I have to put one more piece of my own perspective in here for the sake of balance: with the exception of weed used a few times per month (usually for sleep but occasionally for recreation with two specific friends) I don't use drugs at all anymore. I just feel better without them. I had a period when I was young where I abused drugs and by that I mean I would compulsively put anything in my body that would catapult me out of reality into another space because I hated my reality. The reason I call it abuse is that both my body and my young mind suffered and I robbed myself of any power I might have had to simply change the reality I was in by my own actions. I credit psychedelics with helping me to change all that but the truth is that I even abused those for a while and I feel lucky to not have ended up where some of my friends did.
We do live in a culture that tells us that we should never hurt, never be uncomfortable, never lonely, never confused and that if we are there should be a pill to fix it. That is dangerous thinking IMO. It comes at us from every side 24/7. Want to have friends and be happy? Buy this beer and get drunk enough to think you are jumping around laughing with a bunch of wholesome looking friends in a Corona ad. Depressed because your life truly is depressing? Take this medication. Want to have a spiritual experience? Pay hundreds of dollars to go to the amazon and drink ayahuasca. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of this but there is something deeply wrong with buying into the notion that the
only way to comfort yourself, enhance your adventures or cure your imbalances is with substances. The utopian world that I imagine
accepts substance use but does not market it. Instead we get a world that both demonizes it and commodifies it.
I've spent a life trying to figure myself out. Where did all this anxiety come from? Why do I buy into it? What are the roots of my unhappiness? It's pretty fascinating to see yourself in relation to culture, how you yourself digest it and how to claim your own vision of how you want to spend your short life on earth. Drugs really aren't the issue--it's your own relationship to them. That can change at different times in your life. Drugs are the ultimate paradox. They can be useful as well as destructive. They can be soul eating or mind expanding. They can be medicine or poison. They are what they are and you are what you are and how will the two interact at any given time? Always worth pondering before sticking one in your body.
Your posts are amazingly eloquent. Thank you so much for posting. I will be re-reading this over and over.
Do I feel like a loser or fuck-up for doinf drugs? - No.
Do many other people have the impression of me being a loser or fuck-up for doing drugs? - Probably.
Do I care? - No.
I like this. As destructive as certain behaviours are, the guilt we feel them is often almost as bad or worse even. Good for you for not putting yourself through that.
Herbavore, I just want to say also that post was beautiful. You hit the nail on the head a million times over. Especially the part about meds that are made ok by the DEA .. alcohol pain pills benzos. And that we are a society of instant gratification and feel entitled to dangerous phsycotorpic drugs (I think I mispelled? Not sure)
I have many demons I'm battling I described in another post asking an opinion. Anyway ad OP asked... no I don't feel bad. You are not a POS or anything else you may think that negative. This world is fucked up exactly like herbavore stated. Again thank you... I feel better in my struggle. . I hope OP does as well. The human body is amazing.. I should be dead but Im here posting.
Life is crazy, so is trying to figure out what's what. Take care of yourself and yes I am a hypocrite saying this I'm sure considering my daily drug use at the the moment but do the best you can and always do as much harm reduction as possible. I am trying this myself at the moment.. I slip some,if you slip don't punish yourself keep going. : )
Take care!
I completely agree. More on this at the bottom.
I've felt a lot of shame about my drug-abuse history up until very recently. I felt like I was always being told that what I was doing meant something was wrong with me; that I was a bad person. It's very conservative-christian where I'm living so I lost a lot of friends that didn't want to associate with someone that had been to rehab. It's like they say though, "If you wanna find out who your real friends are, get yourself a jail-sentence." I feel the "war on drugs" and how policing has evolved to punish people the government is angry with has definitely taken its toll on the user. I guess recognizing this whole thing helped me lose some of that guilt, and a reason to use, which is helping me jump off of suboxone. We do live in a system that publicly shames addicts and non-violent drug offenders. It is ridiculous, but it's not a reflection on drug-abuse itself. That's all about coping. It's natural. We live in a world that makes us uncomfortable and we find substances that change that, so what the hell? We should feel guilty about wanting to feel better? Shame about relief?
This resonates with me incredibly. More on this below.
I can't recall a time I didn't feel like a fuck up loser, it's likely a part of why I started using drugs, I felt my life, my body, 'me', had no value or was worth saving or protecting, I felt i deserved the pain, and yes, later on I felt like a fuck up loser junkie, a disgusting intravenous drug user, the worst kind of low. I didn't think this of any other addicts I knew, my mind made excuses for them and anyone except me. I never thought of my body as a temple, and I still don't.
But I have gotten a lot better in the last couple years, I still use drugs constantly, and I still frequently feel like a junkie loser. But over time I realized that the normality I had chased for so long was not worth having. It may not be good to be a habitual drug user, but what I see in so called normal people, or rather people trying to look normal, disgusts me. I see greed, materialism, selfishness, entitlement, apathy, lacking in compassion or empathy. In a weird way I'm not sure I can respect someone who doesn't dislike themselves at least a little, at least they less frequently try to convince people how superior they are. And now that I stopped chasing normality I am much happier. And I feel like even if I'm far from perfect, I at least try. I give money to charity and people in need even when I have so little myself, I try to show compassion even to people who hate me, I try to be help people. So even if I'm a loser, a fuckup, even a bad person, at least I can feel I cared enough to try. Far more than the 'normal' people I once so wanted to be.
