Impairing your mental ability? Disgusting!

The BBQ Pit
61

Over-generalize much?

I think you have a very limited exposure to people using these substances if you think that everyone that uses is “dumb” while under the influence. People who smoke pot, for instance, aren’t all giggling, spacy, idiots. That’s usually just the high school/college students for the most part, or people that have very limited experiences with the drugs. A couple of examples…

  1. A huge amount of creative work that many people would consider genius, has been created under the influence of mind altering substances. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Edgar Allen Poe, etc… Marijuana, for example, can allow some people to focus on their creative tasks without being interrupted by thoughts of non-related things. Mind -altering substances can also give one the ability to simply see something in a different way, take a less traveled route, so to speak.

  2. I have known doctors, lawyers, air traffic controllers, psychologists, etc… who use pot recreationally. No, they don’t do these things while they are working, but on their days off, to help them relax, sleep better, and get their mind off of their work. These people are not dumb by any stretch of the imagination. They are professionals and quite competent at what they do.

  3. There are far more people that use drugs, than those that abuse them, at least as far as marijuana and alcohol are concerned. More people than you realize, I would imagine. The reason why you don’t notice them is because they lead productive, fulfilled lives and don’t fit the stereotype in your head. You might even have a college professor or two that smoke marijuana. I know I did. And they could teach just fine, even being under the influence, and nobody was the wiser because there was no way to tell that they were.

I can recall a day in my youth where I had just smoked a joint and had to go (quite unplanned, obviously) to the Highway Patrol Office to fill out an accident report because someone had hit me the day before and fled. The officer on the phone explained that it would be in my best interest to come to the station right away and fill out a report, in case the other person involved tried to say that I hit them. I went to the station (stoned) and filled out the report. The officer reviewed my report after I was done and said “This is a great report, you did a better job than most of our officers do when filling them out.” He told me to have a nice day and I left. He had no way of knowing that I was under the influence because I gave him no indication that I was.

My point is basically that your mindset, that all drug users are giggling drooling idiots is horribly naive, at best.

62

Very well said, musicguy.

63

If you hadn’t been sniffing all that paint thinner, you’d know that you can hit Control-Z to undo changes, including accidental deletions.

64

Thanks, lezlers :slight_smile:

65

**

**

Well, just two cups of gin and tonic once a week are more than enough joy for me.

Really, lets say your in a club. The musics kind of lame, the dancers clumsy, you are self-conscious, and the decorations are cheesy. This club, sadly, is most of the world. The world is a crazy and beautiful place. It’s full of unexpected things. But a lot of the time it’s kind of dreary, full of rules, and hard to really buy into.

Now, if you add a drink to that club, suddenly the music sounds more interesting. The dancers are beautiful and allureing. You are moving to the beat and trying out dance moves you never even knew you could do. The cheap light set is dazzling and the smoke machine blows wonderful swirls into the air for you to contemplate as you try to decide which girl you want to ask to dance. Perhaps you’ll meet someone new. Perhaps you’ll learn a new dance move. Perhaps you’ll just have some wonderful memories.

I guess what I’m saying is that alcohol helps you buy into things a bit more. Most of the good stuff in this world doesn’t hold up to close scrutiny. It’s dirty and full of cracks. And it’s really hard to turn off that little voice in your head telling you why you’d rather be at home watching TV than hanging out in this stupid club. But alcohol can bring you out of the world of thinking through every little detail into the world of just experiencing it, and being open to new and potentially scary ideas.

Now, some of us really shouldn’t be trying these new things. Hopefully you plan ahead for this. I personally don’t drink with strange men, because I don’t want to get it into my head that I might want to sleep with strange men. However, I’m willing to drink with friends because I know myself well enough to know how I will act around them. All people who are going to give up some control need to set bounderies. It must be done responsibly.

It seems like you’d rather not be in a situation where you’d do something unexpected. Thats cool. Thats your thing. It’s not my thing. My goal in life isn’t happiness. My goal is that if my life were a book, I’d want it to be an interesting one. I have had many intrersting adventures where alcohol was invovled. I have had very few hanging out with my family in zen-like bliss. Happiness, I think, is overrated. Your milage may vary.

Americans work longer hours than anyone else in the world. Our lives are slipping away from us as we speak. We live in a straightjacket of expected behavoir. I’m not happy about this. I need more than this. But it’s hard to get more. For some people, they will never have more. For what it’s worth, I do have plenty of things wrong with my brain. And I think there are plenty of things wrong with my life, as do most people, I think. But we can have a night off from their dark and boring world every once in a while. We can act freely, and not be held to our usual sober standards. We can forget about our troubles, and not worry about our future. It can be, for just a night, wonderful.

