managing the internal weather chemically
a traditionally smaller and harder-core set tends to rely on personal chemistry to manage E.T.A.’s special demands—dexedrine or low-volt methedrine before matches and benzodiazapenes to come back down after matches, with Mudslides or Blue Flames at some understanding Comm. Ave. nightspot or beers and bongs in some discreet Academy corner at night to short-circuit the up-and-down cycle
Context
The campus's harder-core chemistry described as a self-regulating cycle — uppers before matches, benzos after, something to short-circuit the swing — and then the quiet fuse in the last clause: it works, surprisingly well, right up until it doesn't. "Before it starts to creep up on you" is the whole disease in a subordinate phrase, the functionality that is real and temporary at once.