I dunno. I was in college for five years, and did my share of drinking until I puked during those years. I’ve never actually been unconscious due to alcohol, however.
If I threw up from drinking, I’d usually puke once and then brush my teeth and drink some water. Some time after that, I would get undressed and go to bed. Often I’d be extremely tired since it’d be around 3 or 4 in the morning, but I typically would pop on a movie and it’d be more than half over before I fell asleep.
Throwing up does not necessarily mean that sleep after that is unconsciousness. Oh, and it was always referred to as ‘passing out’, the same way a lot of people say they are going to go ‘pass out’ when they’re just very tired.
Huh? Not sure what you mean by “humdinger”, but if you mean “brief high”, I don’t agree with the first experience thing. If you mean “good trip”, I don’t agree with the subsequent experiences thing. In all the times I have tripped (long ago–I don’t ride in newspaper taxies anymore) I have never had a trip that lasted fewer than 12 hours. Nor have I ever had a “bad trip.”
With one exception–when I ate the college cafeteria’s rice and beans. It looked like cockroaches swimming in a sea of maggots. And while I knew it wasn’t, I’d had enough sober experiences with that cafeteria food to know that it wouldn’t taste much better than that. And I was eating with the world’s most grating person. Wisely, I feigned illness and went out for a walk.
I always had my most profound thoughts while tripping. Occasionally I would write them down so I could evaluate them while in a less enlightened state of mind. My evaluations invariably went like this: “‘Darkining alagaters spent the splayed banjo of etirnitee like the glass pinweel.’ What the FUCK does that mean?”
One Christmas Eve, on a break back home from college, some high school friends of mine decided to play some drinking games at Mike’s house. Well, ol’ Mike must not have done so well, since he passed out. The wise and responsable friends of his rolled him onto his stomach. And, not wanting him to stain his folk’s carpet with vomit, placed his head in a bowl.
I wonder how Mike’s folks reacted to finding their son’s corpse on Christmas morn.
I don’t like to use drugs or even get drunk myself. But that said, I’m generally a minority. Especially among foreigners, by the way. Now I’ve studied drugs a lot, and my conclusion from that was that since experiencing fun is relative to your experience of non-fun, in the end you generally achieve little by artificially enhancing or modifying certain experiences. You can, however, bring your natural chemical levels out of balance. Sometimes that is a good thing, but very often also not.
Now, my parents have always been as open and honest as they could about this. They’ve tried more stuff than I ever have (which, by the way, is limited to half a pot-pancake, and mildly getting drunk, vis-a-vis say my mother having to crawl home a few times as a kid and trying dope and LSD, which she enjoyed). But they always told me that it was my own responsibility to take care of my life, and they could only give me advice, because they couldn’t watch my every move anyway. They did this from a very young age. I listened. The worst drug they warned me for was cigarettes, because they admitted being addicted to them and had terrible trouble quitting.
You know what really kills? Ignorance.
On the contrary. My mother offered me to bake me a space-cake should I ever wanted to try that stuff. Her reasoning was that if I was going to try that stuff anyway (and many, many kids do, a lot more so by the way in the U.S. or the U.K. than in the Netherlands, which is telling), she best made sure that someone wouldn’t bake a badly mixed cake (baking a space cake does require certain skills) or eat to many of it before the effects kicked in.
The attitude that my parents conveyed to me, that whatever I was going to do was going to be my choice, not something I did to piss off my parents, not something I did under peer pressure, but something for which I would have to carry my own responsibility. In today’s world, that is the only sensible thing a parent, a school, or an organisation can do.
Incidentally, 14-15 is the average age here at which kids experiment with booze or stuff (still a lot more booze than stuff, btw). In general, and in my experience, stuff is the less dangerous of the two - less addictive than alcohol, and since people become more quiet and careful, a lot less dangerous side-effects, generally.
Still, with every drug you run some risk. Altough rare, stuff can trigger a psychosis if you’re predisposed to that, if you smoke really, really much. And in combination with nicotine, it can be addictive (though more because of nicotine than of the stuff, which is why I recommend drinking pot-tea rather than smoking). But anything that feels good, even massage, jogging, or whatever, can be addictive. Stuff has, again and again, proven not to create any physical dependence, unlike alcohol and nicotine, for instance.
I stand by an old Dutch saying: “Honesty lasts the longest”. Scaring or bullying kids into not taking drugs wears off a lot quicker.
I don’t get it. The vomiting, the casual sex, the unsafe behaviour, the violence etc is ALL from the alcohol. Not the weed. You can do all of those things while drunk, or while drunk and stoned, but not while stoned unless you were going to do them anyway. The mother in that advert needed to talk about the DRINKING, not just the weed.
Anyone who mixes alcohol and cannabis without a LOT of experience with both is asking for trouble, and I have little sympathy for them.
Personally I prefer being stoned to being drunk. I like being in control, and me being very, very stoned, is still a lot more in control of the situation than me being very, very drunk. I’ve never been paranoid, but I either smoked at home, or with friends. It’s not something I would do at a party, unless you consider 5 or 6 friends having dinner and a few bottles of wine and then watching a DVD and smoking a couple of joints to be a party.
I realised that drinking too much was not cool, around about the age of 18, after having got too drunk at a few teenage parties. As opposed to at the age of 23, after a few drunken college parties, which is the alternative.
To be honest, I was a LOT safer at those teenage parties, with close friends who went to school with, and with parents collecting me in the morning, then I would have been at a university party, with complete strangers as well as friends, in a stranger’s apartment, 100 miles from home.
But then I never had a problem with casual consensual sex, because I’m a responsible person, and if I wanted to get laid, I did, having taken precautions.
