Am I Addicted to Mephedrone? An Honest Self-Check

If you're asking whether mephedrone has become a problem, that question is already telling you something — people don't lose sleep over things genuinely under control. Mephedrone — 4-MMC, "meow meow", "drone", "bubble" — is sneaky because it hides inside a "normal" weekend. It feels like just having a big one with mates, until you notice the big ones have edges you didn't put there. Let me help you look at it honestly, the way I would across the table.

It's not about the weekend — it's about the binge

With a lot of drugs the worry is daily use. Mephedrone is different. It's a binge drug, so the marker isn't "every day" — it's what happens once you start. The classic pattern: you only use at weekends, you'd never touch it on a Tuesday, so you tell yourself it's fine. But when you do use, you can't stop at a couple. One becomes the whole night, then the next day, then Sunday's a write-off. That loss of the brakes once you've started is the real marker, not how many days a week you partake.

That's the cocaine-like grip — the same compulsive "just one more" that runs cocaine binges, which is why I treat mephedrone the same way. The short high is the trap: it drops you fast, your brain demands more, and the redose voice wins more nights than you'd admit. If that's familiar, you're not weak — you've been caught by exactly what this drug is built to do.

The signs worth being honest about

You already sense most of these. The work is counting them instead of explaining each one away:

• You redose far past your plan — "just for a bit" turns into chasing it till morning, most times you use.
• You need it to make a night feel right — to keep going, to feel social, to enjoy yourself at all.
• The weekend is bleeding into the week — sessions starting earlier, ending later, or Monday and Tuesday lost to the comedown.
• It's hitting your work, money or relationships — and you've carried on anyway.
• You've tried to stop or cut down and haven't managed it — the weekend you swore you'd skip, and didn't.
• The comedowns are getting darker — flatter, more anxious, harder to climb out of. If that's you, my piece on the mephedrone comedown will help.

You don't need the full set. If a few landed with a thud, that's your answer making itself known. And don't let "it's only at weekends" talk you out of it — a binge problem doesn't need daily use to be a problem.

A quick gut-check

Set the lists aside and ask the questions that sting. Has someone close to you raised it, and did you bristle? Do you play down how much you get through? Have you promised yourself "this is the last time" and not meant it by Friday? Does a month with no mephedrone feel hard to picture? These aren't about quantity. They're about whether the drug has a hold on you — and a hold is what addiction really is.

If the answer is "yes, probably"

First, give yourself credit for asking — that honesty is rarer and harder than people think, and it's the thing every recovery is built on. A "yes" here doesn't mean your life is in ruins or that you're an addict in the dramatic sense. It means a binge habit has more of a grip than you'd like, and now — before it takes more — is a good time to loosen it.

Mephedrone is a stimulant problem, and it responds to the same approach I use with cocaine: spot the triggers, build a plan around them, and don't try to white-knuckle it alone. Start with the free self-assessment, scored the way a specialist would. When you're ready to act, my roadmap for quitting mephedrone lays out the steps, and the fuller mephedrone guide sets the wider picture. If dread of facing it is part of what keeps you going back, the fear is worth a read. And if you'd rather just talk it through with someone who won't judge — that's exactly what I do.

Gary Clinton

Ireland's addiction specialist — CBT-qualified therapist, bestselling author of Never Give Up, and an ex-addict himself. Private one-to-one help for professionals, online and worldwide.