The Sad Thread (Anti-Snoo) 2 - Tory Britain in Flames

[One Thousand Words]

What are you studying Summer? What do you see yourself doing at 25?

 

[parttime crackhead]

Stop trying to become an addict.

It all reads to me like you've decided that you want to be a full blown fucked up addict and are just kind of justifying to yourself the route that you'll need to take to end up that way.

 

[joe90]

Hmm... you may well have a point. I must admit I know I haven't gone six days with no drugs whatsoever involved in... over 20 years. That's a bit bad really thinking about it. Although in my defence I'm including prescribed drugs (benzos and opies anyway - not antibiotics and antacids) and booze in there too. Actually no, it's not bad as such - bits of it (quite big bits sometimes) have been bad but I'm actually surprisingly moderate these days (comparatively anyway). Guess I'll be finding out sometime over the coming months (or more likely a year or so) cos am looking into rehab options. Not even really addicted to anything in particular at the moment but I do believe a change of scene and the break I never did have would be a good move. Literally a good move cos it also looks like I'll get to move elsewhere at the same time which really would do me good... after taking that break to consider my options anyway. And perhaps to finally dream of drugs like everybody else here seems to do quite a bit of.

Wonder if my subconscious conspired and contrived it so I'd mention it in the Anti-Snoo thread? Probably knowing my subconscious. It's not anti-snoo though - just traditional EADD off-topic ramblings.

Great post. My favourite post you have written. Go with it it's worth it and trust your instincts. Try something new.

 

[SummerSerenade]

What are you studying Summer? What do you see yourself doing at 25?

English Literature because I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career and I find it super easy. Since I started uni I've kind of been thinking about becoming a lawyer (at least that's what I always say when people ask). I don't know though really, as much as I'm naturally intelligent and have coasted so far I'm well aware I won't get away with that forever. The problem is I don't think I'm interested enough in education to commit to it to the level I would need to if I went down the law route. I barely got through the first year, if my drugs had turned up when they were supposed to I would have gone to both my exams fucked on coke and even as it was I was AMAZED I managed to get a 2.1 as I did next to zero revision. To be honest, I haven't thought about the future too much recently what with the way my life has been going. If I didn't care about money I'd be a chef or something but unfortunately I really do.

I'm not trying to become an addict. I'm trying to avoid it believe it or not but I don't really know why anymore.

 

[Shambles]

The last few months have felt almost surreal so what will the next 3 be like? I can't see where my life is going at all which is kind of scary.

Alternatively, life in general is surreal - that's one of the things that makes it worth getting up each day for as many days as you can. What will the next three be like? Could be almost literally anything. They might ne more or less like the last three. They might be much, much shitter. They might be the best three months of your life. You might be hit on the head by a small but decidedly fatal little asteroid (which would at least mean you would go down in history as the one and only known fatality from falling chunks of space debris). You might win the lottery - without even buying a ticket through some contrivance or other.* You might drop out of uni for any of many reasons you won't notice until too late. You might meet the love of your life. This is why fortune telling doesn't work so very well. There really are a bewildering range of possibilities at every turn.

You could see that as scary - cos it is a bit - but scary like a roller-coaster is scary not like actually scary things are scary. It's just a ride as I do believe a fella far wiser than I once noted.

*An aside, I picked all six numbers and the bonus ball on the very first double rollover of the national lottery. I dreamt them a couple nights before and they were all correct and even in the order they were drawn. This was - coincidentally - about three months before that surprisingly shitty - and utterly life-changing - fortnight I mentioned up there. Didn't buy a ticket of course cos I'd spent all my cash on other stuff and why bother when I never win anything anyway? Whatever all that quantum measurement problem bizniz is really about in a very real sense we kinda do create our own realities. My reality was that I was worthless and my life was pointless - staggeringly unlikely coincidences or possibly even occasionally unnervingly prescient dreams (that's not the only one that's come true down to ever last detail oddly enough) weren't enough to convince me that things actually can change your life completely and quite literally overnight. Not in good ways anyway. Which is probably why I got the other side of the coin. I chose to make misery and nihilism my reality cos I honestly could not see that it so obviously (in hindsight) just wasn't at all. Just a bit shit at times - incredibly shit at times - but always subject to sudden and dramatic change in either direction. Or achingly slow change you barely notice. You do get to have a bit of a say in which you get. But only if you give it a lil nudge now and then in the direction that best appeals.