As for the “gateway drug” stuff. I have used 3 drugs…nicotine, alcohol and cannabis, I’m not dependent on any of them and have no interest in trying anything else.
Sometimes you just have to give people all the information you can and then let people learn the hard way from their mistakes.
I haven’t seen the ad, but can imagine that it is making alot of parents feel better knowing the the AD council is “on the side of Good”. Who knows? IF it helps one person, maybe it was worth it.
But I have to agree that it is the alcohol that should be talked about and condemned. Binge drinking (I always laugh when the news reports some “new study” on the shocking horror of teen binge drinking–teens do no other kind!) does a whole mess o’ harm.
I never had one bad thing happen to me high–but drunk, sure thing. Alcohol is lethal–pot is not. Pot has its own issues, but overall, I would rather my kids use pot than beer, if they are gonna use at all.
I have never understood the hysteria over pot. It is no more a gateway drug than alcohol. IMO, it is because no industry has seen a way to capitolize on it that it is so condemned and demonized. It’s too easy to grow and harvest–anyone can do it, and often does.
I, too, have had to serve as “just the facts, ma’am” against DARE. What a waste of time and money! But that’s another thread.
I viewed that as over-the-top hyperbole, kind of like when someone pits Truth.com and someone says, “I haven’t smoked in 10 years, but I’m so mad I’m going to go light up a cigarette right now!”
First link: you realize that only 48% of respondants had, in fact, used any alcohol at all in the past thirty days? So if only 48% of teens are using alcohol regularly, this is still a universal feature? That’s almost funny. (The other drugs there were even lower figures, BTW).
Link two: wrong group. I think we were talking about teenagers, not college students, who, AFAIK, are legal adults and should be talked about as such.
Link three: Oh, look at that, the numbers are even lower.
Links 4 and 5: Once again, we’re supposed to be talking about teenagers, not adults. I see that Link 4 has statistics for the right age; under 60% for eever taking any elicit drug just isn’t universal. And within thirty days, those numbers are pretty low- it seems that only one in five teens could even possibly be a regular user.
I didn’t make a single statement about myself, nor do I intend to. For all you know, I might get high every day; you really could not possibly know. I would merely observe that self-destructive behavior for the sake of experiences or popularity or feelings of immortality is inherently immature.
My dad gave me a very similar talk about drugs. He’s tried just about everything. One of the best things he ever did was say to me, “Look, pot is great. It’s illegal, and there are some serious penalties associated with it, but the drug itself is safer than booze. Now let me tell you what isn’t safe.” My dad loves wine, and taught me never to drink just for the buzz; know what you’re drinking and like what you’re drinking. I was served wine at the dinner table from the time I was 14 or so, and later accomodated my preference for specific beers or cognac. I learned my limits in a safe environment.
Being taught that inhebriation was okay (hell, good), and that what mattered was where/how you did it was one of the best lessons my parents taught me. It was never taboo, never evil. There was no rebellion involved in drinking or smoking.
My little sister did get my parents called in for a confernce because she told her DARE instructor that her teenage sister is allowed to drink, though.
All right, how about warning kids against pot just because it’s illegal? The drug itself might not mess up their lives, but going to jail for it would.
Or whatever else the police will do to them. I dunno, maybe they won’t go to jail for it, but surely something bad would happen.
First link: You realize that over 70% of respondents had, in fact, used alcohol within the past year? So, oooooooh, about twenty percent of those hadn’t gotten drunk that month. I see your point.
Ignorance on parade! What would you call someone who is eighteen or nineteen years of age? Why, that’s right, teenagers! Where do most teens go after high school? Why, that’s right, college! Good job there champ. Luckily your mind isn’t slowed down any by drugs. That’d sure be a drag.
One out of every four high school seniors had used a drug within that month. By the time they’re in the 18-25 age group, more than half will have tried drugs.
Once again I marvel at the fact that you’re this dense when you’re sober.
Eighteen and nineteen year olds are teens, they, lo and behold, grow older! Someone who was 18 in 2001 is 22 now, and falls squarely into that demographic.
None are so blind as those who refuse to see. If six out of every ten children in your classes have at one time or another tried drugs, then, yes, drugs are a universal reality for teens. They might not all do them, but their use or avoidance is definitely a part of growing up.
It’s a tarbaby.
D.A.R.E: Drugs Are Really Expensive.
Then you’re either a fool or a liar. Were you not suggesting that you’re more emotionally mature than those who ‘feel a need to get blasted?’ If you weren’t, tighten up your text because it’s sloppy.
This another one of those non-statements? Or are you saying that you’re immature? :rolleyes:
First off, seeing your bullshit conduct in this thread, I wouldn’t trust your definition of ‘self destructive behavior’. Second, schmuck, there are a great number of people who consider experience to be the spice of life. You may want to feel all mature, but you’re just a dumb kid with your nose held high. Further, attempting to gain acceptance by a peer group is not immature, it’s somewhat human.It may not always be wise, but it helps form our social fabric. We’re communal primates, that’s what we do.
Finally, who the fuck are you to tell someone what sensations they want to have are mature and which are immature? Wanting to feel blissed out and eternal is ‘immature’ in your book? Feelings of immortality are purile? Small minded DARE mouthpiece schmuck.
By irresponsible drug use, I’m sure. Which is why it’s important to teach children how to properly use and respect drugs/alcohol instead of fear mongering.
Yeah, but no anti-drug ad on television was going to stop me from doing exactly what I wanted to do. I don’t think anything could have.
Some people just have an inherent need to alter themselves. They become addicts and either die, go to jail, or eventually get rehabilitated. Still, I think everyone should have the right to decide for themselves what they want to try.
