B9
Bluelight Crew
^ Have you found it difficult to "reintergrate into normal society" in your local community Cornishman - I am assuming that most people knew you were a drug addict.
-
🇬🇧 🇸🇪 🇿🇦 🇮🇪 🇬🇭 🇩🇪 🇪🇺
European & African
Drug Discussion
Welcome Guest!
Posting Rules Bluelight Rules -
EADD Moderators: Pissed_and_messed | Shinji Ikari
The Cult of Rehabs
- Thread starter charlie clean
- Start date
Cornishman
Bluelighter
I've found alot of people treat me differently.
They don't believe things I say and I've been made to feel like an outsider on many occasions.
Thinking about it, I wish I was never honest about my problems.
They don't believe things I say and I've been made to feel like an outsider on many occasions.
Thinking about it, I wish I was never honest about my problems.
brimz
Bluelighter
Honesty has caused me untold greif , i definatley would have played things differently in that respect, not so much honesty but trying to be open about my problems in the hope that folk would understand .
B9
Bluelight Crew
You have my sympathy for what that's worth - such is the price we pay.
Honesty rarely pays unless it's something you'd never want to conceal in the first place, which generally makes it boasting.
Yup the dishonest stereotypical junky is all there is to i
t & should you present differently you are a con artist.
Cornishman
Bluelighter
I had my own brother questioning if I'd nick his TV should he let me stay with him.
I said 'yeah, cause that's what I do. You should be genuinely worried'. 8)
He did apologize afterwards, but still....
I said 'yeah, cause that's what I do. You should be genuinely worried'. 8)
He did apologize afterwards, but still....
JayRiddley2
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2011
- Messages
- 93
I remember having to do something similar to you (as you did to the girl) matey... if she was going to OD, she would have. You can't stop people from OD'ing but I know what you mean you can kind of break people out of a major gouch that looks like it could be the beginnings of an OD.
In my treatment I have been told about the 5 steps of addiction. The first is basically denial (everybody being able to see that you have a problem but you being unaware of it) which seems to be what the treatment you were going through was about. Clearly highlighting why your problem was a problem and to make sure you totally understand why the behaviour is wrong.
Also, CbRoXiDe the idea that you don't shower and shave daily and take proper care of yourself is less of an issue related to addiction and more of a sign of depression. An addict who is happy in life (which is a bit of a rarity) will keep themselves groomed correctly. I'm sure some people will disagree with me on that but I talk from experience. I always kept myself well groomed for the first 4+ years of my addiction, it was only when I became depressed that I stopped taking care of myself as well as I should (i.e showing daily, 3 meals a day, shaving, etc)
I am truly enjoying my treatment and it has given me such stability.
To the rest of you who aren't aware of my treatment... I'm basically on a maintenance prescription of 180mg of injectable morphine per day (3 ampoules of 60mg - 30mg/ml in 2ml amps). However, this is not a permanent thing (or at least I don't want it to be). It is a means to an end. In the meantime, I have regular appointments with the doctor to discuss how it is going, to check that I am managing my injections OK and not causing too much harm to my body, etc and also have weekly appointments with a psychologist to deal with the issues that drew me to addiction of which there is many all varying in seriousness. In my eyes, the worst of them is being raped/sexually abused at the age of 12 by an 18/19 year old. I was kept there by him and two of his friends of a similar age. I never told anyone about this until I told my long term girlfriend about 9-12months ago. I couldn't bare to tell my parents and had to get my girlfriend to tell the story. Still to this day, I am unable to discuss it with my parents due to the shame that I feel by it. For years it caused total confusion in my sexuality and I had always wondered if I was gay. I realise now that I'm not due to having many sexual relations with women and being totally unattracted to men and also thanks to two psychologists helping me with the issue (the first I saw on my own, the second and current is attached to my private addiction clinic). Then of course there is the opposite end of the spectrum which is simply having memories of arguments at home (which almost every child will have, unless they came from a very strange family where the parents NEVER argued.)
To alot of people, being prescribed that amount of morphine may not seem like a great thing but what you have to remember is, if I was spending £60+/day on street heroin then I was getting around 1gram a day which even about 20% purity is 200mg of heroin which if injected is roughly equal to between 400mg and 600mg of morphine. There is also the benefit that I am getting a totally sterile solution and the harm reduction benefits of that is quite obvious!
