A man is turning my best friend square!

[FreyaHuasca]

Hello all, I'm new here. Figured this would be a good place for advice.

My best friend and I have known each other for several years and have bonded many a time doing low-key mandy sessions in each others homes. One was scheduled for next month when my partner and I go down to visit. However, she has shacked up with a new boyfriend who is totally anti-drugs, who has decided that he wants nothing to do with our little session and is leaving the house for the whole weekend that we are there.

This strikes me as a bit, well, extra. I've known plenty of people through the years who haven't dabbled and instead have a few beers. But this new guy has obviously got the FEAR, despite me and my friend telling him amazing things about psychedelics in therapy/medicine etc, but he just won't come round to the idea. Ultimately, it's up to him what he puts in his body but to literally leave when we come to visit feels really weird - why can't he just chill with us? And is he going to be like this every time?!

My partner and I now feel really unwelcome and disappointed that he doesn't seem to want to be our friend. Not only that, but this could affect by friendship with my best friend. She seems to be changing her behaviour around him every time drugs comes up in conversation - like she's all innocent when she's just as much an advocate as me! It's sad that she's fallen for a guy who is making her compromise on a core value, and it's a damn shame he won't see the light!

I sent her a nicely worded message on Monday about it and she has been ignoring me - what would you do?

 

[Jabberwocky]

Hey FreyaHuasca, welcome to Bluelight!

This sounds like a relationship problem.

If it were me, i would let your friend make her own decisions in regards to who she spends her time with. If she ultimately doesn't want to do drugs, that's her choice. If drugs are her main priority, she will eventually see that and get rid of this guy. But for now, i'd let her feel it own and make her own decision.

It sucks when something like this happens, but if she is truly an advocate for drugs, she'll find a way to do them. Whether it be dumping her boy friend, or doing drugs behind his back.

 

[treezy z]

I don't know, I wouldn't want to be people around rolling (or barred out, or coked up) if I wasn't, that shit makes people annoying (if sober.)

And if getting high is a "core value" of the friendship between you guys, you are not friends, it is a shitty thing to base any relationship on.

 

[falsifiedhypothesi]

It's your friend's choice as to whether she wants to continue doing these sessions behind her boyfriends back.

If she makes the choice to stop having these sessions then you should respect that, for one rolling on a consistent basis is not going to be good for your brain in the long term, unless you space it out by at least 4-5 months. Also if you talk her into taking these trips anyway it could cascade into problems with her relationship. It seems a little selfish to convince someone to lie to their SO just so they can keep doing drugs with you.

If she makes the choice on her own to keep doing this then i wouldn't see it as a big deal, just don't try to force her to choose between you or her boyfriend because of a drug sesh.

I'm all for responsible drug use, maybe you and your friend should explain the science of how safe taking drugs can be if the proper precautions and considerations are taken into account.

Do you two test your stuff? Do you take moderate dosages and refrain from binging? Do you make sure to stay hydrated, eat well, and get plenty of sleep during/after these trips? If these sessions are important to you and your friend then maybe do some research, have a well reasoned and fact based case for why these trips aren't a danger to your health.

 

[FreyaHuasca]

Hi all, thanks for the honest critique. All taken on board. I guess I should give a little more context...

Substances for me and my friend are sacrament - getting high has a strong spiritual and personal development element - it's not just about getting mashed. We do annual ayahuasca retreats and DMT circles too. We are extremely well researched and precautious and talk openly about the benefits of controlled tripping whenever he is present.

Regarding her lying/going behind her partners back - she wouldn't and so far hasn't. He would know what she is up to and would actively choose to not be a part of what is arguably one of the most central and important aspects of her life - spiritual exploration (he is also a staunch atheist/brexiteer/semi alcoholic but that's another story)

I'm not being selfish - I'm genuinely concerned that she is taking some huge backward steps in everything she has cultivated in herself over the years.

But hey, she's a grown woman. I guess I need to let her stray the path on her own :-/

 

[Vastness]

Anyone is of course free to make their own decisions with regard to both substance use and their exposure to it, and I wouldn't judge someone purely on the basis that being around other people doing certain substances would make them uncomfortable.

Equally, if your friend is willing to compromise on something that previously seemed very important to her, then perhaps it just wasn't really as important to her after all. For the record I really didn't read it as your friendship being based on getting high together, I think this is a harshly reductionist point of view. Obviously you have bonded over a shared interest in psychedelic substances and associated topics, of which "getting high" is a part of it, but not the whole of it. People do frequently change for their partners though, for better or worse, and I would say it's likely that some of your concern is actually just concern that you might be losing someone who was previously a very close friend, maybe temporarily, or maybe not.

I'm curious why you think she is "taking some huge backward steps"...? Choosing not to indulge in psychedelics is not necessarily a step backwards, in and of itself - it might be that she simply feels that she has got everything useful out of her chemical-fuelled adventures for now and wants to invest some time into what she sees as a promising new relationship.

I'm quite interested also in his reasons both for not partaking, and for actively avoiding this element of your lives. You say he is anti-drugs and I admittedly have a knee-jerk reaction to that term, but this kind of attitude can take many forms and not all of them are indefensible. So his specific reasons are relevant - your mention of the fact that he is a staunch atheist, brexiteer and semi-alcoholic sounds to me a little unnecessarily judgemental and again, bitter about potentially losing a friend. But these attributes, in a vacuum, do not make your friend's partner a bad person (although I will admit to judging people based on their views about Brexit as well ).

