Impairing your mental ability? Disgusting!

The BBQ Pit
1

What is the attraction in getting drunk/stoned/otherwise inebriated?

Its disgusting! Do you think I like dealing with pothead morons? or vomit-covered drunks? And do you think I like other drugged-up idiots any better?

What is the possible attraction in all this? Why would you want to use such drugs? I even watch how much sugar and caffeine I take (obviously you can’t cut out all sugar, but I can darn well limit the most processed versions, and I never drink caffeinated colas, and only a rare coffee drink, always small and plain black.)

personally, I think all of those drugs are dangerous. Why would anyone want to use them? I’ll rarely take a glass of wine, and I personally know how to drink and remain well into sobriety (eat food and drink something non-alchoholic at the same time). Hell, I’ve only been “out drinking” once in my life and I didn’t get drunk. Wish I could say the same for those fools I had to help lead back to the hotel.

And pot: look, I don’t care if it simply appeals to boneheaded vapor-brained morons, I’m not going near it!

Why, why, why would anyone want to take these foul drugs?

2

Is this a parody post? Aren’t you supposed to provide a link for those?

3

Are you on a school or business trip or what?

4

Seems to me that the problem is with the type of people you associate with, rather than the existence and use of drugs and alcohol, if this is such a common irritation to you.

5

because dude … it like … expands the mind and stuff

6

Because it’s fun?

Caffeine is great because I can take it every day. It actually inspires pretty intense feelings of euphoria in me. The sun shines brighter, the birds sing sweeter, and the world seems like a better place. My morning cup of coffee is something I look forward to and can add some joy to even the dreariest work-worn day. It makes my brain a bit sharper, my heart beat a bit faster and in a world where I’m stuck slaving away at something meaningless for a good chunk of my waking hours, I think I ought to get at least this small, cheap, relatively harmless indulgence.

Alcohol is less beneign, and I know that. However, alcohol, when used properly, is wonderful. Have you ever kissed someone while the room is just on the verge of spinning? Love and alcohol make for good companions. It makes friendships seem warmer and romance seem hotter. In a very button down society that discourages creativity, alcohol is a good excuse to let go and percieve the world in a different way. For once you can do something unexpected, you can explore what it is like to act out of character. It’s a very in-the-moment substance, and we could all benefit by living in the moment every once in a while. And alcohol makes everything an adventure. Even going to the bathroom can be a dangerous affair where your mind or body can encounter new things.

It’s a clumsy, and toxic drug. I’m not a big fan of it objectively. But it is one of humanity’s most beloved drugs. Look at all the lore and ritual surrounding it. How many varities of it there are, and how much care is taken with it. Almost every culture partakes in it. Our cities are rife with establishments dedicated to this drug. Even our religions acknowledge it. Human history is drenched with booze, buddy.

I deal with my mental ability 24 hours a day, almost every day. It’s not so bad to want to take am occasional vacation from it. To experience some other mental ability- like the mental ability to dance on tables =). Our brains are pouring out wierd chemicles all the time. Theres nothing all that unnatural about adding some new ones into the mix.

And…umm…if this a parody post, consider me whooshed. I get a little touchy when people insult my precious caffeine.

7

Nothing wrong with smoking a little weed. For me it releives stress and I see things in a different perspective sometimes. It frees my mind.

8

Spoken as someone who’s never had to clean puke out of a vintage handbag before…

:smiley:

9

I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with the kind of people who can’t hold their liquor and don’t know their limit. They make the rest of us who like to indulge now and again look bad.

10

Sometimes people need help to get over themselves. Taking yourself so seriously 24/7 can be pretty darn stressful.

Enjoy,
Steven

11

If it is a parody, then whoosh on me. Assuming it isn’t…

There is a difference between using and abusing. It is possible to get drunk without being drunk drunk. Falling down, throwing up drunk. It is possible to smoke pot without going into a stupor. It is possible to take meth without wigging out and going insane. It’s possible to chug the occasional bottle of Robitussin without turning into a slobbering idiot… Etc… [Note: I’m not advocating any of these things, simply saying that they are not inherently evil.]

It’s all about how much you take, how often you take it, how responsible you are when you take it, etc. It also depends on your personality. People with addictive personalities would be better off avoiding things like that, natch.

12

Man. Take a pill.

13

I don’t think anyone is particularly fond of vomit.

But!


Your first taste of champagne -- pink, of course, -- after seeing *An Affair to Remember*

Hot buttered rum after a regatta when your team has won -- and you're twenty and he's twenty-two and someone has built a fire...

Playing "older Budweiser" with your oldest friend on the last Saturday night before you both get your degrees and he gets married

Sweet spiced wine at Christmas in Scandanavia

Being hip in the 70's -- one toke over the line -- and capable of walking around on the inside of three demensional Pink Floyd

warm brandy on a rainy day after finding the perfect tweed on New Bond Street in London

a glass of red wine -- on a quiet autumn evening -- good for the heart in more ways than one
  
sharing a rite of passage watching your granddaughter have her first taste of champagne in Paris in April

No need for abuse or drunkenness. No need to get behind the wheel. No need to fear your own mind in a relaxed state.

14

Well, there’s yer problem right there.

15

I drink alcohol to promote equality.

Ugly people need love, too!.

:smiley:

16

Actually, drunkenness is a function of how much alcohol you drink/metabolize. Eating while drinking or drinking something non-alcoholic may slow your rate of drinking alcohol, but it will not decrease the intoxicating effects of the alcohol you do consume.

Assuming this isn’t a parody post, you’re rather the smug self-righteous git, aren’t ya?

