I had some wonderful times abusing drugs. I overdid it sometimes and got into manias but I regret none of it. I’ve quit pretty much all of it (booze doesn’t count) more out of circumstances than my own resolution. MDMA loses its contours with time and the night just becomes a big blacked out blur when I start coming up, have a brief explosion of the high and then before I know it 4 hours have passed and I remember none of it and I’m coming down. Waste of time. Tried psychedelics, was never a fan. Coke just ruins my next day if i do it on a friday I need to buy more to see out the weekend then monday is a wipe out and it’s started creeping into tuesday as well. Was always careful with opiates, never did them regularly to miss their absence from my life. Ketamine i love more than most things in life but the market is completely fucked. Good sources don’t last long and I have a habit of losing my shit at dealers. So I’m forced to quit regularly but a few months will pass and I start looking for new sources. It’s obviously good for my longevity because I haven’t got any bladder or kidney problems despite having consumed ridiculous quantities of the stuff. This week I found out about a similar drug called ephenidine. I’ll have to get hold of some of that
I somewhat agree. I've been in a few pretty dark places because of being under the influence of drugs, and one thing that I think always helped was starting to repeat the mantra in my internal monologue: "my thoughts are not me."
And really, this is just the drug, and I can regain control, at least on that level. The other side effects are a different matter, but for example, after a case of serotonin syndrome, I didn't spiral into thinking about how depressed I was, because I knew why I felt that way. It will pass, I just need to hold frame.
But yeah, all of this is just the symptomatic layer.
Cocaine, for example, doesn't really have a high like when MDMA kicks in, at least that's been my experience. It's more indirect. I just notice that, yeah... we're doing pretty fucking great right now. I can imagine there are situations where you use that to keep your personality together, but I've never been rich enough for that, nor did I really see the point.
Still, there are people who actually do it, and I've met people who will literally do coke at work when they need to keep going. I find that a little pathetic.
I also tried modafinil when I was dorming, and I'm highly confident it set off my lifelong abnormal sleep patterns. I used to have no trouble sleeping before experimenting with it, and now I hover between being a night owl and sleeping in the evenings.
I'm not going to moralize about drugs and their dangers, but I think the warnings in the media are completely valid. Even if you're incredibly self-aware and do all the research you can before trying something, there's always a chance of something unexpected happening.
You’re right that fiction flattens it. Either the person is a wreck or they’re a genius who can do eight drinks and still outperform everybody. The middle is where most of the damage actually lives.
I spent a long time in that middle, and I work with people who still are. They go to work. They parent. They play first chair. They look fine. That is why the “totalizing addict” story feels fake to them — until it isn’t fake anymore, and by then the functioning was the cover story.
The part I would push on is calling addiction stories boring because they swallow the whole life. From the inside, that *is* the story. The personality doesn’t disappear. It just keeps getting rented out to the next dose. What looks like choice on day 400 is often just the smallest available relief.
Fiction could use more of the mundane version: the person who is still good at their job, still loved, and still not free. That story doesn’t preach as cleanly. It’s also the one a lot of people recognize.
A good example of a film and novel that is great art but limited when it comes to the topic it ostensibly tries to “show the real side of” is Requiem for a Dream
Yeah, Hart's "Drug Use for Grown Ups" is great. And David Nutt's "Drugs Without the Hot Air" is in the same tier, both well worth a read for this crowd.
I had some wonderful times abusing drugs. I overdid it sometimes and got into manias but I regret none of it. I’ve quit pretty much all of it (booze doesn’t count) more out of circumstances than my own resolution. MDMA loses its contours with time and the night just becomes a big blacked out blur when I start coming up, have a brief explosion of the high and then before I know it 4 hours have passed and I remember none of it and I’m coming down. Waste of time. Tried psychedelics, was never a fan. Coke just ruins my next day if i do it on a friday I need to buy more to see out the weekend then monday is a wipe out and it’s started creeping into tuesday as well. Was always careful with opiates, never did them regularly to miss their absence from my life. Ketamine i love more than most things in life but the market is completely fucked. Good sources don’t last long and I have a habit of losing my shit at dealers. So I’m forced to quit regularly but a few months will pass and I start looking for new sources. It’s obviously good for my longevity because I haven’t got any bladder or kidney problems despite having consumed ridiculous quantities of the stuff. This week I found out about a similar drug called ephenidine. I’ll have to get hold of some of that
Hunter S. Thompson actually didn't have that many drugs with him in Las Vegas — though did use a ton of speed.
I somewhat agree. I've been in a few pretty dark places because of being under the influence of drugs, and one thing that I think always helped was starting to repeat the mantra in my internal monologue: "my thoughts are not me."
And really, this is just the drug, and I can regain control, at least on that level. The other side effects are a different matter, but for example, after a case of serotonin syndrome, I didn't spiral into thinking about how depressed I was, because I knew why I felt that way. It will pass, I just need to hold frame.
But yeah, all of this is just the symptomatic layer.
Cocaine, for example, doesn't really have a high like when MDMA kicks in, at least that's been my experience. It's more indirect. I just notice that, yeah... we're doing pretty fucking great right now. I can imagine there are situations where you use that to keep your personality together, but I've never been rich enough for that, nor did I really see the point.
Still, there are people who actually do it, and I've met people who will literally do coke at work when they need to keep going. I find that a little pathetic.
I also tried modafinil when I was dorming, and I'm highly confident it set off my lifelong abnormal sleep patterns. I used to have no trouble sleeping before experimenting with it, and now I hover between being a night owl and sleeping in the evenings.
I'm not going to moralize about drugs and their dangers, but I think the warnings in the media are completely valid. Even if you're incredibly self-aware and do all the research you can before trying something, there's always a chance of something unexpected happening.
You’re right that fiction flattens it. Either the person is a wreck or they’re a genius who can do eight drinks and still outperform everybody. The middle is where most of the damage actually lives.
I spent a long time in that middle, and I work with people who still are. They go to work. They parent. They play first chair. They look fine. That is why the “totalizing addict” story feels fake to them — until it isn’t fake anymore, and by then the functioning was the cover story.
The part I would push on is calling addiction stories boring because they swallow the whole life. From the inside, that *is* the story. The personality doesn’t disappear. It just keeps getting rented out to the next dose. What looks like choice on day 400 is often just the smallest available relief.
Fiction could use more of the mundane version: the person who is still good at their job, still loved, and still not free. That story doesn’t preach as cleanly. It’s also the one a lot of people recognize.
A good example of a film and novel that is great art but limited when it comes to the topic it ostensibly tries to “show the real side of” is Requiem for a Dream
The other side of that is Carl Hart’s book on “using drugs responsibly”
Yeah, Hart's "Drug Use for Grown Ups" is great. And David Nutt's "Drugs Without the Hot Air" is in the same tier, both well worth a read for this crowd.