Anyway as you say your friend is a grown woman and unless you think her new partner is actually manipulating her in some way I think you should be happy that she is happy, although you can of course be honest about the fact that you're sad you might not spend as much time together doing things together that you obviously both previously enjoyed.

That said although choosing to remove oneself from regular substance use and psychedelic culture is not necessarily a step backwards, I would argue that choosing not to speak out against prohibition in all it's forms, IS a step backwards - a sign of ignorance at best, or just moral weakness at worst.

Again, to give your friend's partner the benefit of the doubt, perhaps it is just not something he has needed to think about before, and he is just ignorant about the topic. Your friend on the other hand, by the sounds of it, has thought about it a lot, so if she is passively allowing prohibitionist myths and harmful rhetoric to go unchallenged, or even actively agreeing with them... then that would lose me some respect for her.

However if you go through life hoping people will change you're just setting yourself up for disappointment, you still need to accept her for who she is... but perhaps you are not as similar as you thought you were.

 

[FreyaHuasca]

Thank so much for that response!

I also am extremely curious what his reasons are but he will not talk about it. His response so far as been "I've never done it and never will". Typical cultural conditioning I'd say. She doesn't seem to push him on it - I think she is scared of losing him as she was single for so long before he came along.

Sorry for the character assassination "brexiteer" comment - was simply trying to paint a picture of what he is like. He's actually quite cool in many ways - I was actually starting to like the fella!

What I mean in taking a huge step back is that she seems to be getting drunk far too often for comfort with her new bloke - we all can surely agree that is not a good thing. She is also getting wrapped up in gossip bullshit at work, so her all round vibe is going downhill quickly. It's not nice to watch. If she said she wanted to stop taking substances because she had gained all the lessons she needed, fair enough. But that couldn't be further from the truth.

Bottom line - he is ignorant/unwilling and she is going down with his sinking ship, and I can only sit by and watch it happen.

I have already set myself up for disappointment. I had all these utopian plans of going on big country camping tripping trips with them and other "conscious couples" but he has put that to rest :-(

Oh, also another interesting point is that I am getting married next year and there most certainly will be substances at my hippy dippy pagan party wedding! Will my best friend (and maid of honour)'s significant other be absent?!

 

[Mona Lisa]

Perhaps she regards him as a stabilizing, wholesome influence.

 

[Vastness]

What I mean in taking a huge step back is that she seems to be getting drunk far too often for comfort with her new bloke - we all can surely agree that is not a good thing.

On the contrary - "too often for comfort" is subjective. While those of us with an inherent preference for psychedelics as our chosen intoxicant like to deride alcohol as a poisonous and destructive substance with precious few, if any, real benefits - I have had arguments presented to me by quite rational friends who like to drink more than I do that I find somewhat hard to refute. If you take alcohol out of the context of today's society and all associated violence, binge drinking, drowning of sorrows type of (ab)use, it's possible to see it as a fairly fun, reliable, social lubricant and "easy" drug with a long and varied history of use among in a huge range of different cultures.

My own personal views would be that the classical psychedelics have more inherent value, but I think it's important not to judge people for their preference of intoxicant (I use the term "intoxicant" somewhat deliberately here just to blur the lines - because every entheogen I can think of is also an intoxicant). Pursuit of something purely hedonistic rather than a spiritual experience is still an acceptable reason to imbibe something.

She is also getting wrapped up in gossip bullshit at work, so her all round vibe is going downhill quickly. It's not nice to watch. If she said she wanted to stop taking substances because she had gained all the lessons she needed, fair enough. But that couldn't be further from the truth.

Respectfully, this is somewhat vague and gossipy in itself - it's not clear that she's necessarily doing anything wrong from this description, and she also doesn't have any obligation to justify her decisions about substances to you.


Just to clarify, of course none of us can really judge your situation with your friend better than you because none of us are actually experiencing it, and I don't mean to imply that I (or anyone else) definitely does know better - I just feel the need to play devil's advocate here somewhat. To be perfectly honest I also find it hard to entirely relate to people who are staunchly anti-drugs, and not only anti-drugs but unwilling to discuss it, as I think people should be challenged on views they hold which may be unintentionally counterproductive to wider society... but there's a fine line to be walked sometimes between standing up for what you believe in and just alienating people. Also, you don't know what people have been through, maybe it's an area in which he struggles to be rational because of a traumatic experience in his past. As long as he isn't trying to change anyone else's behaviour, and as long as he isn't actually manipulating your friend in any way, they are both free to make their own decisions, and it is a shame if this drives you apart but that's just the reality of life sometimes.

I will say again though, if he is actively prohibitionist and this goes unchallenged - then, assuming you don't live somewhere with obscenely harsh drug laws - I think that it is just sad that she doesn't consider this issue important enough to challenge. But, that is surprisingly and disappointingly common even among the drug using community at large. As long as the status quo doesn't directly affect their lives, why put your neck out to try to change people's minds eh? 8) But, I haven't read anything in your posts to indicate that this is definitely the case.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

Man. I've had so many friends turn their backs on psychedelics over the years. Many don't mean it indefinitely. I'm planning to be away from there for a few years myself but I never plan to say goodbye forever. Sometimes parts of your life change.

It does sound like she's changing herself for the guy. But if that's what she wants, who are you to question it? Is he otherwise a dick? Do you think her choice in this man is a character flaw in her you want to fix?