Fergie quit drugs after talking to God

poledriver

poledriver

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 21, 2005
Messages
11,543
Fergie quit drugs after talking to God

FERGIE quit drugs after a conversation with God made her realise the police were not really tracking her.


The Black Eyed Peas singer forced herself to stop taking drugs after going to church one day when she was "really paranoid" the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and the SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) team were following her, but speaking to the Lord made her see sense.

She said: "My brain had been playing a lot of tricks on me. You're kind of living in this alternate reality.

"I started getting really paranoid. So I went one day into this church and I thought that the FBI and the SWAT teams were outside the church ... so I had a conversation with God ... and I said, 'Alright, if I go out there and the FBI and the SWAT team's not out there, then it's the drugs and I'm stopping.'

"I went outside of the church ... and there was no SWAT team, there was no FBI, just me and God. And I kept my promise. That day. That was it."

Fergie - whose real name is Stacy Ferguson - admits she started taking hard drugs as a teen when she felt unable to tell her fellow pop group members in Wild Orchid she wanted to launch a solo career.

She explained: "What I should have done was said, 'Girls, it's really time for me to go [out] on my own. I need to fulfil this dream of mine to have a solo album.' And I didn't know how to do that, I didn't know how to deal with that confrontation ... So I started going out and taking Ecstasy and from Ecstasy I went to crystal meth.

"At first, with any drug, it's great in the beginning, then slowly your life starts to spiral down. [I was] 90 pounds at one point."

As well as drugs, the 37-year-old singer - who has been married to actor Josh Duhamel since 2009 - also experimented with women and admits she had a "bisexual or sexually open free spirit" during her college years.

Speaking to Oprah Winfrey on her chat show, 'Oprah's Next Chapter', the singer added: "I never dated women. It was more fun. I think that a lot of women experience this sort of thing in college. Tour was like college in a way. I mean I guess I would call it bisexual or sexually open, free spirit ... what have you."

http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/news/fergie-quit-drugs-after-talking-god/1593981/
 
So I started going out and taking Ecstasy and from Ecstasy I went to crystal meth.
Click to expand...

The article borders on being too general. They mention meth right in the middle like such a specific detail doesn't really matter.

"At first, with any drug, it's great in the beginning, then slowly your life starts to spiral down. [I was] 90 pounds at one point."
Click to expand...

Like with any drug? Um... no dear, that would be meth. The reason you're feeling better is because you got off it, not because you talked to God. lol

Oh the media.
 
The article borders on being too general. They mention meth right in the middle like such a specific detail doesn't really matter.
Click to expand...

The media don't distinguish between drugs a great deal, unless they're legal of course. As far as they're concerned, all illegal drugs will simultaneously sedate you, stimulate you, make you hullucinate, make you violent, make you promiscuous, make you horribly addicted until you do anything for more, then drive you psychotic and then kill you.
 
I can't honestly say theres a difference in your rationality going from saying the feds/swat (whatever the fuck that means) are tracking you, and that you had a drug induced "talk with god" that made you realize the former was a fucked up way to think.

Just trading one crazy belief for another. But, if it helps give you a lift in your shoes, and lets you sort your drug issues out, then why not, as george carlin would say.
 
daytryptr said:
I can't honestly say theres a difference in your rationality going from saying the feds/swat (whatever the fuck that means) are tracking you, and that you had a drug induced "talk with god" that made you realize the former was a fucked up way to think.

Just trading one crazy belief for another. But, if it helps give you a lift in your shoes, and lets you sort your drug issues out, then why not, as george carlin would say.
Click to expand...

Having a dialogue with a supreme being is generally not defined as pathological, in most human cultures. As to whether it's actually pathological: I believe that craziness, insanity, etc. are themselves culturally guided labels and generally have no relation to biology. In fact, I believe that the mind is itself nothing more than a cultural construct. So if the prevailing culture labels religious dialogue as acceptable, that's what it is.

There may one day come a psychological movement that successfully labels metaphysical behavior as pathological. You'd have to ask yourself if that would be preferable to what we have now.
 
Having a dialogue with a supreme being is generally not defined as pathological, in most human cultures. As to whether it's actually pathological: I believe that craziness, insanity, etc. are themselves culturally guided labels and generally have no relation to biology. In fact, I believe that the mind is itself nothing more than a cultural construct. So if the prevailing culture labels religious dialogue as acceptable, that's what it is.

There may one day come a psychological movement that successfully labels metaphysical behavior as pathological. You'd have to ask yourself if that would be preferable to what we have now.
Click to expand...
Like!
But I don't know if I would go quite as far as
the mind is itself nothing more than a cultural construct.
Click to expand...
Maybe "in large part" instead of "nothing"?
 
I think of it this way: what would the mind be without the technology of language? Would a Tarzan, raised by chimps, have what we call a human mind if he never once runs into another person?
 
I believe most people's thoughts and beliefs systems are greatly influenced by whatever culture they happen to be a part of.....But the mind actually does exist, physically. It's called a brain.
Insanity, to a point is subjective. But hallucinating and having delusional beliefs is considered crazy in any language.
I've had experiences that some people would label as "delusions and hallucinations", that I believe actually had validity to them. I've also had "actual delusions" similar to the kind Fergie is describing. I think after a certain point when you're fucked up on stimulants, the guilt starts to kick in. You feel like your SOO fucked up that you subconsciously believe people actually SHOULD be after you, and that blurs into the paranoia that, "The Feds are coming, hide the shit!"....IMO....Then again, The feds MIGHT actually be coming, Hide the shit!!
 
