Have you been judged for being a drug user?

[footscrazy]

I think it'd be interesting for AusDDers to describe experiences they've had where they've been stereotyped or judged once it gets out they use drugs. Have family, friends, strangers or a workplace treated you differently once it's come out? What happened? Do you live a double life because you feel you have to hide your drug use from certain people?

It makes sense that drug users get a bad name in society simply because it's the ones committing the more egregious acts who get noticed. The ones getting by in life, using drugs, but managing, are by definition less noticeable. I remember someone here in AusDD equating drug users to homosexuals a couple of generations ago in the sense that it took people putting it out there, being honest about themselves and disregarding the judgements and consequences, for homosexuality to grow in acceptance in society. Do you think it's important for more 'functional' drug users to be open about their use for common perception on drugs to really change?

 

[Christ!]

I'm sure I have but can't think of any notable times off hand, which kind of surprises me. .

Family, friends, doctors + nurses have all been really understanding and supportive, at least to my face. Maybe because I've kept things under control, and when they have gotten out of hand I've still managed to function (opiate addiction, heavy mdma use) I think I've just been lucky mostly.

When I was younger I wrote an assignment on MDMA @ tafe. Surprisingly it got a very good response from my teacher. Was mostly on therapeutic potential of MDMA, but also pitfalls of illicit ecstasy. She could of brushed it off as some bit of BS from a drug user but she was actually fascinated and did some reading up herself.

There's been plenty of people who weren't happy with my drug use like my parents, extended family members and friends - overall I'm heaps private though and keep the fact that I use drugs hidden. It doesn't really bother me having to be discrete about my use, but I suppose I do this so people won't judge me...99% of people in day to day life I would not want knowing I use drugs.

That's an interesting point about these 'functional' users being more open. Would it change common perceptions? Not sure, I guess it could.

 

[Captain Brewster]

I do the double life thing a fair bit, but then I suppose it depends on what drug where talking about.

For cannabis I'm not so worried about who knows, but pretty much everything else I keep fairly hidden from family and some friends, I tend to let most of my close mates know what I'm using all the time.

People I work with have no idea, and I'd like to keep it that way, mainly due to worrying about what they might think of me. It's funny, I think I'm the only one who uses drug for recreation, but then maybe there's someone else doing an even better job of hiding there recreational drug use.

I let my gf know about what I use, maybe not so much on quantity.

I guess I do these things out of fear of being judged.

 

[TangerinO]

Work has always been surprisingly chill about it, but I work at a big company with a wide variety of people, and a lot of college kids.

In college I lost half my friends at the time. They were still friendly enough but looked at me differently but I found my current friends as a result so that's all good. Funnily enough most of them grew up to come and ask me advice on what they should take these days.

Girlfriend is surprisingly tolerant of my drug use. She's not for or against it to my knowledge, but I'm sure she wishes I smoked a little less weed.

Still dealing with the unexpected Father issues brought about from my drug use. He seems to have unusually large problem with the whole situation. It's getting dealt with.

I have never gone double life ever. I always figure if someones going to kind enough to go out of the way to judge me (No doubt they think they're doing me a favour trying to get me off the chemicals), I can just as happily oblige with some facts, science and general intelligent discussion to try and reach a middle ground, however I didn't always feel this way so I'll take some of the heat for the college situation. My Dad has been the most difficult to do this with though.

 

[Standup]

My 'drug use' nearly ruined my entire life if you ask my parents. The only thing is I'd only ever smoked weed a total of two times at that point of my life. I slowly developed pretty severe insomnia and anxiety, mostly from personal issues, stress and fighting with my parents about stupid stuff. My parents purposely made things 100x harder because they thought I was fucking my life up smoking crack every day. I was so innocent at this point I didnt even realise they thought I was smoking crack. To this day it is hard trying to convince them that no I was not smoking crack, and no i still dont smoke crack (have once). Comes with surfing, skating and having a luscious mop of hair

The really fucked up thing is that I was getting consistently high grades in one of the hardest uni subjects and playing state level sport the entire time. My parents pretty much decided that drugs were going to ruin my life, and ironically did a good job of getting me to resort to suicide.

