⭐️ Social ⭐️ Why do they fucking bother in the first place?

[Jabberwocky]

Question: what drug or form of drug-taking do you just not comprehend? What makes you look at the user and ask yourself, ‘what the fuck is wrong with that guy’?

For example, I know a bunch of older teenagers who every Saturday night mix benzos, weed, MDMA, and beer. Then they wake up halfway across town with no memory of the how the hell they got there. Every single weekend the same. But they swear they’re having the time of their lives. I don’t get it.

 

[bongdong]

@Atelier3 I know what you mean, and my first thought was in regard to alcohol. My view on alcohol consumption and all the culturual rituals has changed quite a bit since I distanced myself from that. Why poison onself to near unconsciousness, beat someone up or get a bloody nose yourself, then eat fatty garbage, black out, wake up next day dehydrated with a headache, no voice, a shitload of money gone, stolen phone only to do it again as soon as possible? Really?

But then, I know (more than ever) why people do it, or why I did it. Then my mind went full circle, as so often, and: You can ask that question in reference to almost all human activities!

Why destroy nature and therefore destroy ourselfs?
Why breed new human beings?
Why do the same thing over and over again (e.g. drugs), making ourselfs suffer more but believe that the result will be different one day?
Why fight something we have no control over? And on and on it goes..

Throw Freud at it and you perhaps get some sexual bullshit, throw some other thinking system at it and you arrive at some other bullshit, throw religion at it and you'll get religious bullshit. I feel it's not difficult to come the conclusion that it doesn't make any sense whatsoever! So why fucking bother in the first place? We've erected a lot of stuff to give "answers" and the less discerning you are, the more you have to choose from. Afraid of the pandemic? Make yourself believe it's all a hoax, problem solved! They say all the cool kids mix benzos, weed, MDMA, and beer every weekend and fuck up. I want to be cool more than anything else, ..reason found. Sorry for the philosophical rant, I couldn't help it.

 

[Jabberwocky]

@Atelier3 I know what you mean, and my first thought was in regard to alcohol. My view on alcohol consumption and all the culturual rituals has changed quite a bit since I distanced myself from that. Why poison onself to near unconsciousness, beat someone up or get a bloody nose yourself, then eat fatty garbage, black out, wake up next day dehydrated with a headache, no voice, a shitload of money gone, stolen phone only to do it again as soon as possible? Really?

But then, I know (more than ever) why people do it, or why I did it. Then my mind went full circle, as so often, and: You can ask that question in reference to almost all human activities!

Why destroy nature and therefore destroy ourselfs?
Why breed new human beings?
Why do the same thing over and over again (e.g. drugs), making ourselfs suffer more but believe that the result will be different one day?
Why fight something we have no control over? And on and on it goes..

Throw Freud at it and you perhaps get some sexual bullshit, throw some other thinking system at it and you arrive at some other bullshit, throw religion at it and you'll get religious bullshit. I feel it's not difficult to come the conclusion that it doesn't make any sense whatsoever! So why fucking bother in the first place? We've erected a lot of stuff to give "answers" and the less discerning you are, the more you have to choose from. Afraid of the pandemic? Make yourself believe it's all a hoax, problem solved! They say all the cool kids mix benzos, weed, MDMA, and beer every weekend and fuck up. I want to be cool more than anything else, ..reason found. Sorry for the philosophical rant, I couldn't help it.

That’s cool. We can handle philosophical rants up to a point in Drug Culture. After all some great philosophers liked their drugs. Mainly lefty ones bar Nietzsche who liked opium and chloral hydrate. However my secret agenda was to winkle out people’s specific prejudices against specific drugs or specific drug taking practices. Across BL everyone is very respectful of whatever anybody is into but I reckon, in general, everyone has moments where they look at something and go “why do they fucking bother?”

 

[thegreenhand]

Inability to delay gratification

i suck at it too btw

but the momentary pleasure of taking a drug and having it hit you is undoubtedly an incredible feeling and for some people they value this feeling more than their long term health or the sufferfest of the next days hangover

 

[4meSM]

People who do inhalants... There are a few exceptions like nitrous, pure ether or even poppers, but everything else is fucking stupid. I get irrationally angry at people who do that shit to get high, they might as well hit themselves on the head with a hammer.
An ex of mine told me she sometimes huffed some kind of computer spray, well that relationship didn't last long...
The only way I'd understand it is if you're an orphan kid living in the streets with 0 education and no hope for the future, which is pretty sad...

