Activism
We are used to seeing “Alpha” in viral videos where people lose their minds, strip naked, and fight invisible demons. But this hell has another side — quiet, systemic, and frighteningly rational. Our hero has been in a “high-speed” rhythm for 20 years, and for the last two years, his fuel has been that very α-PVP. This is not the confession of a repentant sinner, but a cold report on how to turn psychosis into a comfort zone, why the modern market is clogged with “chemical garbage” instead of original compounds, and what it’s like to consciously choose “the rush” when the high has long since vanished.
“I knew right then: I’m going to use like a madman”: How one un-trashed baggie changes a life forever
— How long have you been in this synthetic, high-speed rhythm? And what part of that time belongs specifically to Alpha?
— My total experience spans over 20 years. I use Alpha basically every day now. I’ve been in this mode for about two years, with only one month-long break.
— What did Alpha give you the first time that regular “speed” or other stimulants couldn’t?
— Actually, I first tried it ten years ago, maybe more; it was a completely different thing then. But today’s Alpha is a whole different beast—it’s several times more powerful. It’s not even “stim” in the usual sense; it’s a rage… it’s fucking madness.
— Do you remember the moment when “a fun weekend experiment” turned into a “plan for breakfast”? What was the trigger: boredom, drama, or just availability?
— It was everything at once: boredom and drama. I just played around too much, that’s all. I don’t know exactly when I “slipped.” I had my own system: I’d buy the minimum weight, 0.3 grams, once a month. I’d do one dose and throw the rest away. I practiced that for six months—never more often, I held myself back. Но the first time I didn’t throw away the remainder, I knew instantly: from this day on, I’m going to be using like a madman. But since I’ve been swimming in addictions my whole life, it didn’t scare me.
— To what extent did your experience match the horror stories about the “zombie drug”?
— Alpha affects consciousness very strongly; there’s a certain thing there. I’ve developed a pattern: if I use it while high on weed, I get this feeling every time like I’m overdosing. It started because a long time ago, while stoned, I accidentally injected a double dose—I just spaced out and forgot I’d already mixed one. The brain remembered that. Now, even with a normal dose, it feels like an overdose if I’m high on weed.
— And that doesn’t stop you? You still go looking for trouble?
— Of course, it doesn’t stop me. Alpha is a specific thing: over time, you feel bad more often than you feel good. But the paradox is that you start to get a high exactly from the fact that you feel bad. At least for me, that’s how it happens.
α-PVP was synthesized back in the 1960s as a medicine, but was quickly shelved due to its extreme aggression. Unlike amphetamine, which makes the brain work faster, Alpha completely blocks the reuptake of dopamine and norepinephrine.
2024 studies show that modern “salt” samples have become 3–5 times more toxic than versions from a decade ago due to the use of dirty Chinese precursors.
Face is fine, kidneys are failing: How to slam 250mg of Alpha and stay “alive”
— What is your average daily “ration”?
— I set my dosage at about 50 milligrams. As I found out later, that’s the maximum allowable single dose. I found it through a mistake. In 2013, a classmate and I were shooting up, doing 100mg—and it was blissful. Here in Poland, I decided to repeat that: I slammed 100mg and, to put it mildly, I was floored. I started dropping by 10mg until I felt out my comfortable 50mg.
— How do you balance the “system” with normal life, like a job?
— I don’t. Everything went to hell. At first, it was hard because of the powerful stim: you’re more “stuck” than productive. For a while, I still worked like that, but then I got tired of it and quit. That said, I practically don’t change externally when I use. I could use for a long time, and no one ever realized I was “fucked up.”
— Everyone knows about the “jitters” and paranoia on salts. Do you have your own methods for dealing with it? What do you do if it catches up to you?
— I had a case recently. I had two baggies, each about 250 milligrams. One was mephedrone, the other was Alpha. And I mixed them up. My single dose for mephedrone is exactly around 300mg. Well, I was talking, I mixed it… and realized I’d just slammed 250mg of Alpha. I think the only thing that saved me was that I already had Pregabalin in me—it protected me from the most serious consequences. Но it was scary and wildly pleasant.