Not only that but until I tackle the issues that cause me to require a crutch to get through my days, I will continue to use whether legally or illegally.
In my opinion, this is the reason why rehab fails for most people. They tackle the issue in the wrong way... force you to remove all the drugs from your system and then try to tell you why it was wrong. Instead they should try to figure out your specific issues and make it clear to you why the life of an addict is not normal. They need to make it clear that having a stable life (i.e through maintenance prescriptions) is better for you as it makes you realise the importance of relationships, careers, family, friends, etc and how all of that can be much better than any drug. Then finally get the drugs out of your system. However, I am not an expert. I just feel so confident in my treatment and I have total confidence that I will be opiate free before the second half of the new year.
JayRiddley2
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2011
- Messages
- 93
That is the common opinion of addiction... even family members will have this opinion as that is what society makes people believe. Not all addicts behave in that way, but many do and I must be honest and say at the height of my addiction I have stolen money from my parents but I would never steal objects especially not if they had sentimental value but a some people's addictions can take over so much that they are not the same person and the line between good and bad completely disappears.
blauwelichten
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2009
- Messages
- 775
Ive been through a detox, I can only speak from experience. Detoxing is usually the step before rehab.
It was a group of people who came together week and included all different forms of therapy you were taught techniques for how to cope with cravings, they take you through the mental process of using drugs and withdrawing from drugs and they teach you how to cope with that, NLP type therapy, which is actually effective.
Its an honesty session, if youre there you should want to give up or there is no point being there.
It didnt work completely for me, but it definitely had an effect on my ability to see past a wall that seemed impossible to break down at the time, people were there for lots of different reasons and were addicted to lots of different substances and it was quite a leveller. I personally found a lot of benefit in it.
It was a group of people who came together week and included all different forms of therapy you were taught techniques for how to cope with cravings, they take you through the mental process of using drugs and withdrawing from drugs and they teach you how to cope with that, NLP type therapy, which is actually effective.
Its an honesty session, if youre there you should want to give up or there is no point being there.
It didnt work completely for me, but it definitely had an effect on my ability to see past a wall that seemed impossible to break down at the time, people were there for lots of different reasons and were addicted to lots of different substances and it was quite a leveller. I personally found a lot of benefit in it.
Reflections (if it looks like a cut & paste, it probably is!)
Some observations on this & related topics, for consideration & reflection, in a spirit intended:
Although ‘Addiction’ is now more frequently seen in medical (that is, as a disease) rather than in moral terms, its previous conception as a sin, vice or weakness can still consciously and unconsciously inform people’s thinking. Recognising that it is actually a minority of the total number of people taking drugs who ever get into serious difficulties with that use, and of those who do, a minority who then go on to access treatment/services (RSA, 2007), it is often they who inform many widely held common sense assumptions about the kind of person who uses (certain) substances and their reasons for doing so. These are often inherently negative and suppose the vast majority of drug users to be psychologically fragile, vulnerable, over-sensitive, unhappy, self-destructive, weak, disadvantaged and misinformed individuals - slaves to an unscrupulous dealer, an illness or a particular personality type. These stereotypical assumptions are often largely unexamined - by drug users (“it’s not the junk that makes you…lie” to paraphrase Trocchi) as much as by (so called) professionals - and are almost wholly unhelpful.
These assumptions inform attitudes - other people ‘take’ or ‘abuse’ or ‘misuse’ drugs, while ‘we’ take our medicine, have a pick-me-up or a tonic, pop a pill or take our anti-depressants, are gasping for a drink or a cuppa, need a little line on a Friday night, have sugar in our tea, munch on chocolate or have a joint. Similarly, alcoholics, along with others labelled addicts, are always ‘one of them’, never ‘one of us’. Communities are encouraged to see users, and dealers, as other, as threats from outside, as opposed to people ‘just like them’ – their brothers, sisters, friends, children, neighbours, colleagues and acquaintances. Within the context of a war on drugs and media moral panics, labels and stereotypes are easily internalised, further undermining and disempowering people who may already be marginalised. As with the idea of the scheming junkie, behaviour which could be seen as an entirely ‘appropriate’ response to a situation (telling lies, stealing) is characterised as a drug created pathology, leaving people little scope to be understood – by either themselves or others.
