How to Quit Speed (Amphetamine): The Roadmap

If you've decided you want speed out of your life, the hard part is done. What follows is just a plan and some support, and I can help with both. Speed — amphetamine, whizz, billy — is a cheap, long-lasting stimulant that hooks you on the energy and quietly empties your sleep, your mood and your weeks. It's a close cousin of cocaine, the territory I know best, and the good news is it responds well to the same approach.

I don't write this from the outside. I was an addict myself, and I know the exhaustion of being wired and worn out at once. So let me walk you through it honestly: how to come off, how to get through the crash, and how to make sure you're not back here in three months.

First, set the stage

Quitting isn't one heroic moment of willpower; it's mostly preparation. Pick your moment with the crash in mind — coming off speed brings a heavy, flat few days, so line up your stop for when you've least on. Clear anything left in the house, delete the number, and tell the one or two people who'll have your back. Stock the kitchen and plan to sleep. It sounds small. It's the difference between a plan that holds and one that collapses on the first hard night.

The crash — what's actually coming

Let me be straight about the comedown, because not knowing is what frightens people back to using. Coming off amphetamine is mostly psychological, but it isn't gentle: the first few days bring deep fatigue, a low and irritable mood, a roaring appetite and broken sleep — your body catching up. The cravings can be loud. Here's the part to hold onto: it lifts. As your dopamine system rebalances, the fog clears and sleep returns — the crash feels permanent and simply isn't. There's more in the amphetamine and speed addiction guide. Your job in those first days isn't to feel great — it's just to not use.

Getting through the first week

1. Eat and sleep like it's the job. Your body is depleted. Food and rest aren't indulgences — they're medicine, and they steady your mood faster than anything else.
2. Ride the cravings. A craving is a wave, not a command. It peaks and passes, usually within twenty minutes. Distract, move, ring someone — and let it go by.
3. Mind your HALT. Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired — this is when defences drop. Most slips happen not at a high point but in a flat, exhausted, isolated moment.
4. Stay out of its way. Avoid the people, places and nights wired to using for now — you're not being antisocial, you're protecting a fragile new thing.

Why willpower alone tends to fail

If you've quit before and ended up back here, don't read that as proof you're weak. White-knuckling it — going it completely alone — is the commonest way good intentions come undone, and it isn't about character. Speed was doing a job: lifting low mood, quietening anxiety, getting you through. Take it away and leave that job unaddressed, and the old solution is the one your brain reaches for first.

The people who stay off it aren't the ones with the strongest grip. They're the ones who got underneath why they were using and built something better in its place.

That's the real work, and it's nearly impossible to do alone at midnight with cravings pressing in — understanding your triggers, treating what the speed was managing, building defences that hold. That's what one-to-one support is for. And if you're juggling this around a demanding job, the fear of being found out needn't keep you struggling alone: plenty of professionals come off stimulants without anyone at work ever knowing.

You don't have to do this on your own

Here's what I've learned, the hard way and then across years of helping others: recovery isn't a test of how much you can endure by yourself. The ones who get free let the right support in. Quitting speed is absolutely achievable, and far easier with someone in your corner. If you're unsure how heavy your use has become, start with the assessment — or if you'd rather just talk it through with someone who gets it and won't judge you, that's what I'm here for.

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.