My tattered dictionary defines TWEAK as a sharp twist or fine adjustment. Yesterday, I heard the word used in the tale of a previous evening encounter. The narrator explained that the person he went to see was tweaking.

(I googled it)

It is listed as the fourth stage in the Stages of the Meth Users Experience; following The Rush, The High, and The Binge. It describes this phase as the most dangerous; Tweaking is a condition reached at the end of a drug binge. Disconnected from reality; the user is dangerous to himself and others.

The drug, Meth, is also called Tweak.

My friend uses social networking sites to seek a sort of companionship. When he arrived at his destination, the person he was going to visit was tweaking.

The tweaking person revealed that had been laid off from his job over a month ago. He decided that his stay-cation would be to smoke meth for a month before moving back to his MidWest hometown to re-start his life. (What had been intended as a hook-up/companion connection; tweaked into a hard lesson in the sad depths of addiction.)

The unemployed thirty-something Meth user was obsessed with trying to make the world’s best Meth Pipe.  His coffee table was littered with all kinds of laboratory-grade glass equipment that could be fashioned into some Hi-Tech-Meth pipe.

I googled ‘beaker’; (drug-bongs popped up first) with the price listed and being unemployed, he has apparently become a Tweaker of the Beaker; the legit dictionary kind of tweaking.

I was also informed that the Meth-using person admitted that he had been engaging excessively in repetitive rounds of masturbation; so he was no longer interested, or perhaps simply unable to function in the anticipated activity. End of tale.

But this tale is not tweaked. Tragically, it involves real people with real families.
Drug abuse is a genuine tragedy. If you are struggling, seek help.

Addiction can permanently tweak your life.