Bandit:
You’ve GOT to be kidding… If not, well to each his own. At least try not be a buzz kill, though.
Bingo.
If people didn’t drink alcohol, then the terrorist have already won.
Some of you are confusing having a drink with being a drunk. They are not the same at all. In more recent years studies have shown that one or two glasses of red wine a day is actually good for your health. Caffeine also has benefits and isn’t considered the bug-a-boo that it used to be.
I didn’t go from pot to harder drugs. I haven’t smoked pot in eighteen years or a cigarette in three months, thirteen days, two hours and forty minutes. I have a cup of coffee most mornings, but not today. Maybe tomorrow. I haven’t had a drink since the fuzzy navel that my son-in-law made me a week ago Sunday.
So I’m not going at this subject from the point of view of someone who is dependent.
You are indeed fortunate if the worst of your pain has been from wisdom teeth. I never take codeine because it makes me sick. But I have been in enough pain that I was given synthetic heroin. If I had not been given relief, I would have chosen to die. I had only that one shot and never asked for anything that strong again. But I do not hesitate to use pain medication following the doctor’s instructions. It is those who over-indulge in these medications that develop problems – or those with unscrupulous physicians.
Sometimes I wonder if pain medication allows us for a moment to have a glimpse of how we were created to be – without anger, tension, resentment, arrogance, judgment. I don’t know the answer to that one.
wolfstu, I agree with you that many people use it to tear down the walls and get rid of those inhibitions. That’s not why I have a drink. (I gave up my inhibitions for Lent in 1968.) I’ve described some of the occasions that I’ve had a drink. But it also tastes good. It interests me that that was left off the list.
I would never try to talk anyone into having a drink or taking any substance they choose not to. I respect your decision. But I am bewildered by your reasons:
That is one of the saddest things I’ve read here. Control is an illusion anyway. We can have some measure of self-discipline, but we control very little. That makes things wonderfully unpredictable. Living has lasting repercussions. Some will seem desireable and some will seem undesireable. But that is always a matter of perspective which continues long after we are gone from this earth.
For example:
My maternal great-grandmother’s first husband died. Then she met and married my great-grandfather and my grandfather was born.
My grandfather’s first wife died giving birth to a child. It was then that he married my grandmother.
My paternal grandfather’s first wife died and left him with children to raise. My paternal grandmother’s first husband died and left her with children to raise. After their periods of grief, they met and married.
My husband’s first wife died and I married a widower with three grown children. All of these terribly tragic things happened and yet the result is that I am the one who is here and loved my the step-granddaughter that I am taking to Paris. I can’t be sad for that part.
I hope that you will learn to trust the creative genius of the universe a little more – to make something good out of something bad. I’m glad that you said what you were feeling. It was interesting to read and think about.
I think that there is
1 - having a drink
2 - being tipsy
3 - being drunk
4 - being wasted
Obviously it’s a slope and not steps. I think that for most people things are ok until you get between 3 and 4.
But without a six-pack, dogs and foxes will remain forever apart!
I prefer not to drink too terribly much. I tend to be a “sleepy” drunk. And when I’m out partying, I prefer to remain my obnoxious silly self, not someone falling asleep, or yawning every 5 seconds.
And, I live in Alaska, and did so in the 70s. Pot was legal here up until about 80something (86?? 83?) Can’t remember, I’d quit long before then.
If the OP isn’t a whoosh, I’m going to chime in with another “it’s the people you’re hanging around with, not the substances they are enjoying”.
Also, I’ll give up my quad-shot Sludge cups when you pry my coffee cup from my cold dead hands!!! 
I’m going to weigh in on the side of “harder” drugs than alcohol and caffiene. I’m not going to name which drugs, but it’ll be pretty obvious to those you’ve been there.
Most of my friends are users of illegal drugs. None of them are what I’d call “regular” drug-users – this isn’t a weekly or even a monthly thing – but we all like to go out and lose ourselves every two or three months. We’re all in our 20s. Most of us have at least one university degree. Most of us work white-collar jobs. Some of us are in management positions.
I work hard. I’m good at what I do. The occasional “lost weekend” doesn’t affect my work product or my career path.
So every now and then we get together with some fanfare for a big night out together. In the evening, there’s dinner, drinking, smoking and music. We talk, we laugh, we enjoy ourselves – we’re just ordinary people, a close-knit bunch of guys and girls. Then it hits midnight and we go out. There’s drug-taking in the cars, there’s drugs while we’re tripping down the street, there’s drugs in the toilets of bars and clubs. And there’s us, a bunch of friends with years of shared experience and memory – we’re all in this together.