Exploring the question ‘why do people use alcohol?’ in a recent drug & alcohol awareness training session for counsellors volunteering to work in treatment services, elicited the following:
• to get drunk/change state of mind
• because they like it
• to relax
• to forget/as a means of escape
• to lose inhibitions/to be free of responsibilities
• to socialize
• to feel happy
• for confidence
• habit
• because it’s a social lubricant
• because of a chemical dependency
Whereas, a week later, when asked the same question about ‘why do people use drugs’, the responses included –
• to have fun
• as a result of peer pressure
• to manage emotional pain
• to manage physical pain
• curiosity
• to avoid withdrawals and/or because dependent
• to self-medicate.
This very different response clearly highlights the degree to which drug use is understood in far more negatively orientated terms than (the more socially accepted) use of alcohol. When such biases are pointed out it is not unusual for people to cite the common-sense tautology of ‘drug use is worse than alcohol use because drugs are illegal, and drugs are illegal because drugs are bad’ (what David Nutt called “the illegality logic loop” in his speech at Kings College in 2009), a justification which fails to take into account the actual basis of the historical development of drug laws – both in this country and internationally – which has far more to do with the development of the medical profession, cultural imperialism, sexism, racism and class bias, than it does to health, safety, morality or science.
Arguably, an alternative perspective, in which drug use doesn’t make someone mad or bad, a rebel or a slave but simply human, might be considerably less counter-productive. Such a shift in emphasis might allow a healthier relationship to drug use to develop, based on psychological integration not separation. The substance using part of the self needs to be understood not condemned. Guilt and shame are more likely to be part of the problem not any solution. If separate (particularly when framed as a ‘vice’ or ‘sin’), actions arising from that part of the self will be more likely to be operating outside of conscious awareness and will be more dysfunctional as a result (note alcohol’s role for some people as permission giver for forbidden behaviours, feelings or parts of the self: e.g., the person who never becomes angry, or never risks intimacy, or won’t allow themselves to be happy or sad or scared or to take – other - drugs or engage in certain sexual behaviours, unless drunk). Any experience the human being identifies as pleasurable has to be ‘respected’ if it is to be sustained – the “more!” impulse of an individual’s own internal ‘greedy bastard’, with its echo in the commodity fetishism of the age, are a toxic combination for the pleasure principle – and can end up turning any pleasure into pain.
For me, experiential confirmation of the drug, set and setting model (Zinberg, Weil, et al), in which psychological, social and environmental factors play an equal role to the pharmacological profile of a substance in determining the actual “experience” of any given drug came from delivering groups on the Drug Treatment Testing Order (DTTO) programmes (2002-2005). These showed the extent to which popular stereotypes about heroin use had been internalised, often prior to ever actually using the drug, and were then played out by some users themselves, particularly in situations in which social exclusion, trauma and/or the absence of any alternative narrative were also factors. Indeed, this might be called the "shadow side" of the placebo effect - the ‘nocebo’, as it is sometimes called. Or a self-fulfilling prophesy to you and me. I would strongly argue that the real challenge of treatment and/or training needs to be to provide people with some kind of meaningful framework with which to actually understand behaviour, rather than the mad and bad, weak and wicked orthodoxy which currently exists. I would also suggest that the way mainstream drug information, training and treatment is often framed (with the self divided and normal human need transformed into deviant impulse), can and does contribute to the very problems trying to be addressed.