Loved this post. Again, more on this below.
^yeah, we live in an image-driven culture. Even those that claim to be in the counter culture have their own rules and judge those that don't adhere. I used to say that I never could trust anyone that wasn't at least a little bit crazy. Now I'm expanding that and dropping the "little bit" part.
Thank you SO much for the responses wonderful people. I tried to talk to a couple of friends (and my dear fiancee) in real life about this and just got the standard judgement from them. But the thing I have realised is that, even without drugs, 'normal' life has limited appeal for me. I'm financially well off, educated, have a good job and all that. I see people around me focusing so much on their careers (mostly lawyers and bankers - I'm a lawyer (finance) but find it pathetic. I write fiction which I love), house prices, school catchment areas, buying material things, social value, organic diets, etc and it all repulses me on some basic level. I don't find any real meaning or joy in the way I'm supposed to live. And, living that life, I have been through episodes of depression so serious that I'm genuinely surprised to still be alive.
My life has been extremely hard. People that know me not very well would laugh at that. Financially my life has been easy, I've never gone without. I've had the best education, supportive parents (as long as I was doing the things they wanted me to do - best grades in school, best degree, best job, etc). My life has been cushy. On the outside. But the mental illness - depression, anxiety and OCD) has taken me to the lowest circles of hell. I've been to places that people would find difficult to imagine (I'm sure other people on this board have too). Years of my life have gone by just trying to stay afloat and sometimes breaking down so badly that every day was sheer agony. But oh no, I couldn't quit that degree course or that job because I had to succeed. I've tried it 'THEIR' way and it brought me no happiness or meaning.
So now I'm supposed to get married and have kids and work at some job I hate to support my family and talk incessantly about house prices in London, best schools for kids, whether to buy the Audi or the Merc, retirement plans, skiing holidays, etc. All that stuff makes me feel dead inside, even when not depressed. None of it appeals to me and I feel so out of place when I'm with people who are obviously into this kind of life. Just mediocre contentment. I can't buy into it. Don't get me wrong, I find immense beauty in life, normally in art. Sometimes a movie or piece of music will move me so much that I'll think about it for years afterwards.
I had a bit of an epiphany which was that, if I wasn't dysthymic (when I'm nont genuinely severely depressed) I could probably enjoy small talk, etc. When I've taken amps I am happy to talk mindless rubbish for hours because I FEEL GOOD. But if I'm not on drugs those conversations just kill me and I don't know how people can spend so much time indulging in them. There are so many work events (cocktail parties, dinners, etc) which I miss because they are always full of stupid, small talk, conversations I've had a thousand times before. I'm desperate to truly connect to people but it very, very rarely happens. I can usually only connect to books, films and music, all of which give me reason to live.
I'm rambling. In summary I can say that I reject the life I'm expected to live and I'm consequently always searching for answers. I've done voluntary work and that didn't help (I know the point is to help other people, not myself, but I'm just noting it didn't really make a difference), travelled, taken up hobbies, made an effort to expand my social circle, etc, but none of it really made a difference). My girlfriend loves hiking and I go, for her sake, occasionally. We'll get to the top an she'll stand there with this smile on her face, looking at the view (I've seen so many better views many times before) taking deep breaths in and she is so happy. I just want to move on. I'm entirely unmoved. A lot of the time I don't find joy in normal things (with the exception of eating, reading, music, films and some other things) and I don't feel like real life is enough. People say that life is what you make it and I should make changes. But the problem, and the thing they don't understand is, that I'm not complaining about MY life, I'm talking about the nature of life, the nature of existence. There's magic in it and I am more attuned to that than mose, I would dare venture, but the magic is rare. It's still what I live for though. I see the point of life not as the overall life you've lived but the amazing moments you've had, few and far between as they are.
So, is this a good reason to do drugs? No, of course not. And I know they'll make things worse. But maybe being on a rollercoaster at least makes me feel somewhat alive. If I live the perfect, healthy, well adjusted life I'm supposed to live, working towards the things I'm supposed to want, it just makes me feel unexcited and vaguely depressed. The drugs aren't a good answer but they add some intensity and change things up. Plus I feel like I'm doing something I shouldn't do. Before making this post that made me feel terrible. But your responses have made me see things differently.
I'm not saying I'm going to throw myself into a world of regular drug use. I know it will result in disaster. But I don't know if I want to give them up completely and go back to the life I'm supposed to have, a life that is enough for almost everybody it seems, but not for me. And after so many years feeling bad, it's SO nice to feel good sometimes. But I know the more I use, the less good they will make me feel and the worse the bad effects will become. I do have this feeling I won't live very long. I'm surprised I'm alive now.
Sorry, for this very long, probably very boring post. It's cathartic for me. At an age when everybody seems to have their life worked out, I'm still searching for answers, still trying to fit in and be happy with what everybody else is.
I hope some of this make sense.
Edit: I'm done with guilt. It achieves nothing. If I make stupid decisions I will have to live with the effects. I will be punished. That is fine. But feeling guilty about it adds nothing (as long as I'm not hurting others). I'm so fed up of being what people want me to be.