It hits and we go off. There’s dancing in the clubs, there’s animated conversations with friendly strangers, there’s hugging, there’s kissing, there’s loud thumping music, there’s flashing coloured lights, there’s no inhibitions, there’s sweaty people in close proximity, there’s us with our hands above our heads, there’s shouting, there’s singing, there’s no judgement, there’s smiling faces everywhere, there’s games of snooker, there’s chilling out flat lying on your back, there’s more dancing–and then it’s daylight again.
We leave the clubs and head to the beach. In the light of early morning we strip off and head into the water. We float on our backs, bobbing up and down in the waves. We laugh and talk about the night past: Jane got with a ugly guy; Johnno fell over on the stairs; Jay tried unsuccessfully to pick up a gay guy; Emma couldn’t dance without closing her eyes against the lights.
Back home, we fire up the barbeque and cook an enormous greasy feast of bacon and eggs out in the mid-morning sunshine. We sit on the grass and eat together. We wiggle our feet to some quiet chill-out music. We’re still laughing and smiling about last night. We’re coming down a bit, but that’s okay because we’re all still together and we love each other to bits and we can support each other. We eat some more and drink lots of water. We go inside and fall asleep on the carpet.
Then Monday, we go back to our jobs.
So yeah, that’s precisely how and why “drugged up idiots” want to take “foul drugs”.
YMMV.
I definately understand the feeling. While I’ve had a few drinks (never enough to get me anything more than mildly buzzed) and tried pot once (but didn’t have anything happen because I’m a non-smoker and gagged), the idea of anything more really kind of scares me. As a result, I simply don’t drink except on very, VERY rare occaisions.
I woke up from being put under once crying because I couldn’t think straight. I value my mental acumen very much. Additionally, both my grandparents on my mother’s side are/were alcoholics (my grandfather’s dead, and my grandma’s been sober since before I can remember), so habitual drinking is NOT something that I should be doing. I average about one drink a year.
That being said, I don’t judge anyone else for their choices unless their choices demonstrably harm themselves or others. I’ve chosen not to drink, and not to do drugs, because those are the right choices for me. Someone else might have a different set of right choices.
That being said, one of the few things that IS a dealbreaker for me in a relationship is habitual drug use. But that’s only because I saw my first boyfriend–the first guy I ever really loved, really–lose almost everything intelligent and creative about him by taking every drug he could get his hands on. But that’s my hang-up, that I won’t date someone who uses pot on more than a VERY seldom basis, or who uses any other drugs AT ALL.
As for caffeine…well, I probably have enough of it. But that’s because the only thing I can stand to drink most of the time is Diet Coke, and caffeine-free isn’t available on our campus.
Wait. I feel like I’m being… what’s that word… you know…
uhhh, whooshed?
Different strokes for different folks, love.
If anyone thinks less of me for drinking now and again, well, that’s their problem, not mine. I have really bad anxiety attacks every 2-3 months, and a little alcohol is sometimes the cheapest and fastest way for me to relax until the spells pass. And I don’t think anything less of anyone else who wants a break now and again.
As long as you’re responsible about it, it’s all OK with me.
I sort of agree with the OP, at least in as far as personal application is concerned.
I have, in my time, been horribly drunk and terribly stoned many a time (although not recently) and I didn’t enjoy it at all; whereas some of my peers could drink ten pints of premium lager and appear to be having a good time, I would do the same and feel like the world was coming to an end; whereas other peers would sit around for hours smoking enormous spliffs, gazing at the lava lamp and saying “wow, this is, like, really, you know, cosmic, man”, I would find myself feeling like HAL as Dave Bowman was shutting him down.
I never once enjoyed smoking marijuana (I was a smoker of ordinary cigarettes at the time), but my friends kept encouraging me to try it again and that maybe this time it would be different - in the end they simply were no longer my friends. I never once enjoyed getting blind drunk (neither did I ever forget a single stupid thing I did while drunk), although, as part of the culture I inhabited, it was pretty much mandatory - in the end, I quietly slipped away from that culture.
I’ve also had to deal with being beaten up by drunks, cleaning up the mess made by drunken revellers and caring for a friend who took bad drugs.
Having said all that, I do enjoy a pint or two of beer, or a glass of wine, or a shot of nice spirit, or a glass of liqueur; even to the extent that I can feel the alcohol working on me; there have even been times when It has been of measurable benefit - I write a little comedy and it is sometimes easier to pursue an idea when you are just very slightly sozzled and the results are often more entertaining when just a few of the sober circuits are disabled.