The history of prohibition clearly demonstrates the counter-productive effect of criminalizing those using a substance, rather than regulating the supply of that substance. The US Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 actually diverted users from smoking opium to more harmful methods of use (Davenport, 2002). The Home Office’s attempts to increase penalties for cannabis use in UK prisons in the early 1990s resulted in a well documented increase in heroin use (because opiates leave the body much more quickly than cannabinoids, they are harder to detect in urine). Similarly, the exaggerated media coverage of the dangers of ecstasy (following the death of Leah Betts) led to an increase in the recreational use of cocaine and crack. And while the current media panic about skunk might lead to a reduction in cannabis use because of the perceived dangers, use of other drugs - including alcohol – is likely to increase proportionately. The current street prices of all the Class A drugs would also seem to indicate that current approaches need to be reviewed. Prohibition has delivered the opposite of what it claims - “the safety of (our) children, communities, society” - and has instead not only waged war against those very children, communities and society but has also created drug availability without relevant, accurate and useful information, a situation in which everyone is more at risk. Consequently, this necessitates the delivery of drug treatment that is able to step outside the dominant hegemony of what Capra (1983) described as the Cartesian-Christian-Eurocentric paradigm, because alternative historical and cultural narratives will equip services with a wider range of useful ‘tools’ to use in their work with people who use drugs. In Synthetic Panic (1999), Philip Jenkins points out that; “None of the regulating agencies accepts that a drug should have as its primary goal the elevation of mood, the giving of pleasure, the enhancement of sexual feeling or the refining of consciousness, at least for normally functioning people (as opposed to the clinically depressed).if none of these features is accepted as desirable or even tolerable, then the slightest evidence of harm automatically outweighs the (supposedly nonexistent) benefits of a given chemical, and it falls under the legal taboo as stringent as that imposed by any religion”. And one of the consequences of this taboo is that it renders virtually invisible the role drugs have actually played in the development of human culture (socially, musically, artistically, spiritually, in design, science, economics) throughout history – as evidenced by substances as diverse as opium, cannabis, sugar, tobacco, chocolate, tea, coffee, alcohol, LSD, ecstasy and cocaine, all of which contributes further to contaminating (mind) set and setting, defining influences on the use of any drug.
‘How does alcohol/cocaine/heroin/cannabis affect this person?’ is actually the ‘wrong’ question – a better one would be: ‘how does this person affect the (respective) substance?
Because while the BASIC PHYSIOLOGICAL effects of a substance can be predicted (a depressant drug will stimulate the CNS, a depressant drug will depress the CNS), there are numerous possible variables that can and do affect the actual experience of that drug.
In addition to dose and how the drug is taken, research in the 1960s by Leary, et al conclusively established that SET and SETTING influence what happens.
SET refers to the personality, mood, past experiences, motivation, awareness, expectations, attitudes, beliefs, (drug) knowledge and imagination of the person.
SETTING refers to the conditions of use, including the physical, social and emotional environment, and the SET of other people present.
The substance + the person + time/place/other people = The Experience
(DRUG) (SET) (SETTING)
Dr. Andrew Weil has noted that: “the combined effects (of set & setting) can easily overshadow the pharmacological effects of a drug as stated in the medical text. One can arrange set and setting so that a dose of amphetamine will produce sedation or a dose of a depressant, stimulation.”
The use of alcohol in western culture clearly demonstrates the huge influence set & setting has on the drug experience, evident in the different drinking behaviours of the Northern and Southern European countries, as much as in the way a depressant drug plays such a vital role in stimulating celebrations and festivals. Equally, the relentlessly promoted, celebratory and glamorous images associated with alcohol via advertising contribute massively to a widespread public misunderstanding of its ‘true’ nature as a substance and the real risks associated with it. And yet it remains the only sanctioned means of altering consciousness. The message appears clear: accept this as your means of transcendence and forgo all other substances – for a whole range of reasons an unpalatable situation to a great many people the world over (for a range of cultural, spiritual, ideological, political, psychological, emotional or other reasons).
The meanings associated with the use of different substances are socially constructed and change over time and between cultures. What people hear and read about a drug will obviously influence their expectations, and therefore their actual experience. This “reverse placebo effect” – the ‘nocebo’ - or what Karl Jensen (2001) calls “the psychology of negative drug effects reporting”, is apparent in many commonly believed drug ‘myths’, including the gateway theory of cannabis use (start on cannabis and inevitably end up using heroin), the causal link between skunk cannabis and paranoid schizophrenia, the “one rock and you’re hooked” idea of crack use, LSD induced “destruction of brain cells”, ‘hair of the dog’ as remedy for a hangover or that drug use itself is an uncontrollable deviant madness.
