and prove that I knew at least something, but I came up blank. In a background of sheer despair, I decided to resort to the drastic measure of revision supplements.

Not brain food like raw fish and bananas. I would instead use my body as a testing ground, discover the most effective study drugs, and utilise them to scrape a decent grade. But without access to some of the more famous ones like Ritalin, I resorted to what I knew best with cocaine and speed.

Weigh it, snort it, work it

I was nervous about going it alone, but, luckily, I live with someone whose procrastination abilities are legendary. When I told him of the bind I found myself in, he was quick to join. Suddenly, there were two of us, two young adults searching the dark web, desperately trying to find something, anything, that would give us some focus, and assure us that elusive 2:1.

We found four substances. Modafinil, Noopept, Speed and Coke. Here’s what we thought.

Speed

Happy faces for happy workers

People take this amphetamine to stay awake, energised and alert – so it made sense to incorporate this into our little experiment.

It was by far my favourite. I’ve never got more work done in my life. Three hours on this flew by, my handwriting was still legible but I can’t say I soaked it all up. Speed was definitely better for just writing a lot of notes than for actually retaining information. A solid eight out of ten for me.

This didn’t work for our other guinea pig. My flatmate just couldn’t stop dancing and found himself confused when he tried to work. It wasn’t his most productive evening. He gave it a two out of ten.

Cocaine

Two lines and a day wasted

How the bankers do it is beyond me. Yeah you feel pumped for the first 20 minutes, and then it all starts to wear off.

This was the worst idea we’ve ever had. We started off working fine, but soon I was gurning so hard, I couldn’t focus on anything.

My flatmate agreed. It was absolutely awful, and probably to be expected. I felt supremely confident until the coke wore off, and I realised that I’d spent the vast majority of the time I was meant to have been working, googling Sino-American political relations. I don’t do politics.

The worst part was the comedown. Similar to speed, we felt completely demotivated and there was too long a recovery period for it to be worth it.

Modafinil

Working on a molecular level

I felt awake and focused and yet, at the same time, pissed off. Whenever someone spoke to me, I’d just snap. Also, I had to warn people to leave the bathroom for a couple of hours. I couldn’t stop shitting and every one reeked.

I wouldn’t have given this anything more than five out of ten, despite many saying they swear by it.

For my flatmate however, time seemed to fly by. A solid five hours of work under his belt without a break. Practically unheard of for him, and he got a hell of a lot more done than I ever did.

Noopept

Noopept – Noo work

At times I was working but didn’t actually realise I was working. That said at other times this was as useless as the white crayons you got as kids. I felt moderately nauseous, with mixed incentive to work. I didn’t get much done and wouldn’t really advocate this one.

My flatmate messaged me some interesting feedback.

“Fuck me, it tastes like a disease-riddled dog has just pissed in my mouth. It genuinely tastes awful. To be fair though, I found my course a lot more interesting than normal. Probably worth it, spent a good few hours working.”

Overall then, study drugs might be worth giving a miss. The come down from the coke and speed were so, so bad. Modafinil was the only one that we both agreed had a positive effect. I managed to do a moderate amount of revision, but I’m not convinced I wouldn’t have done just as much with copious amounts of coffee.