I don't think most people who abuse mdma or take mega high doses of benzos everyday aren't truly aware of what they're doing. To me it's mostly a symptoms of a lack of harm reduction and knowledge about drugs. Although massive benzo habits are tricky because people often don't realize what they're doing till it's too late, then they keep it up because they have no other choice (I do understand that).

One of my cousins once told me he had been doing mdma everyday and that it was such a cool drug. We have always been pretty close so luckily I managed to convince him that using mdma that way was beyond stupid. I think he later got kind of addicted to cocaine but at least he didn't end up with severe brain damage.

 

[bongdong]

That’s cool. We can handle philosophical rants up to a point in Drug Culture. After all some great philosophers liked their drugs. Mainly lefty ones bar Nietzsche who liked opium and chloral hydrate.

Ah, okay. That's true, a lot of influential folks took drugs. I think Freud did a shitload of coke. Also Jean-Paul Sartre, William James come to mind and many scientists too, Thomas Edison, Francis Crick, John Lilly, Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman etc. and obviously the whole lot of early psychedelic explorers/writers/intellectuals in the 60's and 70's in North America which where philosophers in a way also. Aaaanyway..

However my secret agenda was to winkle out people’s specific prejudices against specific drugs or specific drug taking practices. Across BL everyone is very respectful of whatever anybody is into but I reckon, in general, everyone has moments where they look at something and go “why do they fucking bother?”

Hm, I see. Ad secret agenda: Wow, theoretical, I'm soo your guy, I'm the prototype of a judgemantal asshole! There was a time, where I did this unconsciously, although seldom overtly because I understand social cues and nobody wants to be hated, but I poisoned myself with it. Then a time came where I would scorn myself for 'being such a judgemental asshole'; I made it personal and poisoned myself that way. Now I realized that that is just the function of the human mind, to discriminate, to judge, to dissect, divide, to compare, to evaluate, label, compartmentalize etc. and there are domains where this is great and required (e.g. doing science), but also where this is just pointless respectively a disaster (e.g. human interactions). My ability to stick to what I know in that regard varies.. , and I'm not sure I want to go down that road even here.

I find it sometimes hair raising when folks report about certain drug combinations, ..that's just asking, no begging for trouble. And twisted in a way, since harm reduction is a thing here. But then, people do what people do no matter what others say, I certainly have done stupid shit, and judging and ostracizing is counterproductive, it's better to listen. So I'm conflicted, as always.

 

[bongdong]

Offtopic @Atelier3: Your initial example is pretty emblematic and thought provoking cause of the 'no memory' part. Is the only reason why we know something was fun or whatever, and the criterion to do it again or not, or memory? Why do we things in the first place? To have pleasant memories? Would we be retarded if we could live totally in the moment (no memory); would we all be hooked on <whatever> until we die? How reliable is human memory or the ability to project into the future? And what counts? The quality of the moment, acting on conclusions about the past (memory), according to predictions about the future?

but the momentary pleasure of taking a drug and having it hit you is undoubtedly an incredible feeling and for some people they value this feeling more than their long term health or the sufferfest of the next days hangover

Think you are right, that's certainly one aspect of it. This delayed gratification thing seems to be a tricky endeavor for humans. Dan Ariely wrote quite a bit about this, pretty accessible (and often fun) too. Perhaps I'll start a thread one day; I have a theory regarding how certain drugs really work (the psychology of it).

 

[Jabberwocky]

Offtopic @Atelier3: Your initial example is pretty emblematic and thought provoking cause of the 'no memory' part. Is the only reason why we know something was fun or whatever, and the criterion to do it again or not, or memory? Why do we things in the first place? To have pleasant memories? Would we be retarded if we could live totally in the moment (no memory); would we all be hooked on <whatever> until we die? How reliable is human memory or the ability to project into the future? And what counts? The quality of the moment, acting on conclusions about the past (memory), according to predictions about the future?


Think you are right, that's certainly one aspect of it. This delayed gratification thing seems to be a tricky endeavor for humans. Dan Ariely wrote quite a bit about this, pretty accessible (and often fun) too. Perhaps I'll start a thread one day; I have a theory regarding how certain drugs really work (the psychology of it).

I’ve been thinking about the young men in my example above. Generally speaking they come from shitty backgrounds, have dropped out of school, and seem entirely caught up in that alt-right or 4-chan kind of nihilistic shitposting meme culture. It may be that what they are really trying to blackout is their own sense of failure and worthlessness (which their parents, schools and society in general have been hitting them with for a long time). So maybe there is a comprehensible reason for the way they take drugs and they insist on saying they are having a great time as part of their overall denial that they’ve got some serious problems in life - mad poly-drug abuse being one of particular concern.