If I didn’t do drugs… how could I forget about all you fucking self-righteous teetotalers? You’ve never experienced pure joy, because it cannot be achieved without altering the natural function of the human brain. Your experience of reality is thus limited. Some concepts cannot be truly understood through the filter ego places on perception. Consensual reality is an obstacle to overcome in any quest for enlightenment. Drugs are a useful tool in formulating a philosophical viewpoint of our existence. If you are content with the restraints of your mind, so be it. Keep your moralizations to your self; you only expose your ignorance.
See, the problem is, that some of us don’t have to be “self righteous” at all in order to piss some drug users (and people who drink, etc.) off. To some people, merely not drinking (or taking drugs) automatically makes you “self-righteous.” No other actions are required.
I have been grilled, as if I am some sort of freak, because I don’t drink. I have to explain why I don’t drink. I’ve been insulted and treated as if I am some sort of nerdy square because I don’t do drugs.* These people act as if I should justify myself to them. As if it’s any of their damned business. I mean, they act personally affronted because I won’t partake. All I do is sit back and say, “No thanks, I’ll have some Pepsi.” What is so offensive about that? What is their frickin’ problem?
I won’t socialize too heavily with a drug user, however, for reasons similar to Angel of the Lord’s. I don’t want to preach to them, but I don’t want to be their best buddy either. It’s not that I don’t like them, but it’s just a major difference in viewpoints, and it’s too much of a difference for me. And I’d worry about how they are going to get a ride home (this is a recurrent theme with me) and who the hell knows what else. No dice. No way. I have had plenty of acquaintances who are drug users and as long as they don’t rattle on about it to me (because I have no interest) or get blazingly loaded in front of me, then we’re cool. I wish them the best and I always hope that they get home safely and never drive while impaired. (As I said, that’s a recurrent theme for me! 
)
*I am a nerdy square, but not because I don’t drink or take drugs. It’s because I spend too much time in front of the computer and listen to too much depressing music (like Sibelius).
MmmDonut; I’m having trouble locating the ‘fucking self-righteous teetotallers’ in this thread; could you help me out? to whom does the ‘you’ in your post refer?
That would be the OP, although I’m not entirely sure he was serious.
ahh well, people like that are just as bad as the “self-righteous teetotalers”. Sanity and health are totally valid motivations for not consuming mind altering chemicals. It’s when a person who abstains starts with the anti-drug rhetoric that they cross the line. The totally irrational view some people have towards drug use is mind boggling. However, that’s there business… as long as they don’t try to make it my business, I don’t care what they think.
Usually, if someone is trying to offer you a drug, they are being nice to you. I personally wouldn’t think twice if someone refused, but other people might be offended. Like you said, it comes down to drastically different points of view. Most drug users know not to mention it around non-users. I’m sure some of the people I know would not associate with me if they knew I consumed recreational drugs. Which just proves my point about the irrationality of people’s perception of drug use.
Fair enough, although I read (perhaps too much between the lines) the OP as having more of a problem with the results of substance abuse (the vomit, the helpless dependency etc.) than the substances or users themselves.
Well, marijuana is not particularly impairing. Much less so than alcohol. Even a high-dose of caffeine can have a greater negative impact on cognitive ability. It certainly can’t be included in a list of dangerous drugs. It has no known toxic dosage, unlike alcohol and caffeine.
anyway, sorry if I misinterpreted the OP. Kind of a touchy subject and misinformation abounds…
Son of a *****!!!
I accidentally clicked and deleted my whole reply.
Anyway, this is not a parody post. I mean it. I even drink Sprite (averaging one-to-two cans a week), because it doesn’t have caffeine.
Tell ya the truth, I don’t hang out with people like that (well, I don’t hang around with them when they do that). But I’m in college. I see a lot or drunks and stoners. I meet a lot of drunks and druggies. I know a lot of people whose idea of a fun evening is to get smashed. And I cannot for the life of me understand what’s the attraction.
Just being with my family is more than enough joy for me. if you need chemical help that badly, then I submit there is either something wrong with your brain or you need to reconsider your life. I didn’t present my OP in moral terms. I said its disgusting to do this to yourself, to escape by whacking your brain with drugs. When I hear your post, I hear someone who needs someone to talk to.
And maybe some concepts don’t need to be thought.
A substance is neutral. It is an object. It cannot be evil. And, to be fair about it, you can have a drink or even a joint and not be really hurt. Although, smoking anything is really digusting just for its phsyical effects, thankyouverymuch. But people don’t seem to recognize how plain dumb they are when they’re on these drugs. I don’t understand what little neuron isn’t connectign that they don’t see how very little fun they are.
In short, I do not in an way understand the concept of why chemical inebriation (literally, awash in chemicals) is at all desirable.