I know I could quite easily end up going the way you did but with coke rather than heroin - I mean, I'm already dreaming about using needles for fucks sake so maybe I am already going that way and I can't see things as clearly as I think I can.

Of course you can't see things as clearly as you think. You take cocaine and mephedrone really quite regularly. Both are notorious for giving people... unrealistic outlooks and beliefs - especially beliefs about themself cos all that ego-boosting comes with its natural bedfellow self-loathing, anxiety, paranoia and inward-looking, self-obsession - and in very negative ways to balance out all that coke and meph bravado bullshit when you're flying the night before. I did the coke (well crack) thing rather a lot too so have a smattering of knowledge of how it goes when it starts to get a wee bit out of hand. Also know how suddenly it can spiral out from under you. And indeed how you can come back even from all the way down there somewhere (more or less literally) in the gutter.

The good bit about all this is that you are very clearly aware you are getting within the event horizon of that big ol' black hole of addcition. You say you want it but you don't. You want other things not that. It's one of addiction's (if you'll forgive the personification - it does almost feel like an actual conscious thing attacking you though so I often do) bestest tricks. The Big Lie was what somebody in a situation not a million miles away from yours by the sound of it - spookily similar actually (no not me - 19, intelligent, talented in her chosen field, deeply unhappy about the apparent pointlessness of her existence and teetering right on the brink of both a heroin and coke habit - and already in IV territory - but not too deep yet... but not far off either). Over the course of - funnily enough - about three months (isn't synchroncity one of the kewler aspects of existence) her life - parts of it, important parts - utterly changed. Still has her problems I'm sure but not like she did those three months earlier. A lot can happen in three months and it really can be good stuff just as much as it could be bad stuff. And I happen to think that bad stuff ends up being good stuff in disguise much of the time anyway. Another one of those things that make it worth playing along and enjoying the ride as best you can.

 

[Shambles]

Great post. My favourite post you have written. Go with it it's worth it and trust your instincts. Try something new.

Why thankyou, Mr 90. I'm a firm believer in trusting instincts. Even when I'm not entirely sure I'm completely convinced they're pointing me where I want to be. Especially so in fact cos they tend to know better than I do for the most part.

 

[One Thousand Words]

English Literature because I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career and I find it super easy. Since I started uni I've kind of been thinking about becoming a lawyer (at least that's what I always say when people ask). I don't know though really, as much as I'm naturally intelligent and have coasted so far I'm well aware I won't get away with that forever. The problem is I don't think I'm interested enough in education to commit to it to the level I would need to if I went down the law route. I barely got through the first year, if my drugs had turned up when they were supposed to I would have gone to both my exams fucked on coke and even as it was I was AMAZED I managed to get a 2.1 as I did next to zero revision. To be honest, I haven't thought about the future too much recently what with the way my life has been going. If I didn't care about money I'd be a chef or something but unfortunately I really do.

I'm not trying to become an addict. I'm trying to avoid it believe it or not but I don't really know why anymore.

So basically you are just extending your high school phase, fucking around until real world responsibilities come knocking. This is your problem and the reason you are bored. Kept house wives sip wine and read books all day. I'm not saying that your degree is pointless (well, ok just a little bit), but you are hardly using it to change your life for the better.

Find a passion now, it doesn't even have to be anything with career in mind, but at least make it something that requires a degree of effort and another social circle. I was the same way at 19, coasting through uni because I wasn't as dumb as my class mates, and smart enough to know how to get up to mischief without getting caught and ruining my future. The only thing that resulted in me not turning out like shambles is I had a another circle of friends that didn't do drugs and needed me to be "on" a couple of nights a week.

Only boring people get bored and there is no time like the present to learn a new skill or hobby. I regret not getting into more clubs at uni. High Society and Boxing were fine at the time (and a great source for fiending), but if I had my time again I probably would have taken the opportunity to join the scuba dive club or perhaps photography. Even today I have started a sailing course so that I can one day sail the Pacific. Sometimes you simply have to reassess things and take a crazy chance.

 

[SummerSerenade]

So basically you are just extending your high school phase, fucking around until real world responsibilities come knocking. This is your problem and the reason you are bored. Kept house wives sip wine and read books all day. I'm not saying that your degree is pointless (well, ok just a little bit), but you are hardly using it to change your life for the better.