The one apparently inevitable aspect of any drug use, however, is that what goes up must come down. There is a holistic pattern (or gestalt) to the drug experience, and it appears to consist of: baseline into ascent into a euphoric high, then a plateau stage (of variable duration defined by the individual’s mindset and the setting in which the behaviour is taking place) into descent, to baseline, to the come down (below the original starting point) and then a gradual return to baseline. These appear to be the definitive, non-negotiable aspects of the drug experience. Problems are likely to arise if the use of one substance leads to the repeated use of others to take the ‘edge off’ or otherwise alleviate the experience of any comedown, crash or hangover – such patterns of drug use will usually deliver the very opposite of the relief the person is actually seeking.
All cultures which use psycho-active substances appear to incorporate rules and rituals to govern their relationship with those plants identified as sacred - to protect individuals and groups from the more negative effects by establishing a framework of order and ‘understanding’ around their use - to utilise them rather than try to unmake them through legislation and criminalisation. These safeguards can still be seen in some African and South American communities today and is, surely, a saner approach to the existence of the human being’s desire to transcend the limitations of ordinary ego-based awareness, what Siegal (2005) identifies as sentient life’s “4th Drive” after hunger, thirst and sex, than the US/Monotheistic religion-inspired ‘war on drugs’ (actually a ‘war on plants’). We therefore need to urgently recognise that many ‘drug related problems’ actually arise from, and are consequences of, prohibition rather than the result of the substance itself, and appreciate that attitudes to drugs and to drug use are not fixed, changing over time and between cultures. The accusation that drugs are an “escape from reality” is, as Andrew Weil (among others) has noted, actually a heavily biased statement about consciousness change in which “reality” is equated with culturally acceptable, ego-dominated consciousness. Different experiences of “reality” (in which the paradox and duality at the heart of life are entirely natural as opposed to contradictory, or where an oceanic sense of bliss feels as vivid as the ego’s more usual state of isolated anxiety) can provide useful perspectives that can be “brought back into this space and learnt from” (McKenna, 1991).
And when an individual gets to the point that they don't want to use a substance anymore, then they probably won't. The resolution of ambivalence, of mixed feelings, of being in two minds, is what results in being able to achieve sustained abstinence from any given substance. But while abstinence from a specific substance is achievable, abstinence from altered states is not. Need needs meeting.
Some observations on this & related topics, for consideration & reflection, in a spirit intended:
Although ‘Addiction’ is now more frequently seen in medical (that is, as a disease) rather than in moral terms, its previous conception as a sin, vice or weakness can still consciously and unconsciously inform people’s thinking. Recognising that it is actually a minority of the total number of people taking drugs who ever get into serious difficulties with that use, and of those who do, a minority who then go on to access treatment/services (RSA, 2007), it is often they who inform many widely held common sense assumptions about the kind of person who uses (certain) substances and their reasons for doing so. These are often inherently negative and suppose the vast majority of drug users to be psychologically fragile, vulnerable, over-sensitive, unhappy, self-destructive, weak, disadvantaged and misinformed individuals - slaves to an unscrupulous dealer, an illness or a particular personality type. These stereotypical assumptions are often largely unexamined - by drug users (“it’s not the junk that makes you…lie” to paraphrase Trocchi) as much as by (so called) professionals - and are almost wholly unhelpful.
These assumptions inform attitudes - other people ‘take’ or ‘abuse’ or ‘misuse’ drugs, while ‘we’ take our medicine, have a pick-me-up or a tonic, pop a pill or take our anti-depressants, are gasping for a drink or a cuppa, need a little line on a Friday night, have sugar in our tea, munch on chocolate or have a joint. Similarly, alcoholics, along with others labelled addicts, are always ‘one of them’, never ‘one of us’. Communities are encouraged to see users, and dealers, as other, as threats from outside, as opposed to people ‘just like them’ – their brothers, sisters, friends, children, neighbours, colleagues and acquaintances. Within the context of a war on drugs and media moral panics, labels and stereotypes are easily internalised, further undermining and disempowering people who may already be marginalised. As with the idea of the scheming junkie, behaviour which could be seen as an entirely ‘appropriate’ response to a situation (telling lies, stealing) is characterised as a drug created pathology, leaving people little scope to be understood – by either themselves or others.