 

[4meSM]

Think you are right, that's certainly one aspect of it. This delayed gratification thing seems to be a tricky endeavor for humans. Dan Ariely wrote quite a bit about this, pretty accessible (and often fun) too. Perhaps I'll start a thread one day; I have a theory regarding how certain drugs really work (the psychology of it).

There's no other living being who comes even remotely close to what humans are capable of, regarding delayed gratification. Most of what we do is an example of delayed gratification, but we also need moments of instant pleasure or else we would go crazy and lose our way.
The reward system (also called mesolimbic pathway) is extremely complex, it's almost unbelievable complicated stuff. Having such a big and complex brain is not easy to manage.
That's why we spend 18+ years learning how to behave, it's crazy. Learning and/or emotional deficiencies in the early childhood can have a devastating effect later on...

The weird thing is that there's no right way to behave, it depends on your culture and on your surroundings (what are our peers doing?). Or else our mind would already come pre-programmed from birth.

 

[Larimar]

I don’t understand the people that love Meth and staying awake for days . I love a good nap and good nights sleep and a hearty meal , there is no better escape. I’m a oxy lover and it seems those who love opiates don’t really like stims and Vice versa .

 

[Jabberwocky]

That's why we spend 18+ years learning how to behave, it's crazy. Learning and/or emotional deficiencies in the early childhood can have a devastating effect later on...

That’s why starting crazy weed smoking at 13 or 14 which is very common where I live derails the lives of so many boys. I see a lot of these boys in their early 20s as full of social anxiety because they never learned all the intricacies of the social behaviour required to participate fully in society during their formative years. A psychiatrist told me that severe ADHD is indistinguishable from heavy weed smoking in teenagers and half the kids brought to him for ‘learning disabilities’ had actually just smoked themselves retarded and wouldn’t quit.

So there is another prejudice of mine: I don’[t get why highly intelligent high potential kids deliberately cut themselves off from the rest of the world and greatly handicap their own futures.

Note: I smoked weed daily from 14-16 or so and believe I’m still suffering long-term consequences in the form of the way my life turned out.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I don’t understand the people that love Meth and staying awake for days . I love a good nap and good nights sleep and a hearty meal , there is no better escape. I’m a oxy lover and it seems those who love opiates don’t really like stims and Vice versa .

Ha ha. It’’s 4:30 AM here and I am about as high as it’s possible to get on meth without going psychotic. I love sleep too and when straight will have 8-9 hours a night and usually a siesta in the early afternoon. But I also like the solitude of being awake in the wee hours and feeling my brain running on all 8 cylinders for hours on end. But basically I cannot explain why the enthusiasm for it over time.

But I agree with you that there are stim people and there are opiate people. I have a lot of trouble understanding or empathising with opiate users who relish going on the nod. I’m like, why pay all that money to basically be unconscious? However I can understand people with PTSD and conditions like that seeking the “blessed relief” that sinking into sleep can bring. So opiates for pain I get but opiates for pleasure I don’t.

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

That’s why starting crazy weed smoking at 13 or 14 which is very common where I live derails the lives of so many boys. I see a lot of these boys in their early 20s as full of social anxiety because they never learned all the intricacies of the social behaviour required to participate fully in society during their formative years. A psychiatrist told me that severe ADHD is indistinguishable from heavy weed smoking in teenagers and half the kids brought to him for ‘learning disabilities’ had actually just smoked themselves retarded and wouldn’t quit.

So there is another prejudice of mine: I don’[t get why highly intelligent high potential kids deliberately cut themselves off from the rest of the world and greatly handicap their own futures.

Note: I smoked weed daily from 14-16 or so and believe I’m still suffering long-term consequences in the form of the way my life turned out.

Couldn't it be the case that those kids with learning disabilities that smoked themselves retarded actually had real issues to begin with? There's a reason why people turn to drugs...

 

[Jabberwocky]

Couldn't it be the case that those kids with learning disabilities that smoked themselves retarded actually had real issues to begin with? There's a reason why people turn to drugs...

Yep. I think I described some of the issues these kinds of kids have a few posts back. But I think that many begin using just to alleviate normal teenage angsty feelings because they’re are not being parented or otherwise directed into developing confidence, self-awareness and resilience. All of which you need to quit taking drugs.

