Why do we want to get high?

[djwhirlpool]

i guess i do drugs for fun. i would never do drugs as an escape. i think that's one of the worst reasons to take drugs. the problems are always the same when you come down, if not worse.

 

[lost_boi]

Why discount the obvious reasons, they are probably the ones that are correct?

love that right there, thats awesome.

theres also spiritual, self development, growth, something new/different, outside the boundaries, beacuse we are told it is wrong so we say why and take them to find out. the list could go on and on.

 

[MynameisnotDeja]

i guess i do drugs for fun. i would never do drugs as an escape. i think that's one of the worst reasons to take drugs. the problems are always the same when you come down, if not worse.

Isn't fun an escape?
Isn't snowboarding an "escape"?
Or surfing or playing video games or watching movies?

I think everything we do for recreation is for escape from the problems and stresses of life.

 

[psychoblast]

Yeah, the difference between doing drugs "for fun" and "for escape" is meaningless, a matter of semantics.

My working theory (based, in part on Southpark, a great source of wisdom), is that drugs make things interesting, give us new experiences. I mean, you go to clubs and that gets boring, so you start drinking. The alcohol changes your perceptions so it is a different experience and so it is no longer boring. But you go drinking at clubs enough and it is boring again. So you go to clubs high. And it is like a different experience. Until you do it so much it is no longer new.

Basically, you want to keep your life interesting. There are two ways to do this: Change your environment or change your perceptions of your environment. Either way makes your environment seem new. (These can be combined, of course.)

The problem with drugs is, they can keep you having an interesting time doing essentially nothing. For an analogy, imagine you sit in your room and stare at a cool poster while listening to music. Now that gets old fast. So then you do it high, and you notice things you didn't see before in the poster and the music, and it is interesting again. But eventually that is boring, too. Then you take some shrooms and your perceptions change and the same music and poster are interesting again. Until it is not. You can continue being "interested" and enjoying the same poster and music as you keep moving on to new drugs each time the old gets boring.

Eventually, a few years go by and you have cycled through all the drugs you can or are willing to try. Now, you look back at the last 3 years. Yes, you have had fun, have had an interesting time from your own perspective. But all you've been doing is sitting in your room staring at a poster and listening to music. Chances are your health is not too good, your financial situation is probably pretty crappy, etc.

So, anyway, the problem with drugs is they can keep you content with a lifestyle that is not externally productive. I mean, I was talking to some one about whether it is better to spend six months playing video games in your free time or writing a novel. And he said that he gets satisfaction and enjoyment playing the video games, and even if he might get satisfaction and enjoyment from having written a novel, not only would the "payoff" take more time, but also he did not see how the satisfaction was inherently any better. If the goal is to be happy, and you are as happy with the many small satisfactions of each video game as you would be with the one big satisfaction of having written a novel, why not just stick with the video games?

And I pointed out that even if, on a quantitative level, the amount of happiness from either course is the same, there is another aspect to it. You have the happiness of the moment of achievement (playing a good game, getting a novel published) but then you have the happiness (or sadness or neutral feeling) of LOOKING BACK at what you have accomplished. After playing video games for 6 months, and having a great time, you look back and it is like you flushed that time down the toilet. You had fun at the time, but you have nothing to show for it. Whereas after you get the payoff of publishing a novel, you look back and you feel a positive satisfaction because you have -- and will always have -- something to show for that time you spent writing. And that "something" you have to show for that time can, itself, then be a building block to other happy occassions. Like earning income from the novel, or being a respected author, having opened the door to other opportunities to write or lecture or whatever floats your boat.

And, there is always the money issue. I mean, if all that matters is trying to be happy as much as possible in life, and you can be happy playing video games on drugs, you have a means of happiness that both costs money and (usually) detracts from your ability to earn income. Which is a dangerous combination that may lead you to the point where you can no longer afford the drugs, and are forced to face sobriety after you have flushed your health and money down the drain.

Now, in moderation, I still favor drug use because it does allow you to have new and interesting experiences you cannot have any other way. Just as I favor travelling to foreign countries (also in moderation). The problem is when you find drugs being your primary means of escaping boredom, having fun, or having an interesting time.

~psychoblast~

 

[Cimora]

You said you didnt want to hear because it feels good, which i think is most of the reason people take drugs (as well as physical addiction and withdrawal). There is also a human desire for difference in mood, setting and thought. Its this desire that drives explorers across the oceans or up a mountain. This same desire for novelty is thought to be genetic and possibly play a large part in addictive tendencies.

You can look at this like social factors, trends and taboos or psychological predisposition and pyschological factors like conditioning, prior experience etc.

In most ways its actually quite simple. In some ways its not.

 

[justsomeguy]

i had no reason to eat all this DXM this evening; the pills were there and i ate them.

to decide "why" i wanted to get high would be in poor taste. rather, i'd prefer to trace the lines of casaulity (from the bank, to the store, to my house, to my room several days later, ad infinitum) surrounding, supporting, and leading up to my highness.

the reasons are usually much more complex when one begins the narration.

 

[Yggdrasil]

"Heighten awareness" I suppose. Even if it's not true what you theorize, it's nice to at least sometimes think you have it all figured out.