Exploring the question ‘why do people use alcohol?’ in a recent drug & alcohol awareness training session for counsellors volunteering to work in treatment services, elicited the following:
• to get drunk/change state of mind
• because they like it
• to relax
• to forget/as a means of escape
• to lose inhibitions/to be free of responsibilities
• to socialize
• to feel happy
• for confidence
• habit
• because it’s a social lubricant
• because of a chemical dependency
Whereas, a week later, when asked the same question about ‘why do people use drugs’, the responses included –
• to have fun
• as a result of peer pressure
• to manage emotional pain
• to manage physical pain
• curiosity
• to avoid withdrawals and/or because dependent
• to self-medicate.
This very different response clearly highlights the degree to which drug use is understood in far more negatively orientated terms than (the more socially accepted) use of alcohol. When such biases are pointed out it is not unusual for people to cite the common-sense tautology of ‘drug use is worse than alcohol use because drugs are illegal, and drugs are illegal because drugs are bad’ (what David Nutt called “the illegality logic loop” in his speech at Kings College in 2009), a justification which fails to take into account the actual basis of the historical development of drug laws – both in this country and internationally – which has far more to do with the development of the medical profession, cultural imperialism, sexism, racism and class bias, than it does to health, safety, morality or science.
Arguably, an alternative perspective, in which drug use doesn’t make someone mad or bad, a rebel or a slave but simply human, might be considerably less counter-productive. Such a shift in emphasis might allow a healthier relationship to drug use to develop, based on psychological integration not separation. The substance using part of the self needs to be understood not condemned. Guilt and shame are more likely to be part of the problem not any solution. If separate (particularly when framed as a ‘vice’ or ‘sin’), actions arising from that part of the self will be more likely to be operating outside of conscious awareness and will be more dysfunctional as a result (note alcohol’s role for some people as permission giver for forbidden behaviours, feelings or parts of the self: e.g., the person who never becomes angry, or never risks intimacy, or won’t allow themselves to be happy or sad or scared or to take – other - drugs or engage in certain sexual behaviours, unless drunk). Any experience the human being identifies as pleasurable has to be ‘respected’ if it is to be sustained – the “more!” impulse of an individual’s own internal ‘greedy bastard’, with its echo in the commodity fetishism of the age, are a toxic combination for the pleasure principle – and can end up turning any pleasure into pain.
For me, experiential confirmation of the drug, set and setting model (Zinberg, Weil, et al), in which psychological, social and environmental factors play an equal role to the pharmacological profile of a substance in determining the actual “experience” of any given drug came from delivering groups on the Drug Treatment Testing Order (DTTO) programmes (2002-2005). These showed the extent to which popular stereotypes about heroin use had been internalised, often prior to ever actually using the drug, and were then played out by some users themselves, particularly in situations in which social exclusion, trauma and/or the absence of any alternative narrative were also factors. Indeed, this might be called the "shadow side" of the placebo effect - the ‘nocebo’, as it is sometimes called. Or a self-fulfilling prophesy to you and me. I would strongly argue that the real challenge of treatment and/or training needs to be to provide people with some kind of meaningful framework with which to actually understand behaviour, rather than the mad and bad, weak and wicked orthodoxy which currently exists. I would also suggest that the way mainstream drug information, training and treatment is often framed (with the self divided and normal human need transformed into deviant impulse), can and does contribute to the very problems trying to be addressed.