 

[Larimar]

I have never actually nodded off from opiates , I am always very cautious of my dose and once I got physically dependent I had to make sure I had enough to get thru the week , only so much in the budget for “recreation” . I fell in love with oxy because it-made me more social and nice to people and just feel so damn happy body and mind . It’s been a great anti depression med for me , just sucks it’s hard to find and too expensive so now I am on Kratom and hubby gifts me a few pills of oxy every couple weeks so I don’t have to drink the green sludge for a couple days .

 

[Larimar]

I did always some what envy you meth folks that don’t have to deal with physical withdraw like us opiate people do !

 

[4meSM]

@Atelier3
Yeah I think it has many parts.
Part of it is just copying what others are doing in order to fit in, because there's nothing worse for the human brain than not being accepted by your peers (that used to mean death in the past). Obviously the adolescent brain is very delicate and particularly the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed so it's hard to comprehend the consequences of our actions.
I believe it also has something to do with an initiation to adulthood, we don't have anything like that in western culture (besides drugs). In the past there often was a clear transition from childhood to "adulthood" which involved a clear change in consciousness, teenage boys were either send to prepare for war, hunting a dangerous animal or participated in special ceremonies (just some random examples). Our initiation is mostly drinking alcohol and taking other drugs, and also going to parties and taking drugs there.

What you mentioned about smoking weed might be true, at least it makes sense to me. Although with that kind of stuff I often think "what was the alternative?".
People often say that watching TV is very bad for a kid's brain, which is often true. However, if the child has nothing stimulating to do then he better be watching TV or else he's gonna have much more severe issues in the future. Because any stimulation is way better than no stimulation.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I did always some what envy you meth folks that don’t have to deal with physical withdraw like us opiate people do !

I agree that opiate withdrawal must be horrendous, especially as it can go on for so long and be life threatening. But for many people the psychological withdrawal from meth can be extraordinarily terrifying - especially the first few times. Basically every anxiety you’ve ever had gets amped up by a factor of 10 and runs around your head non-stop. It can bring on a full existential crisis and suicidal ideation. That’s part of why people find it so hard to quit - they are terrified of being left alone with their own unbuffered and uncontrollable negative thoughts. Fortunately, it gets a lot easier with experience and there are several medicines that can reduce it to almost nothing but a bad mood for a few days.

 

[Jabberwocky]

@Atelier3
Yeah I think it has many parts.
Part of it is just copying what others are doing in order to fit in, because there's nothing worse for the human brain than not being accepted by your peers (that used to mean death in the past). Obviously the adolescent brain is very delicate and particularly the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed so it's hard to comprehend the consequences of our actions.
I believe it also has something to do with an initiation to adulthood, we don't have anything like that in western culture (besides drugs). In the past there often was a clear transition from childhood to "adulthood" which involved a clear change in consciousness, teenage boys were either send to prepare for war, hunting a dangerous animal or participated in special ceremonies (just some random examples). Our initiation is mostly drinking alcohol and taking other drugs, and also going to parties and taking drugs there.

What you mentioned about smoking weed might be true, at least it makes sense to me. Although with that kind of stuff I often think "what was the alternative?".
People often say that watching TV is very bad for a kid's brain, which is often true. However, if the child has nothing stimulating to do then he better be watching TV or else he's gonna have much more severe issues in the future. Because any stimulation is way better than no stimulation.

Yes indeed. Boys from a bout 13 onwards need to be engaged in projects, team sports, competitions amd challenges of all kinds. They need to continually get a sense of achievement so they learn to connect effort and striving with rewards and happiness. These kinds of boys I’m talking about have never experienced a win of any sort in their lives. It does not take them long to then vocally reject all forms of trying and making an effort as pointless.

 

[thegreenhand]

That’s why starting crazy weed smoking at 13 or 14 which is very common where I live derails the lives of so many boys. I see a lot of these boys in their early 20s as full of social anxiety because they never learned all the intricacies of the social behaviour required to participate fully in society during their formative years. A psychiatrist told me that severe ADHD is indistinguishable from heavy weed smoking in teenagers and half the kids brought to him for ‘learning disabilities’ had actually just smoked themselves retarded and wouldn’t quit.

So there is another prejudice of mine: I don’[t get why highly intelligent high potential kids deliberately cut themselves off from the rest of the world and greatly handicap their own futures.

Note: I smoked weed daily from 14-16 or so and believe I’m still suffering long-term consequences in the form of the way my life turned out.

Yeah I wish I hadn’t smoked weed nonstop from 16-18. I’m 19 now so obv still a little fucked up from it

a lot of that was black market carts before the dangers of those came out, so god knows what synth noids I could have been smoking