I came out of that experience pretty fucked up and the drug use that followed both restored my will to live and motivated me to achieve far beyond what any of my doctors and psycs expected of me. At the time I was perfectly happy to be honest and open about everything. Learnt soon enough that admitting to using drugs too openly disadvantages you in all sorts of ways. The people who stopped talking to me for smoking weed are the kind of people im glad I got away from to meet other people however

 

[junkie skumbag]

i've been judge many many times especially from noobies witch i have learnt to not tell them cretin things .i may be a bit to um open about my drug use.im a drug user and thats who i am n if you dont like it then you can fuck off. im not breaking into chemists or robbing shops to pay for my next hit of smack but i do loooove the stuff.every now n then i get odd looks when im talking about my opiate use or IV use but in general when i talk about mdma meth (your average street drugs i guess) there isnt much judging witch really shits me off as i think meth is WAYYYY more damaging than opiates.my family on the other hand. my sisters boyfriend judges me like fuck even tho hes taken mdma a few times and smokes that legal weed shit like its going out of fashion.cunts gone around telling people that im shooting up smack (when i had never used it) hes even called up a source of mine once and asked him not to sell to me! the cunt has no idea how to treat people on drugs either.he freaked me out so much on lsd i havnt dosed in like 1.5-2 years he seems to think being freaked out on LSD is fun for the user .as we all probz do i hide my drug use from my nanna n grandad but im sure my nanna knows i smoke weed as my uncles tends to blurt out things he shouldn't with my other family members around.i try to not even let them see me smoke ciggies.today was the first day anyone in my family besides my dad n my uncle found out i smoke cigs.
oh yeah and in the work place i generally don't mention drugs at all unless im fairly cretin that the person im talking to uses some sort of drugs.i may drop a hint here n there to see if i get any good responses but yeah if im not sure i keep my mouth shut

merry Christmas to all my fellow BL'ers :D

 

[Abject]

Yes, I have been. I judge people who use drugs, too.
You see, there's nothing wrong with judgement, in fact it is quite benevolent.
The issue with prejudice is not from the odds, for it is quite easy to be right, but the foolishness that occurs when you're wrong is not worth holding onto such things.

Anyway, I usually favour drug users as they tend to have more evolved thoughts in general than those who are against drugs,
and I don't really have any problems with addicts, but it can hurt to care for someone who is harming themselves considerably.
Mainly meth and benz, but I'm not going to start validating addictions or anything silly like that.

Anyway, I'd judge you infinitely more for being a bitchy piece of cunt.

 

[Mario_x86_64]

Yes, just for smoking cannabis for fuck sake.

 

[Juvenile]

Do you live a double life because you feel you have to hide your drug use from certain people?

Do you think it's important for more 'functional' drug users to be open about their use for common perception on drugs to really change?

I absolutely live a double life when it comes to work people. I have seen a few work mates out off their face over the years. We never knew each other did it until we saw each other. They are all the same, we don't discuss it or anything at work. I take it to the extreme, if some one at work asks me what music I like I will often not mention electronic music due to many peoples perception that it goes with ecstasy. I do my best to give off the nerd image at work. People think I go to LAN parties on the weekend lol.
One older work mate was talking to me once. Saying how people like himself and me are able to enjoy a few drinks without going out of control, but "all these young people" take pills and then get violent. (this was back around 2008) I bit my tongue and nodded politely along with his misinformed vitriol. Work is not the place to change opinions.

 

[Foreigner]

I can't be open with everyone but if I can be open with someone about it, I usually am. I think drug legalization or at least decriminalization would revolutionize society, and it's what I would envision as being somewhere closer to a perfect world. People need to hear balanced stories of experiences, pros and cons, and not the bullshit propaganda the government is feeding the public.

 

[Sustanon]

People will always be judgmental whether u are skinny or fat, rich or poor, ugly or beautiful, drug user or not there will always be someone who will judge u. It a very shitty human trait IMHO. I think most of us here are pretty secretive about our usage especially if we have been using it for a very long time. The longer u use the more knowledgeable u will be regarding the subject not to mention less self incriminating. U sort of learn it as you get older and wiser. Looking back at my teenage years I was pretty open about things, didnt care about anything which at times could of landed me in a lot of trouble and cause negative opinions. They say u can tell a drug user from a mile away well not me. I tend to look after myself, I sleep and eat well and do a lot of exercise regularly.

Its extremely annoying when people talk about different drugs in front of you and u hear that what they are saying is complete bullshit. Youd like to say soemthing and correct them but u bite ur tounge and try to play dumb and ignorant just so u dont get judged or something. Anyone else had this happen to them? Im sure they have. Liek the one time a female workmate talking about something called "triptasy" and saying how good it is. In reality Id love to say u have no idea whats meant to be inside a real ecstasy pill. And the time another workmate talking about speed called "base" saying how much healthier, better it is opposed to crystal meth which is the exact same thing (actives) apart from purity levels and cutting agents etc. Oh well sometimes u have to play dumb and just bite ur tongue LOL

 

[gman2008]

Around my area people judge if you take drugs....yet its fine and dandy for them to drink alcohol i find this infuriating!!!!

 

[Standup]

"weed is so bad for you, did you know smoking a bong is like smoking 20 cigarettes!?". Gotta love health concious people that are overweight...