The history of prohibition clearly demonstrates the counter-productive effect of criminalizing those using a substance, rather than regulating the supply of that substance. The US Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 actually diverted users from smoking opium to more harmful methods of use (Davenport, 2002). The Home Office’s attempts to increase penalties for cannabis use in UK prisons in the early 1990s resulted in a well documented increase in heroin use (because opiates leave the body much more quickly than cannabinoids, they are harder to detect in urine). Similarly, the exaggerated media coverage of the dangers of ecstasy (following the death of Leah Betts) led to an increase in the recreational use of cocaine and crack. And while the current media panic about skunk might lead to a reduction in cannabis use because of the perceived dangers, use of other drugs - including alcohol – is likely to increase proportionately. The current street prices of all the Class A drugs would also seem to indicate that current approaches need to be reviewed. Prohibition has delivered the opposite of what it claims - “the safety of (our) children, communities, society” - and has instead not only waged war against those very children, communities and society but has also created drug availability without relevant, accurate and useful information, a situation in which everyone is more at risk. Consequently, this necessitates the delivery of drug treatment that is able to step outside the dominant hegemony of what Capra (1983) described as the Cartesian-Christian-Eurocentric paradigm, because alternative historical and cultural narratives will equip services with a wider range of useful ‘tools’ to use in their work with people who use drugs. In Synthetic Panic (1999), Philip Jenkins points out that; “None of the regulating agencies accepts that a drug should have as its primary goal the elevation of mood, the giving of pleasure, the enhancement of sexual feeling or the refining of consciousness, at least for normally functioning people (as opposed to the clinically depressed).if none of these features is accepted as desirable or even tolerable, then the slightest evidence of harm automatically outweighs the (supposedly nonexistent) benefits of a given chemical, and it falls under the legal taboo as stringent as that imposed by any religion”. And one of the consequences of this taboo is that it renders virtually invisible the role drugs have actually played in the development of human culture (socially, musically, artistically, spiritually, in design, science, economics) throughout history – as evidenced by substances as diverse as opium, cannabis, sugar, tobacco, chocolate, tea, coffee, alcohol, LSD, ecstasy and cocaine, all of which contributes further to contaminating (mind) set and setting, defining influences on the use of any drug.
‘How does alcohol/cocaine/heroin/cannabis affect this person?’ is actually the ‘wrong’ question – a better one would be: ‘how does this person affect the (respective) substance?
Because while the BASIC PHYSIOLOGICAL effects of a substance can be predicted (a depressant drug will stimulate the CNS, a depressant drug will depress the CNS), there are numerous possible variables that can and do affect the actual experience of that drug.
In addition to dose and how the drug is taken, research in the 1960s by Leary, et al conclusively established that SET and SETTING influence what happens.
SET refers to the personality, mood, past experiences, motivation, awareness, expectations, attitudes, beliefs, (drug) knowledge and imagination of the person.
SETTING refers to the conditions of use, including the physical, social and emotional environment, and the SET of other people present.
The substance + the person + time/place/other people = The Experience
(DRUG) (SET) (SETTING)
Dr. Andrew Weil has noted that: “the combined effects (of set & setting) can easily overshadow the pharmacological effects of a drug as stated in the medical text. One can arrange set and setting so that a dose of amphetamine will produce sedation or a dose of a depressant, stimulation.”
The use of alcohol in western culture clearly demonstrates the huge influence set & setting has on the drug experience, evident in the different drinking behaviours of the Northern and Southern European countries, as much as in the way a depressant drug plays such a vital role in stimulating celebrations and festivals. Equally, the relentlessly promoted, celebratory and glamorous images associated with alcohol via advertising contribute massively to a widespread public misunderstanding of its ‘true’ nature as a substance and the real risks associated with it. And yet it remains the only sanctioned means of altering consciousness. The message appears clear: accept this as your means of transcendence and forgo all other substances – for a whole range of reasons an unpalatable situation to a great many people the world over (for a range of cultural, spiritual, ideological, political, psychological, emotional or other reasons).
The meanings associated with the use of different substances are socially constructed and change over time and between cultures. What people hear and read about a drug will obviously influence their expectations, and therefore their actual experience. This “reverse placebo effect” – the ‘nocebo’ - or what Karl Jensen (2001) calls “the psychology of negative drug effects reporting”, is apparent in many commonly believed drug ‘myths’, including the gateway theory of cannabis use (start on cannabis and inevitably end up using heroin), the causal link between skunk cannabis and paranoid schizophrenia, the “one rock and you’re hooked” idea of crack use, LSD induced “destruction of brain cells”, ‘hair of the dog’ as remedy for a hangover or that drug use itself is an uncontrollable deviant madness.