Maybe it is better to work at improving your lot than improving your night. Maybe it is better to try to find excitment through external means rather the the internal chemicle sledge-hammers that are so readily availible. Maybe it’s better to be in control at all times. But the world, once again, is a complicated place. Sometimes we just plain don’t want to do whats best. Sometimes we can’t do whats best. We’re all just making it through our lives the best we can. We’re all full of misteps, bad ideas, and unwise actions. And that is the beauty of the human experience.

It’s not a black and white world. It’s not one where one set of actions and one set of ideals must always be maintained. It’s one where sometimes some people order a drink from the bar and hate it. It’s one where sometimes people order five drinks from the bar and end up crying in the bathtub.

So please, try to be less judgmental. I don’t like being called “disgusting” because I had few friends over for tequila sunrises and old episodes of the Simpsons last night.

66

Wow, even sven, that was a wonderfully articulate and meaningful post. I hope that smiling bandit might extract a bit of wisdow from it and perhaps start to see the world as it really is.

67

Well, to be fair, the pot smokers don’t give me that hard of a time (though I have been insulted and called a square, and a few times I have been questioned as if I were a freak because I wouldn’t smoke). It’s the drinkers that are more apt to “grill” me and expect me to justify my non-drinking status.

Oh, you’d be amazed.

Now, I’m not saying that everyone is rude to me–not at all. But at a job I had a few years ago, a lot of the people would hang out at a local watering hole after work. They wanted me to come along and I liked them at work and wanted to get along. I sure as hell didn’t look at them funny or make sanctimonious comments. But almost invariably, whenever someone at work found out I didn’t drink, I got “The Concerned Questions.”

I tell you–I got sick of “The Concerned Questions.” I can understand a “Oh, you don’t drink?” but I don’t think I should have to explain my past history and motivations behind not drinking. I don’t think it’s any of their damned business. (Not that my reasons are very interesting–I just don’t wanna drink.) And it’s the looks of concern–like they can’t fathom it–like it’s the freakiest thing ever. And often followed up with an urging to take a drink. And one time (on my birthday) when I did succumb and drink some noxious potion that was far stronger than I was led to believe, there was delight and congratulations from some of them (as my head reeled and I didn’t enjoy it a bit). I liked these people otherwise, and I didn’t think they had a drinking problem. But they were whacked.

But it’s not just them. Some people are definitely bugged that I don’t drink. (There was a thread about this a while ago–I am not the only one who gets “grilled” because they don’t drink.)

And occasionally, some have definitely been bothered. I did nothing but say, “No thanks” and they took that as a subtle dig against them–that I was “judging” them. They could make things very uncomfortable.

68

yosemitebabe, I’d NEVER push a teetotaller to drink. I might forget and offer them a drink anyway. But hey, if they accepted, who’d drive me home??

Yay for teetotallers. Mine’s a Guinness, thanks, and a lemon lime & bitters for my chauffeur!

69

Great research site

70

I fucking hate that! God does that make me want to throw things.

I am so tired of getting into arguments with people over whether or not alcohol tastes bad. Funny, nobody ever gets in my face: “Oh, I can’t believe you don’t like tomatoes! Haven’t you ever eaten tomatoes? Not liking the smell doesn’t count - it doesn’t really taste like that. You have to have some really expensive tomatoes.” Fuck that shit.

I’m also tired of having people accuse me of sanctimony because I don’t drink. Not because I said they were morons for drinking, but because I don’t choose to partake. Look, goober, there’s more for you, what are you bitching about?

Sometimes though it leads to interesting conversations.

“What’s your poison?”
“Coke please.”
“Naw, your poison.”
“Coke’s poisonous.”
“Aww, I was hoping to get you drunk for your birthday.”
“You don’t have to get me drunk, honey.”

(actual dialogue)

71

I’m a pretty uptight person, Bandit, and I used to have much the same attitude as yourself. My first experiences getting moderately drunk were pretty bad, so I didn’t do it for several years. Then I discovered that a proper amount of booze actually makes social situations go smoothly for me, whereas usually going into a situation where I don’t know people well makes me very, very uncomfortable. I even used to drink a couple beers before taking Chinese oral exams just to loosen up a bit, and I was the top of the class.

Frat boys give drinking a bad name, but alcohol consumption doesn’t have to be all about drinking until you puke and do things you regret. The right amount can make for a nice evening with no consequences the next morning.

Some people just aren’t into it, but please at least give it a fair shake first.