As for paranoia—you can’t do anything about it until it lets go. For me, it wears off fairly quickly, in 20–30 minutes. In those moments, I always keep one thought in mind: “Remember, this is just a stimulant psychosis. Everything is fine.” The main thing is not to get carried away by it. You have to check yourself, remind yourself that it’s just chemistry so you don’t lose your mind. It’s like mass psychoses during viruses, for example. First you catch it, later you just get tired of resisting, you stop caring—and that’s it.
The hero’s mistake was almost fatal. A normal recreational dose of Alpha is 5–15 mg. 250 mg is a dose that guarantees a fatal outcome from heart failure or brain hemorrhage in 95% of cases. He was indeed saved by Pregabalin (an antiepileptic drug), which “damped” the electrical storm in the neurons.
Case from the archives: In 2023, in Poland, a case was recorded where a user in a state of psychosis spent 12 hours in a closet, certain that special forces were standing outside the door. It later turned out that he, like our hero, had “mixed up the baggies,” taking Alpha instead of mephedrone.
Garbage-rations in a ziplock: Why European staff has become weak
— According to European centers (2024), Alpha remains the cheapest stimulant (€10-15 per gram), making it a “profitable” replacement for other drugs. Do you agree that people choose it simply because of the math: the most powerful effect for pennies? Or is it a conscious choice for extremes?
— No, people choose “salt,” not the price. It’s quite expensive if we’re talking about Poland… Maybe it’s a bit cheaper now than before—there’s a ton of it on the market. It used to cost about the same as methamphetamine; now it’s half that. A gram, I think, you can buy for 120 zlotys, which is about 30 euros.
— Now, instead of the classic α-PVP, they often substitute analogs like α-PHiP or α-PHP. Do you realize that every new “baggie” is a chemical experiment on yourself? How do you feel about the fact that the substance’s composition is constantly mutating?
— The composition and properties differ: by color, by potency. I don’t think what’s on the market now is “that” α-PVP at all. It just looks like it. When this chemistry hit the market in the early 2010s in Belarus, it was already a designer drug with an unoriginal composition. You could call it not “Alpha,” but some kind of “garbage-ration.” The fact that we are not using the original is a fact, but what exactly is inside, we cannot identify.
Moreover, every region has its own precursors and its own chemists. The process of making Alpha is plus or minus the same everywhere (mix two pieces of shit, stir with a stick), but the source materials differ, and that affects the product. I’ve noticed that the level of drugs in Europe is weak, and the issue is precisely in the precursors. I think it’s just a tacit agreement between states and the criminal underworld: so there aren’t too many vicious drugs on the streets and everyone can coexist without serious confrontation. In my view, there’s some kind of deal here.
— There are many legends surrounding Alpha; what’s the wildest story you’ve heard that turned out to be true?
— I won’t name any. Those videos circulating on the internet—half the time it’s not even Alpha. It acts differently on every brain. Morons will have unimaginable side effects. Anyone who knows how to use even a bit of their own intellect will hold themselves back, if only not to get caught.
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs confirms: the market is dominated by New Psychoactive Substances (NPS). To bypass bans, chemists change a single molecule, producing α-PHiP or α-D2PV.
In 2024, police busted a laboratory producing “Designer Alpha” from fertilizers and pool cleaners. This explains why the hero calls the product “garbage-rations”—it is unstable chemical trash whose properties change from batch to batch.
A wind tunnel and loneliness as the highest form of tripping?
— Medicine identifies “Excited Delirium Syndrome” as the main cause of death from Alpha: hallucinations, an adrenaline burst, and subsequent kidney failure. Did you ever feel like you were approaching that line?
— Because the doses of the substance I use are so small, I don’t overload my kidneys and don’t feel those problems, despite its toxicity. Unlike mephedrone, which you have to do a hell of a lot of. Four doses from a gram is still considered a low dosage. I had a story: I wasn’t really messing with mephedrone then, but something fell into my hands, and I slammed that gram in roughly one night. The next day, my kidneys hurt so much, it was fucking… At first I thought it was my back, but no, it was the kidneys. Mephedrone is very toxic.