Find a passion now, it doesn't even have to be anything with career in mind, but at least make it something that requires a degree of effort and another social circle. I was the same way at 19, coasting through uni because I wasn't as dumb as my class mates, and smart enough to know how to get up to mischief without getting caught and ruining my future. The only thing that resulted in me not turning out like shambles is I had a another circle of friends that didn't do drugs and needed me to be "on" a couple of nights a week.

Only boring people get bored and there is no time like the present to learn a new skill or hobby. I regret not getting into more clubs at uni. High Society and Boxing were fine at the time (and a great source for fiending), but if I had my time again I probably would have taken the opportunity to join the scuba dive club or perhaps photography. Even today I have started a sailing course so that I can one day sail the Pacific. Sometimes you simply have to reassess things and take a crazy chance.

While I agree with most of that, I wouldn't say that an English Lit degree from a top UK uni is useless at all. It's a good choice if you don't know what you really want to do as a career because it can be converted/apply to so many different jobs. It's more of a means to an end, with lots of things all that matters is you have a degree - not getting one isn't really an option unless you want a shit job for the rest of your life (for the most part).

I do have passions but not ones that end in profitable jobs unless you're really lucky. I love cooking, I love writing. I wish I could draw, because I like designing (well imagining) things too. But in terms of careers I'd be mad about doing that pay nice £? No idea. Law would be as good as anything and probably well suited to my personality.

 

[One Thousand Words]

If you need a something to do while you are choosing what to do with your life, get a job selling real estate. No nights, and if you can sell your arse to a free drink in a club, imagine how easy it would be to to sell some shmuck a house.

My best mate from uni has 5 degrees and he is still a failed author teaching remedial maths in a high school. He studied philosophy, got a masters in film and television, a business degree and started a history PhD. He has sold houses, been a professional lifeguard, worked in a mine and been a camp counsellor and still has no idea what he is going to do with his life. He is smart and charismatic to a fault but is also due to inherit millions from his surgeon father one day, so is quite happy to fuck around.

Don't end up like him. As much as I love him, he is an over qualified bum.

 

[Eveleivibe]

You talk a lot of sense, OTW.... I too wish I'd involved myself in uni then I ended up completing my Psychology distance learning but enjoyed the residential schools though - wish I could those again, loved them.

Right - I best be off to bed for real LOL

Evey

 

[Shambles]

I do have passions but not ones that end in profitable jobs unless you're really lucky. I love cooking, I love writing. I wish I could draw, because I like designing (well imagining) things too. But in terms of careers I'd be mad about doing that pay nice £? No idea. Law would be as good as anything and probably well suited to my personality.

I always wished I could draw. I can't. But I did take an evening course in abstract art a few years back which I thoroughly enjoyed and apparently even have a modicum of potential competence at bits of it (tutor's opinion not necessarily my own... although I do quite like some of my scribbles, daubs and scrawls. It's not drawing - I actually think it's much better cos you can't draw a feeling or a concept. You can conjure it up from apparent chaos - or indeed order - uncannily at times though.

Hobbies aren't meant to be career choices with a financial motive. They can become that sometimes but only if you keep at them. Great cooks and great writers can often earn a crust too. But it's the just being a fun thing to do bit that really matters.

... if I had my time again I probably would have taken the opportunity to join the scuba dive club or perhaps photography.

Guess what that course was that I was really enjoying and within weeks of completing just at the moment the world flipped on its axis? Always fancied diving too but never was a strong swimmer. Photography is a great hobby. Back then it was all film and darkroom not digital and Photoshop (although we did have one digital project using the communal digital camera which may have had up to a dozen actual pixels back then) which is why I couldn't afford to finish it. Anybody with a phone can take a decent pic now and the more into it you get the better the pix get.

Quite agree that finding things to do which you really enjoy is an excellent way of upping your happiness quota. Really does make a difference to find some type of constructive outlet to channel and focus those things you can't quite put into words into. And just cos it's an enjoyable way to pass the time and end up with something you're really pleased with now and then too, of course.

 

[SummerSerenade]

I'll edit this into a proper reply tomorrow, can't be bothered typing loads on phone. You guys are talking a lot of sense though and I know it but I just don't think I can change what's already happening. I crave it so often, even when I'm on something else I'm wishing it was coke. Well, what will be will be i guess.