I think of it this way: what would the mind be without the technology of language? Would a Tarzan, raised by chimps, have what we call a human mind if he never once runs into another person?
Click to expand...
That's a very interesting and thought-provoking idea, thank you.
 
^ Look up feral children..

Children raised by animals will act and "speak" like them.

They can be rehabilitated to a certain point but past a certain age I don't think it's possible for them to become a "normal" person in society.
 
Yeah, I'm aware of the cases, but hadn't really considered them in the context of philosophy of mind or of Wittgensteinian theory.
 
23536 said:
I think of it this way: what would the mind be without the technology of language? Would a Tarzan, raised by chimps, have what we call a human mind if he never once runs into another person?
Click to expand...

It is really hard to know exactly what kind of mind he might have.
But if we wouldn't call him "human" (and I suspect that we wouldn't), isn't the problem with our definition?
Maybe being human is more of a core thing, and we associate it with somewhat tangential phenomena such as language?

(Just trying to argue this; actually, I regularly teach in my courses that understanding language gives us insight into what it means to be a human being.)
 
The human brain is fundamentally different than the brain of any other organism on this planet. I assume this is a fact on which everyone would agree. Although environment plays a huge role in development, the potential of a the human brain to reason and solve complex problems would always be greater than that of any other species. Unless maybe, if you were comparing a severely mentally impaired human to an exceptionally intelligent primate/dolphin or whatever.
 
^ But numbers was talking about mind, not brain.
And, you are ignoring small humans (babies and small children).
Also, what you define as complex problems may be very biased.
I went on a hike with a dog who knew how to get cool better than I did -she dug a hole in the dirt until she reached moist, internal soil and lay down in it. I was amazed at her instinctual understanding of how to survive (though I was also tripping heavily on LSD at the time).
Finally, you are talking about potential, which is different than actual processing.

(Just for the sake of arguing)
 
Point taken, sir! Are we actually "superior". I mean, look what we've done with this planet. Can it really be considered "progress". We're veering pretty far off the Fergie article here...LOL
 
23536 said:
Having a dialogue with a supreme being is generally not defined as pathological, in most human cultures. As to whether it's actually pathological: I believe that craziness, insanity, etc. are themselves culturally guided labels and generally have no relation to biology. In fact, I believe that the mind is itself nothing more than a cultural construct. So if the prevailing culture labels religious dialogue as acceptable, that's what it is.

There may one day come a psychological movement that successfully labels metaphysical behavior as pathological. You'd have to ask yourself if that would be preferable to what we have now.
Click to expand...

Perhaps crazy was the wrong word to use. I view it as, since i doubt she was sober when she had this religious experience (speculating wildly here), its more of a pathologically induced transition from one altered state to another. IE, a drug induced psychosis was a contributing factor to the experience, so it wasn't a purative metaphysical/spiritual experience in the first place. But i look at psychedelic users that make those kind of claims the same way. Not that theres anything wrong with choosing to believe that if it works for you. Just keep in mind you were in a chemically altered state of mind at the time.

But hey, sober religious states could be chemical as well, endogenous of course, but none the less. Not a "your brain makes dmt" claim, as i think thats entirely unfounded, but i remember reading about a study correlating altered levels of serotonin to spiritual experiences.

To be honest, i don't have an issue with the claim she makes, nor do i have with people who say the same things after/while tripping. I can't prove otherwise, you can't prove it happened, i believe in skepticism and minimal belief. Occam's razor and all, your hallucinating. If the hallucination helps you sort out your issues however its rationalized, it would be stupid to marginalize the person for making such claims.

To the hardcore skeptics, its a tool. You just don't use that tool for the rest of your life, since sooner or later you'll call into question whether or not it was a drug influenced hallucination, or divine communication. Taking a scientific perspective, i view them as the former (not excluding personal experiences I've had to make that decision about.)

You also have to ask yourself if its healthy to take such experiences seriously and literally, but not go so far as to dismiss them completely or rationalize everyone who has one as crazy or delusional, since most people have at one point or another.

But its considered pathological to have communication with aliens, but not divine entity's in a societal context. Its pathological to have voices in your head, unless its your god talking to you. To me, i am extremely skeptical, as its entirely outside the realm of mathematically reproducible/model-able phenomenon, IE scientific. But that same skeptic push tells me to remain agnostic, and not dismiss it entirely. If it helps you out at the time, roll with it by all means, i've done the same after some heavy trips. Eventually i had to question what happened though, and ask myself if it was really external, or chemically produced within the brain, in this case, fergie experiencing drug induced psychosis. Occam's razor leads me to think it was the latter.

In retrospect, calling her crazy was probably a bit presumptuous. I have no problem with people that make those claims really, its up to them to decide how skeptical they want to be, and whatever works best for them is a-ok with me.
 
To me, i am extremely skeptical, as its entirely outside the realm of mathematically reproducible/model-able phenomenon, IE scientific. But that same skeptic push tells me to remain agnostic, and not dismiss it entirely.
Click to expand...

I appreciate this kind of attitude.
After all, science was created to analyze the material world - not to allow us to know if there is a God (or gods).
Science doesn't allow us to prove that God exists or not. It wasn't made for this purpose.
If there is a God, s/he/it/they is/are extra-scientific, or outside the realm of material, physical reality that science deals with.
To me, to dismiss the idea outright seems just as closed-minded as assuming that there is a God just because the Bible says so.
 
I've experenced things......dreams, visions etc., that really did not SEEM to originate from my subconscious mind.....But, there's no way to prove or disprove these types of experiences. I can function in society, and that's what really counts in the end!.....Apparently!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top