72

Why is being loose and uninhibited considred a good thing. I have my inhibitions because there are some things I don’t enjoy and don’t want to enjoy, things I don’t do and don’t want to do. I don’t need external stimuli to think or react, to excel on exams or ponder deep thoughts or spend time with my loved ones.

Thanks for the tip. I didn’t think that worked outside of Word or similar word processors, not in IE.

Even Sven

But the world is wonderful! I don’t see why you would think otherwise. Is your life really so bad that you have to have drugs before anything’s interesting to you? I even like the parts where I’m sad and miserable; I wouldn’t trade them for all the pot this side of the Mason-Dixon.

Untrue. But I don’t see why anyone needs drugs to do that. Why?

Well, now I know what you mean. I don’t know why people took this so personally, but I just don’t see a reason why chemical mood altering agents are so popular. People act like they’re having fun, but they don’t look like they’re having fun.

Or maybe my brain is just wired differently. Go fig.

In any case, I mentioned that I do take a rare glass of wine, and I’ve been “out drinking” (did I mention I love Bailey’s?) before. I’m not here to judge anyone. I’m just trying to write down my perceptions and, well, how little fun that all looks like.

And as much as I have been called self righteous, there are some epople here who aparently would feel no small amount of joy and Schadenfreude if I became a wigged-out smack addict.

73

You keep returning to this “have to” thing that no one else is saying. Kinda pathetic.

As for being uninhibited… well if someone is so shy that they are afraid to even speak at a party… I’d say that is a bad thing. And it’s not that uncommon.

74

smiling bandit…
if you can’t figure it out, then i don’t know what to tell you. seems like willful close mindedness to me.

rest assured, you are as vulnerable as the rest of us to the possibility of drug addiction. i suggest you stay away from the pleasurable chemicals and go directly for those of the psychedelic variety. they make good metaphysical crowbars… suitable for prying open even the most tightly sealed minds…

75

You don’t know why people took it so personally?

You don’t know why people took it so personally?

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

Let’s review, shall we?

And

Don’t try to bust out the 'ol [innocent look] Well I didn’t mean to offend anyone! Why are you taking it so personally? [/]innocent look* card.

Your OP was the writing of a judgmental, self rightious, jerk. To try and deny it is even more insulting.

76

Are you denying that I see pothead morons and vomit-covered drunks?

77

And what about those of us whose inhibitions far exceed what we (and society) would like them to be? I guess there’s just something wrong with our brains, eh? So we smoke and drink and turn into “boneheaded vapor-brained morons.” Of course we’re not so boneheaded as to suggest people who use drugs all need them, rather than just want them, then, when OpalCat corrects us, we don’t throw up another hasty post that asks three times why people NEED drugs. That brand of boneheadedness is solely your domain.

Good for you. Why don’t I put you in the shoes of someone who is miserable pretty much all day, every day, then ask you again how you feel? Or perhaps I could tell you that a great number of drug users are happy in the first place and that they don’t need drugs to make them feel happier, but that they like to use them once in a while anyway. Oh wait. No. People have already tried to tell you that, but either you ignored them, or it just didn’t sink in.

So when you see a drunk or stoned person laughing, smiling, and carrying on animated conversations with his friends, he doesn’t look like he’s having fun to you? Even when he tells you he’s having fun? If not, what exactly does someone have to do to look like they’re having fun?

78

They exist, sure. Of course it’s been pointed out that the problem most likely lies with the person using (or in those cases, abusing) the substance, not the substances themselves. Just like there are some straight as an arrow folks who are self-rightious jerks. Which of course has more to do with the person than the fact that they’re striaght as an arrow.

Your OP gave a strong indication that one cannot smoke pot or drink without being a “pothead moron” or “vomit-covered drunk”.

Hence the whole

How can you actively deny that the above phrase is not insulting to those who do occasionally smoke marijuana?

79

I confess to an inability to say no. I will do pretty much any drug put in front of me as long as it doesn’t involve a needle. The first time I ever got high (smoked weed) I was 8 years old. My brother got me high so I couldn’t narc on him. I enjoyed it then and I have enjoyed it every since. I have done weed, booze, coke, speed, acid, GHB, Special K, Xtasy, and some I am sure I have forgotten about by now. I enjoy the feeling. I enjoy getting blasted with a few friends and sitting around and talking. I enjoy getting blasted by myself. I just really enjoy feeling any way other than the way I feel sober.

You asked why people do drugs. Well, I can only speak for myself, and I do it because I enjoy the way it makes me feel and I don’t enjoy the way I feel most of the time without it.

I know, I know…definitely not a healthy response, but it was an honest one.

80

You guys need to loosen up big time. Pour yourself a drink.