Sorry for being a misery, always am a bit on meph comedowns. Sleep now and I'm sure I'll be back to my chirpy self on awakening. Night night lovelies, had some good chats tonight - is nice getting to know people I haven't spoken to much before

 

[BecomingJulie]

As a bit of an anti snoo I've been feeling quite down today, sick and getting awful coke cravings but already been kind of realising that my life is pretty shit without drugs and I'm probably going to end up with a bad problem in the not too distant future. Thing is i don't have any reason to stop because I don't have anyone that really cares.

Aww That's not true. All the regular posters in at least EADD care. We've lost too many of our own already.

Drug-taking is basically a displacement activity; we use drugs instead of doing something else. From then on, it's very easy to get used to the drugs, and eventually the point comes where you're using drugs to avoid the comedown. That is the definition of a Habit.

What you have to do is -- and I'm aware that it's probably much, much easier for me to say this than it is going to be for you to do it -- is, find out what it was that you started taking drugs to avoid in the first place, and get that dealt with.

 

[Shambles]

Long isn't it. Probably a bit repetetive in places too. Which is fitting cos there is nothing more repetetive than an addiction. Gonna leave it as is cos that's how it came out. Editing and trimming would be easier on the eye and maybe even bring a bit of clarity. Feels more honest to leave it warts and all though cos there are a lot of (metaphorical) warts involved. And it's quite cathartic too - being a bit (or a lot) selfish is also of some relevance. Hopefully there's the odd other relevant bit in there somewhere.

You guys are talking a lot of sense though and I know it but I just don't think I can change what's already happening. I crave it so often, even when I'm on something else I'm wishing it was coke. Well, what will be will be i guess.

Sounds a lot like somebody who is thinking about it a bit more than they may think they are to me. You start on the positive - cos you know it does make sense to at the very least take time to seriously consider your options before doing anything too drastic. This is a very good sign

I'd also suggest that that second sentence is basically what you've said several times only now I'm not seeing such conviction nor such overwhelming fatalism. Do you believe in fate? I don't. Certainly not in so simplistic a form as it's just a case of 'Oh well, it's all been predestined so I can only sit passively and let it happen whatever it is". Bit like that last sentence only I don't believe that you truly believe that. If you did why would you ever do anything? Why make any decision about anything ever? You do do things. Even if you're not entirely sure they're the things you will want to do ten, twenty, fifty years from now. That's not fate that's making choices. So how come the coke addict thing is in the "It's fate so I simply cannot avoid it. Truly it is my destiny," category?

The fatalism category tends to be a dumping ground for things that people can't quite manage to justify making a firm and binding decision over - the things that part of us wants to do but most of us know that's probably not going to go the way we'd hoped. Not even if we'd hoped for death by misadventure by 21 and such things. Some people consciously choose and seek out addiction (I kinda did really - wanted to be a junky before I'd even smoked a spliff) and some people sleepwalk into it. Others quite fancy the former but can't quite bring themselves to do it cos they know it's not going to go well and they really will have nobody to blame but themselves. But they can't do the latter cos it's not sleepwalking when you know it's beginning to loom a bit when there's still all the time in the world to sidestep it if they want to. That's more like setting up future possibilities of finding other things to blame - almost as if it's not the drugs or the addiction or the needles that are really the true problem so much as the thing(s) that are making you feel like escaping them and having a good ol' wallow in the misery and self-flagellating pit that is surpisingly comforting to spend time in for some (myself most certainly included).

If that is what you want then any ol' addiction will do - they're all more or less the same anyway. You're not sniffing lines between lectures every day then spending all night hoovering them down too though. You could do and maybe you have at times in the past. You are not at the moment though. Because you choose not to. Given that you are making that choice each and every day you keep it to more or less recreational (albeit quite heavy recreation, but not daily all the same) you clearly can choose not only to skip a day but can choose to skip any day at this point. You didn't go pick up coke that's sat waiting for you today did you - that's more or less the polar opposite of addict mentality. Choices every step of the way so why would you be under the impression that you have no choice when it comes to cultivating an IV coke habit? There are myriad choices between here and there. You can take any of those choices. Including ones that lead to not rushing in to what may just be rather rash decisions.

