I am mostly a solitary user. At first, I started smoking pot socially. By the time, I was already a mild social phobic, drugs didn't turn me into a silent person - it was rather a rough welcome from older teenagers when I entered high school. I would smoke weed between classes often and it just gave me more stress. A few years later, I did Ecstasy and amphetamines 'socially', at clubs with friends. That was great, during the comedown, we would just hang out together and I would feel better. Alone, the comedown was hard and depressive.
MDPVagrant said:
Oh yeah... is it really solitary if a person's posting on forums/chatting via IM etc. while doing it? Good question, huh... they're still socializing at least to the extent that talking on the phone would be. Hard to know where to draw the line when it comes to that kinda thing. IMO it's NOT solitary if there's socializing going on, even if it's not 'in person'. Maybe not as rewarding, but it's not isolating either.
You have a point there. Two years ago, I started using amps 'alone', to play a multiplayer video game, which was so fun, both because my skills were awesome and of the socialization with other players. I felt linked to others. At the time, I was still smoking pot with at least one friend and my brother. Summer 2005, I became interested by psychedelics and didn't try to hide it. That messed my social life quite a bit, lost mostly all of friends, at least for months - I am back hanging with them from time to time now. Alcohol is okay, cigarettes are okay, pot is okay, but psychedelics, uh oh, common people around here rejected me for using those. I can't say I became a solitary user even then, because I made friend with a girl in the game I was playing. It went to a point we were both in love with each other, we were the best friends of the online social world. My brother is also a solitary user of pot and find a lot of pleasure to play online games. In the end, this study is a bit misleading because it has a confined definition of socialization.
This last year, I started hanging out with real life friends again. Psychedelics has taught me one good thing and it is that the sole presence of people, these masses of bacteria if I can say it like that, has beneficial effects on people, just like when you feel the sun on your skin, it's feels so good! That is why now, even if I am often silent, I like to be around some people. I try to say interesting things, even if I don't care, just to feel linked.