The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered and it's not what you think........

[Eveleivibe]

Blondin...you and shambles put you points across very eloquently and are obviously very intelligent men. With your own first hand experience of gear and your intellect and way of getting your point across, have you ever considered a job as a substance abuse councillor ? I think you'd both be very good at it ❤��

I second this. This subject we were discussing in our recovery group the other day; that we want addicts to become key workers not just someone who has learnt from a text book. I agree because anyone with addiction knows that it isn't the drugs: the issues more often than not, run deeper.

To illustrate a personal example; one day when I met with my key worker I decided to tell her the other issues I'm having; that I fixate n obsess over certain "interests" n how losing them scares me. Her answer was "just do more in your day n make changes. I said to "it's nothing to do with my daily activity level" I've been this way since the age of three. I don't know how to have genual interests - not obsessions n an irrational fear of losing them n that when / if Iose my current obsession it's like pure grief n like the world has just stopped for n I go into depression. How do I change 32 years of being???? She couldn't answer. After that I no longer mention it, smile, tell them all's ace, get my suboxone script n leave.

The more actual addicts the better but better still the more empathic key workers the better that don't say patronising BS like "make changes." Really despise people who say that lol

Evey

 

[keeping]

my reasoning is thus;

1. my life was average
2. then i tried drugs, and my life became extraordinary
3. then i got sober, and my life was back to average, except this average was more than average, it was now ennui
4. drugs fixed that!

rinse and repeat.

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

I don't what to put words in someone else's mouth but I think what fubar meant was that his personal circumstances were what he was finding difficult to change not societies

I wasn't really referring to myself there, it was more of a general observation. I wouldn't say I've had a bad life so far - tedious, unexciting and unfulfilled maybe, but not bad. My big problem is lack of motivation and confidence coupled with anxiety issues - all of which are 'cured' when on opiates.

 

[ScotchMist]

I've tried many a time to understand my addiction. I'm yet to find an answer to it and until I do find an understanding I can't see my cycle changing.

I get a lot of grief about the fact that on paper I've no reason to be habitually using drugs, I have a job, nice home, wonderful family etc etc which frustrates the hell out of the people around me as they think drug addiction is reserved exclusively - particularly heroin - for folk who have little going for them in the way of what society says a successful life is about.

Some changes need to be made somewhere, only I don't know where

 

[Eveleivibe]

I've tried many a time to understand my addiction. I'm yet to find an answer to it and until I do find an understanding I can't see my cycle changing.

I get a lot of grief about the fact that on paper I've no reason to be habitually using drugs, I have a job, nice home, wonderful family etc etc which frustrates the hell out of the people around me as they think drug addiction is reserved exclusively - particularly heroin - for folk who have little going for them in the way of what society says a successful life is about.

Some changes need to be made somewhere, only I don't know where

Heard anything about ye CBT, Scotchy? That should hopefully help. Ask them what branch of CBT they're going to give you then you can research it n have a rough idea of treatment.

Evey
Evey

 

[koneko]

my reasoning is thus;

1. my life was average
2. then i tried drugs, and my life became extraordinary
3. then i got sober, and my life was back to average, except this average was more than average, it was now ennui
4. drugs fixed that!

rinse and repeat.

I get your thinking a lot - I was like that, thought life was dull and average without drugs. Then I asked where did I get the expectation that life should be anything else, was I spoilt, deluded, entitled without making effort or sold a lie by capitalism and the media. How could I find wonder in the ordinary again and make the recreational use of drugs just the icing on an otherwise tasty life cake.

There's lots of questions and dare I say therapy behind your statements. Hope you don't mind me saying, it just rung a bell of what I was like a while back.

 

[keeping]

I get your thinking a lot - I was like that, thought life was dull and average without drugs. Then I asked where did I get the expectation that life should be anything else, was I spoilt, deluded, entitled without making effort or sold a lie by capitalism and the media. How could I find wonder in the ordinary again and make the recreational use of drugs just the icing on an otherwise tasty life cake.

There's lots of questions and dare I say therapy behind your statements. Hope you don't mind me saying, it just rung a bell of what I was like a while back.

i wouldn't say dull, average is just a noun in its purest form. pre-drugs i had a steady flow of emotions, aspirations, prospects and insecurities.
but that was fine, i think i was fine. everybody said i was fine. but what is fine?
fine, not just a noun; a thin particle, a strand, or speck but an; adjective, all so thin. our state of being is so strained. too fine.
i was fine. we're all fine. we're worn and worked on, spun around a loom, either that or we are infinitesimal; flitting in the air in the work shop.

i'm fine.

