@wudbutcher Just a thought...would you ever consider making a skydive?
It is, in my opinion, the closest natural high to speed...
Most of the high is from adrenaline, but your brain also dumps a bunch of DMT
during freefall. Which makes things rather interesting as one would expect.
To me, the DMT always put me in this insane bullet time/time stretch where
every second would be so long and I almost felt like I was frozen in time...
skydiving is the greatest natural high.
Of course, me being who I was at 17 years old, I made a skydive high on speed.
You wanna know what happened?
Basically, the speed high and the adrenaline high cancelled each other out and
when I landed, I was completely sober. Not only sober, but totally calm.
I'm thankful they cancelled each other out because if they didn't...I was
asking the universe to kill me with a heart attack...
I want to say more but I'm at a loss for now. I use water on and off, but I'm
totally comfortable with my level of use. At the start of each month, I buy a
small amount ($100) and I let myself use it however I want. I can binge it, or
I can make it last...but once it's gone, it's gone. I've always managed to stick
to my monthly limit without buying more. I'm aware that I'm an addict and
I'm managing my addiction, and I know that the longer I continue to do
this is playing with fire. But I love my life right now. I'm an active member of
my community, my university and my family...someday I'll give it up, but not
any time soon.
When I was 19 I made by 69th skydive. I did what we call a "hook turn"---that's
when you make a turn too close to the ground. Turning bleeds altitude. So my
parachute collapsed and I fell about 20 feet to the ground...fractured my lower spine.
It was so scary, I was too afraid to ever make a skydive again. It broke my heart.
I really used to love skydiving, and it was such an important part of my life.
But now I am ruled by fear and relive the accident in my dreams.
I sold my parachute. It's been 6 years since that last skydive. I don't think I'll ever
jump again. It's way too risky. When I was a teenager I wasn't afraid of death.
Now I have the fear of death in me. I've convinced myself that mild to moderate
drug use is safer than skydiving. Truth is, it might be. Jumping out of airplanes for
fun is a crazy thing to do...
...but I'll never forget the most beautiful thing I've ever seen: during one of my jumps,
I'd opened my parachute above the cloud line (technically illegal) because I wanted
to see if I could skim my toes against the clouds. I flew over these immense fluffy white
clouds and dragged my toes through them...they left little swirls of mist where my feet
made contact...but then I noticed: the sun was behind me, and the shadow of my body
appeared on the surface of the cloud, outlined in a complete rainbow. Like the light
refracted at the edges of my body or something...that's the most beautiful thing I've ever...
I wish you the best with your healing process. Please, keep talking to us and don't isolate.