 

[TangerinO]

^ Yeah, my boss at work is an obese, television junky, chain smoker and judges me pretty heavily for smoking weed. It's not like I rub it in his face, it's just obvious enough I guess.

People like this man, they tend to just be depressed and angry at themselves, but take it out on the world. It's always your fault that they're unhappy, you can't win so just smile and be nice to them. They don't know how to deal with that

 

[Jakeperson]

Yeah I tend not to give too much of a fuck about telling people. Got a few strange looks when I went home for Christmas and saw a few old school friends..

"Hey Jake, what have you been up too?"
'Oh not much, just spent this year being a meth addict really.'

The truth doesn't hurt, it makes people awkward.

As I am so open I have been judged quite a lot in my time but most aren't worth standing out in my memory except for when a doctor refused me treatment for my marijuana addiction.

 

[Miss Boneshatter]

Yeah I've pretty much had to live a double life of sorts. People are actually really ignorant when it comes to drugs though they seem to "know alot". Funny that. The people that don't even use drugs know the most about them... Hmmm..

 

[pancho06]

when it comes to my social group I am rather open about my drug use, when approached/confronted about drug use within people my age and any person who's opinion does not have an impact in my life I am always ready to passionately defend my drug use with facts wether it is to justify, convince, or make another understand the whys and arounds of my drug use. When it comes to people who are more closely related (mostly family and authority figures) I have been unjustly judged and harshly done by many a time, specially my parents. Its only until now (after extensive talk, and now that cannabis has been legalized in WA and Colorado) that my parents seem to accept cannabis use EVEN if they are not ok with it. Sorry, to answer your questions directly, yes I have been judged harshly many times, have lost friendships, gotten myself in trouble for no reason other than drug use (that did not physically cause anybody harm) and been treated unfairly; it seems as though time goes by I have surrounded myself with far better people in terms of open mindedness, etc, lastly/also it seems as though my speech has become far more powerful in cutting someone right off and making them change their mind once they start bagging me for drug use

 

[lovepsychadelics]

Ummm.... in a word "yes". Also the people who don't use don't have an understanding of chemistry, pharmacology, pharmacodynamics apart from what course recommended text books teach them. I recently read a text book that listed GHB under the amphetamine section??? This is a text book for masters university students BTW. Most of my information comes from published journal articles (and some personal experience) I must admit but they are up to date and relevant and don't list GHB as an amphetamine. As for the average non drug user they aquire knowledge on such social ill's as drug use through such icons of integrity as today tonight and a current affair. Could this be why people think all drug users steal old ladies hand bags, froth at the mouth and can easily be identified by their lack of teeth?

 

[Oxyuranus]

I never used to get judged, but then, I used to be in way more control. Once your hair gets long and you rock up to the same chemist every 5 days, peoples perception of you changes. I am recorded as a codeine addict at EVERY chemist in my city. (cunt of a pharmacist rang every single one. Fairly sure thats illegal, but i dont have the guts to talk to a lawyer about it)

I still have an awesome job (earning more than cunt pharmacist) and function as a professional very well. My personal life is in tatters though and I guess I just have that junkie look now that I don't look after myself nutritionally.

I have ONE friend who knows about my drug use. He is an alcoholic meth/weed addict. He actively introduces people to meth (base) all of the time. He has gotten his new wife addicted and she has a five year old daughter... They use around a gram a da between them. His wife had milky white skin when I first met her and now; just three months later, she is covered from head to toe in acne like sores.

Apparently though, I am scum for being addicted to codeine and the consuming my weekly Oxy script in one sitting. He enjoys telling people this when we are introduced. He will crap on for hours about how bad and addictive Opiates are. He had a particularly bad comedown from crystal the other week and told me that the cook must have put some 'downers' in there to cause the comedown.

Seems that as he slips further and further down the meth hole he becomes a lot more judgemental towards me. I don't want to be around him anymore. I am worried for his wife's daughter though and she is the only reason I am still I contact with him. It's really nice having someone to smoke MJ with too.

Thank you footscrazy, this is my favourite thread on B/L

 

[Mysterie]

i am constantly judged because i'm a drug user

i'm judged by my friends if i tell them about my interest in hard drugs (rightfully so i spose)
i'm judged/persecuted by ambulance workers if i overdose (who gives a fuck about a 19 yr old about to die when theres a drunk fuckhead that has crashed into a tree down the road)
i'm judged by my parents (any interest in any intoxicant [including weed] is met with a disturbed look and disappointment
i'm judged by society because they keep voting for Labour/Liberal which includes laws that constantly fuck over our community
i'm judged by law enforcement and politicians because they continue to perpetuate the cycle of hate