 

[Eveleivibe]

I get your thinking a lot - I was like that, thought life was dull and average without drugs. Then I asked where did I get the expectation that life should be anything else, was I spoilt, deluded, entitled without making effort or sold a lie by capitalism and the media. How could I find wonder in the ordinary again and make the recreational use of drugs just the icing on an otherwise tasty life cake.

There's lots of questions and dare I say therapy behind your statements. Hope you don't mind me saying, it just rung a bell of what I was like a while back.

That's very wise.

Evey

 

[p4nda]

I get your thinking a lot - I was like that, thought life was dull and average without drugs. Then I asked where did I get the expectation that life should be anything else, was I spoilt, deluded, entitled without making effort or sold a lie by capitalism and the media. How could I find wonder in the ordinary again and make the recreational use of drugs just the icing on an otherwise tasty life cake.

There's lots of questions and dare I say therapy behind your statements. Hope you don't mind me saying, it just rung a bell of what I was like a while back.

I'd agree with that ages ago when i did lotsa stimulants
/I quitted everything when i got pregnant, been clean for sometime, now i get high very rarely, occasionaly, mostly as a reward, icing on a cake haha and when my son is at his dads.
It wasn't that hard for me but once you're deep in it, it's hard to get out without strong will and ofcourse people around you helping you.

Interesting article i'm more like a panda person, weed is my bamboo of preference

 

[Erikmen]

Yes Kate, very interesting.

 

[BecomingJulie]

Another way of looking at it is, you take drugs as a displacement activity, i.e. instead of doing something else. If your circumstances change, then you might find yourself able to do something else instead of taking drugs. Who knows, if I suddenly woke up one morning on a strange tropical island, I'd probably be too busy thinking Wow, look at this, a whole freaking island to explore?! to bother with getting stoned .....

 

[Shambles]

I wouldn't really say that is a different way of looking at it so much as a rephrasing - when living has been replaced by existing across such wide swathes of society addiction is one of the saner responses.

 

[warriorOnTheEdge]

I wouldn't really say that is a different way of looking at it so much as a rephrasing - when living has been replaced by existing across such wide swathes of society addiction is one of the saner responses.

Indeed, i've also heard similar, possibly Thompson or wolf " insanity is the only sane reaction to modern society".

 

[Dark Side]

Rats are not self aware to begin with and life really isn't that black and white like the article makes out. No shit love would help you as it just a drug something all humans are addicts to. Or perhaps you would be satisfied completely with love and connection with others and then you open a pandora's box like heroin and life seems pretty damn banal after doing so.

 

[Erikmen]

Maybe although rats are scientific approved for testing things we are going to take next.

 

[Dark Side]

Rats do not have the intelligence of humans, it's intelligence and self awareness that results in misery. We love dogs because they are not self aware and they have an infectious enthusiasm for life that rubs off on us, If dogs were self aware no one would keep them as pets, nor would they allow themselves to be kept as pets.

 

[Erikmen]

Yes, exactly..

 

[Dark Side]

Alex shulgin used him self as a guinea pig as he knows that rats are a piss poor test.

 

[Vurtual]

Noone else seems to have linked this: Excellent comic telling the story of Bruce Alexander and the rat experiment - Rat park (the other comics on the site are worth reading too).

 

[Shambles]

Rats are not self aware

Has anybody ever asked them?

Or perhaps you would be satisfied completely with love and connection with others and then you open a pandora's box like heroin and life seems pretty damn banal after doing so.

I spent over a decade heavily addicted to heroin (and crack) and d'ya know why I finally gave 'em up? Cos they - along with all addictions - are utterly banal beyond belief. By far the primary reason I had for quitting was becase being addicted to opiates is mindnumbingly dull once the novelty of all the "added bonuses" wears off. At the risk of sounding overly cheesy, I've never in my life found love and connection with others to be banal in any way. Difficult at times - for a variety of reasons - but never banal. Other than the first few years on the gear maybe... but that was (in hindsight) very obviously down to the fact I had decided to blunt all emotion other than the negative ones cos I was a bleak mofo at the time.