— To what extent are you still interested in society and people? Have you managed not to hit the “inner bottom,” or do you feel it pulling you down?
— I’ve become more demanding of myself, and as a result, I started demanding more from those around me. I don’t know how it’s connected, but that’s how it is. In general, I started communicating more aggressively with everyone because of this. As for society—I just drifted into asociality, and use contributed to that. I became more comfortable alone. This state doesn’t worry or scare me; everything is quite normal. My whole life I was used to living in some kind of crowd, though deep down I always wanted to be a loner.
— And so you got this “ticket”?
— Yes, fuck.
— They say there are no atheists in a trench under fire. Were there moments when you seriously thought: “That’s it, tomorrow I’m going to rehab” or at least went to light a candle in a church?
— Every time I smoke weed, I ask myself: “Why the fuck do I even need this crap?” There is no essence or meaning in it. There is no sacredness in Alpha; it’s purely an adrenaline high. Just an opportunity to fly in a wind tunnel. A long time ago, I delved into all that sacredness as much as possible, and now I don’t need extra information; there’s already too fucking much of it. Now I just get high.
In 2025, ambulance doctors in major European cities began using special “cooling vests” for salt addicts. Body temperature during delirium jumps to 42°C, and the blood literally begins to clot in the vessels.
European sociologists note a frightening shift: due to the high pace of life and cheap production, “old school” consumers are massively switching from amphetamine to α-PVP analogs. Old stimulants seem too weak to them. The new chemistry allows them to work at the limit, but the price is total loss of connection with society. A person turns into a “loner in a crowd” who merely simulates life at work.
A broken “Stop” button: Why the craving is stronger than the survival instinct
— If you could go back to the day you were first offered Alpha, keeping all your current experience—would you take that ziplock or walk on by?
— I would take it, yes. I have nothing bad to say about that day at all. It was a perfect day.
— A perfect day… Fuck, you’re like an Alpha promoter. I thought you’d tell me something horrific.
— I’m a promoter of a healthy psyche. Let’s put it this way: I live without regrets. I consider any experience positive. If I worry about the day I first took Alpha, then I have to worry about the moment one of my ancestors first drank alcohol or whatever. Everything that happens is normal. It’s a question of choice and responsibility. I do all the shit in my life consciously. But like any other human being, I will avoid responsibility until the end. I just do everything understanding the consequences, and I’m not surprised when they arrive.
— In 2025, Alpha is increasingly being found in ecstasy tablets and cocaine. What do you think a person feels when they expected a soft trip but got a salt psychosis?
— I know they add it to cocaine; I’ve tried that. As for mixing it into ecstasy, there’s no point. You’re just making cheap ecstasy with expensive Alpha—it’s stupid. Those are just anti-drug fairy tales from the state, that’s all.
— To society, you are a lost soul. But setting aside morality: what is your personal freedom in this state? What makes you hit “replay” again and again?
— Fuck, it’s just banal craving. You want to use, and that’s it. A powerful psychological dependence forms under it. Because of that, you keep using even when you already feel bad. The substance itself, like any stimulant: in three days you can bring yourself back to absolute physical normality. And moral normality too. But the craving is such that you could go out of your mind. You constantly need to be “fucked up” on something else so you don’t want Alpha. As soon as you’ve found your comfort dose—that’s it, you’re caught. That’s where the craving comes from.
— What do you think about rehabs? Wouldn’t you want to get some treatment?
— For me, rehab would definitely only make things worse. Because it’s a disciplinary institution with closed rules. Throughout the whole term, only one desire would be spinning in my head: to get out and hit it. That’s all. It’s normal. All of this is normal as long as you don’t cause harm to someone else besides yourself. Then you aren’t guilty of anything.
Every fifth Ecstasy pill bought on the street in clubs contains an admixture of cathinones (salts). Dealers add Alpha to cocaine to increase addiction to an expensive product using a cheap additive.
“Alpha is the ideal product of capitalism: minimum production cost, maximum addiction, and a total absence of ‘brakes’ for the consumer.” This confirms our hero’s words that “the craving is such that you could go out of your mind.”