17

I drink to make other people more interesting.
-George Jean Nathan.

18

Despite the tone of the OP, I do have to admit one thing: I do my best never to associate with people who drink or do any sort of drugs on a regular basis. Not only because I don’t ever do either, but because I’ve found, when people are drunk or high, I just can’t relate to them. What’s fun or funny to them is not fun or funny to me. They’re on a different world, and I can’t interact with them in a meaningful way. I just don’t find it at all interesting to be around them like that. They bore me, if they don’t make me roll my eyes at something they did or said.

Maybe it’s the people I associate with, as some people have suggested, I dunno. But that’s what I’ve found.

19

An old thread I started on the topic, which got some replies. (Posting to that thread is not recommended.)

Apparently, if you can’t relax or feel at ease with other people, but want to, alcohol is for you. Of course, the last poster chimed in with

I think it may originally have come from one of two facts:

  • Drinking it (or smoking or whatever) makes you feel funny.
  • Letting some beverages ferment makes them toxic to bacteria, and thus potentially safer to drink in the days before refrigeration and modern water treatments.

And these days, people do it because

  • There’s a perception that it’s cool
  • Everyone else is doing it, and it’s easier, especially when you’re young, to participate in what’s going on than to take a hard line against, or even to simply place yourself outside of the fun.
  • A third feature of humanity, at least in the society where I live, that I’ll call the “Sidewinder Effect”
  • It makes you feel funny, and this is a real seller.

The Sidewinder Effect is this: I think a lot of us are so inhibited, and so lonely, and feel so separated from the people around us that we’d like to find some way of letting go, of just enjoying our lives, of connecting with people and showing who we really are. But we don’t want to or can’t or feel we shouldn’t take the step to do it, so we look for an ‘approved’ method of doing so, or for something that will make it happen without us actually making the impossible move. An intoxicant can be this vector. It can break down the walls we build, and the restrictions we plce on ourselves. It can reduce the control we have on our own behaviour, causing us to just be whatever we are under those restraints. The drug makes us do what we wnat to, but never would, becasue we don’t want anyone to know, or becasue we’re good little boys and girls. Even if what we want to do is just speak our minds, or dance despite our lack of grace.
But what do I know? I don’t drink. (Well, I guess I had that rum candy the one time). I don’t do drugs. I can barely handle tea, and I’ve never had coffee.

Why don’t I? Because I want to keep as much control as I can, if I have any to begin with. Because I’ve got all kinds of things locked away that the world can’t know. Because I’m traditionally the guy who thinks a whole lot, but only says what he’s sure of, and rarely if ever expresses what he feels, or wants. Because I’m afraid of doing something on the spur of the moment that has lasting undesired repurcussions. Because I find the idea of taking a substance in just because it makes me feel funny intellectually a little offensive, and kinda childish. Because my liver has enough work as it is, without me feeding it stuff it doesn’t need.

Because one time, I took prescribed Tylenol 3 (containing Codeine) to control pain after surgery to remove wisdom teeth. And as I sat in my easy chair, watching people watch TV, I realised I was happy. As is my habit, I tried to trace the reason for that, to find the stimulus for the happiness… and after a while I discovered that there was no stimulus; I was just happy. And I realised that there was this chemical, messing around with my mind. Making me happy. I wasn’t enjoying anything, I wasn’t fulfilled, or pleased at an accomplishment, or impressed by the beauty of the world, or excited at something in my life. I was just plain happy, and it was that pill that was doing it. I was surprised, and afraid, and also curious at what other unintended effects drugs designed for one purpose can have on one’s body.

I didn’t take any more of the pills. I’ll take real pain over fake pill happiness any day. Maybe I’ll change my tune when I have some terrible disease or injury that keeps me from thinking straight, but the wisdom teeth bit was pretty bad, and it was still better than the chemical pleasance codeine gave me.

So I dunno. I’m no expert on human behaviour. Maybe people like the purposeless pretend happiness. Maybe the fake happiness acts to amplify preexisting enjoyment when one is having a good time. Maybe people want to fit in. Maybe people are tortured by the Sidewinder Effect. Maybe it’s something else altogether. But they can do whatever they want, as long as they don’t hurt each other, and as long as I don’t have to breathe their poison in when I walk down the street.

20

I don’t drink, and the few times I drank more than a little, I didn’t enjoy it. It’s awful. I’ve also encountered people who are bugged by my not drinking. What’s it to them? They are the ones that need to take a chill pill.

I was just commenting on this the other day–I worry and fret too much when around people who drink. And yes, I guess it makes me too uptight, but can you blame me when I describe the following scenario?

At a previous job we were all laid off, suddenly, one day. (The company abruptly folded.) So everyone met at the local watering hole after work. A lot of people who I’d worked with for years were getting more than a little drunk. I was one of the few that wasn’t drunk. I had to nag and nag to get some coworkers get wrestle the keys from a guy who was slobberingly drunk and yet wanted to drive home. (I couldn’t wrestle with him to get his keys–he’d already cornered me and given me a slobbery kiss and I wasn’t getting near him again. ewwwwwww.)

I spent all night, so it seemed, trying to prevent people from driving home drunk. No one else seemed concerned. They were all “feeling no pain,” so to speak. I had to nag and nag and I’m still not sure that there weren’t some people who drove home drunk.

Sure, the bar should have been on top of things too (I am supposing) but it still stressed me out.

I hated it. I know that this was an extreme case, but I hated it. I never want to go out “partying” with so many people. I can deal with smaller groups where I am going to be the designated driver, though.