The one apparently inevitable aspect of any drug use, however, is that what goes up must come down. There is a holistic pattern (or gestalt) to the drug experience, and it appears to consist of: baseline into ascent into a euphoric high, then a plateau stage (of variable duration defined by the individual’s mindset and the setting in which the behaviour is taking place) into descent, to baseline, to the come down (below the original starting point) and then a gradual return to baseline. These appear to be the definitive, non-negotiable aspects of the drug experience. Problems are likely to arise if the use of one substance leads to the repeated use of others to take the ‘edge off’ or otherwise alleviate the experience of any comedown, crash or hangover – such patterns of drug use will usually deliver the very opposite of the relief the person is actually seeking.
All cultures which use psycho-active substances appear to incorporate rules and rituals to govern their relationship with those plants identified as sacred - to protect individuals and groups from the more negative effects by establishing a framework of order and ‘understanding’ around their use - to utilise them rather than try to unmake them through legislation and criminalisation. These safeguards can still be seen in some African and South American communities today and is, surely, a saner approach to the existence of the human being’s desire to transcend the limitations of ordinary ego-based awareness, what Siegal (2005) identifies as sentient life’s “4th Drive” after hunger, thirst and sex, than the US/Monotheistic religion-inspired ‘war on drugs’ (actually a ‘war on plants’). We therefore need to urgently recognise that many ‘drug related problems’ actually arise from, and are consequences of, prohibition rather than the result of the substance itself, and appreciate that attitudes to drugs and to drug use are not fixed, changing over time and between cultures. The accusation that drugs are an “escape from reality” is, as Andrew Weil (among others) has noted, actually a heavily biased statement about consciousness change in which “reality” is equated with culturally acceptable, ego-dominated consciousness. Different experiences of “reality” (in which the paradox and duality at the heart of life are entirely natural as opposed to contradictory, or where an oceanic sense of bliss feels as vivid as the ego’s more usual state of isolated anxiety) can provide useful perspectives that can be “brought back into this space and learnt from” (McKenna, 1991).
And when an individual gets to the point that they don't want to use a substance anymore, then they probably won't. The resolution of ambivalence, of mixed feelings, of being in two minds, is what results in being able to achieve sustained abstinence from any given substance. But while abstinence from a specific substance is achievable, abstinence from altered states is not. Need needs meeting.
charlie clean
Bluelighter
Not for the tldr crowd but the best post I've seen on here since I joined. Is it from a doctoral thesis or something similar? I'm seriously impressed.
Welcome, d'know. It's good to have you.
Welcome, d'know. It's good to have you.
brimz
Bluelighter
Welcome d'know , i'ma tad sleepy atm
But i've got the jist of your post and its a very intresting read , i'm looking forward to being able to digesting it properly.
Fantastic 1st Post.
Even if its a cut n post , i mean u could of cut n pasted a load of bollox.
But i've got the jist of your post and its a very intresting read , i'm looking forward to being able to digesting it properly.
Fantastic 1st Post.
Even if its a cut n post , i mean u could of cut n pasted a load of bollox.
B9
Bluelight Crew
I thought I'd add to the general applause, well written, profoundly true - is profoundly true truer than normal true ? - Do you have any thoughts upon how to get this message a wider audience?
This is key if progress is to be made & drug addicts & ex addicts not treated as less than sane amoral deviants by wider society.
This is key if progress is to be made & drug addicts & ex addicts not treated as less than sane amoral deviants by wider society.
Thnx for kind words - no doctoral thesis just an attempt to construct a 'pitch' to summarize the approach underpinning the drug & alcohol awareness training i deliver to counselors before they begin to volunteer their time to a local drug service, inspired by a 10 year experience of working in various parts of (what is laughably called) the drug treatment field - that, plus Einstein's observation that "You can't solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that created it". Dependency is a healthier model than 'addiction' because it is simply a reflection of our humanity - not a moral judgement. If you have drug availability, a stable environment and meaningful rules and rituals you arguably don't have a problem... other than living under an orthodoxy which denies that basic right, of course.
charlie clean
Bluelighter
What a shame most drug treatment providers don't take such a sensible approach but see their role as primarily to protect 'society' from drugs and the inevitably crazed and dangerous drug user.
Do you still work in Drug Treatment, D'Know? Any thoughts on the 'Voluntary Sector'?
Do you still work in Drug Treatment, D'Know? Any thoughts on the 'Voluntary Sector'?