There is no great hurry about it. It is not inevitible. It is not fate. It is entirely and solely your decisions every step of the way. Even if you do take the accidentally on purpose option of trying to believe that it's either a done deal already or that "What will be will be". The concept of free will does have need of a bit more conclusive evidence behind it to explain a few quite fundamental issues but for all practical purposes we - you, me, all - do have free will over all things we have control over. Like those myriad choices between here and turning tricks and sucking off hep-riddled dealers for a rock or two and maybe a bag o' scag to come down with. Not suggesting that's the career path by any means but we all know that is where it frequently ends up for girls with a coke/crack/smack habit sooner or later and could well be one of those decisions that lie ahead down one set of branching possibilities. Bit less free will involved at that stage than you have now though of course. Or at least it really, really doesn't feel like there are any choices once truly addicted. Easy possibility to dismiss as unthinkable... but then I've yet to meet or hear of anybody in that situation who didn't find it unthinkable before it felt inevitible.

Is that still fate? This is why I prefer to try to spot the choices now and then. Am not so great at always seeing them or making the ones I perhaps should (but again, I wouldn't be me if I had taken the obvious options all the time) but it has to be better than assuming the worst, discovering that actually what you'd imagined wouldn't even register as a particular bad day compared with the actual worst(s) out there amongst those possibility trees, and making that your chosen reality only to lock yourself into it cos it was fate of course - nothing you could have conceivably done so best bet get out and earn that next pipe... and that bag o' scag cos it just doesn't seem right to not try to numb the memory a bit and try to forget that there's either gonna be many years of this to look forward to (addiction is unbelievably dull - even the insane cracked-out missions, the really good scores when you can push the boat out a bit and maybe even take the morning off cos there's actually enough left to make you function the next morning rather than going out grafting sick as a dog, the friends that die out of the blue (and indeed turn blue in front of you - in your arms sometimes) and even all the brutality, the violence, the killings, the annoying but harmless young kid who was late paying back the tenner he owed on tick so had the dogs set on him that literally ripped his face off - for a ten pound debt he was a day late with - and the fella you used to score off who was decent by dealer standards being tortured to death over several days cos somebody made some story up to get themselves out of being the one tied to a bench in a garage full of power tools. These are just a fairly small sample of things that I've seen and mostly been directly involved in or affected by. I list them casually cos that's just the way it is. Or one of the ways it can be - a not uncommon way either. It's just... normal. Expected. Makes for good gossip and a few decent anecdotes (albeit ones that may not go down well in all situations). It's dull. Terrifying at times but the vast majority of it is dull as fuck. All day. Every day. Boredom like you would not believe. Spiced up by the fact you live surrounded by chaos, insanity, brutality, degradation and hopelessness. And the monotony of it all. I remember the juicy stories but I make a conscious effort to never forget that despite all that it was still unimaginably dull.

That is the truth of addiction. It's a truth of addiction anyway. Maybe it's not yours but bits of it will be if you want it to be. There are easier and far more pleasant ways to suicide - why choose the really long and drawn out one that can't even give you a proper guarantee that it will provide the goods anyway. If suicide is not the plan then why go through all that only to stop going through all that at some point then find you've pissed half your life away taking a rather ciruitous route back to where you started from only know knowing that it really was your choices every single step of the way along that long and windy road to nowhere of great edification or even all that much enjoyment.

Foresight or hindsight - both have things going for them but one doesn't close down quite so many of those choices that you could have made if you'd not been busy robbing stuff, sucking stranger's cocks down an alley somewhere, fiending, nodding, terrified for your life or - as I will keep reminding myself - bored shitless and wishing I was anywhere doing anything other than the same old shit for... somewhere between 4000 and 4500 days or so. Doesn't sound very much having just worked it out. Felt like several eternities at the time.

Apologies for so many lengthy and somewhat pessimistic on the whole addiction thing of late but it really is (or can be - I would probably say will always be sooner or later) that bad. And worse. Did I mention all the stealing from friends and family and stuff? You probably won't find anybody else here willing to admit to those even more unspoken truths about the addiction thing. Maybe cos they really haven't - maybe they never will. I've never met a single addict who hasn't done those type of things - and much worse in many cases - at some point. Bear in mind the addicts who post here are generally at the more stable and fucntional scale (and some who have gotten away from it to a greater or lesser extent) as they either own a computer or similar device that isn't say in Cash Converters window or they are at least able to keep up enough of a routine to even think to post on an internet forum. The addicts here are not what I would think of as truly representative of the majority of addicts. Unless I just happened to live in some kinda vortex of uberfiends and everywhere else is far more civilised and genteel about such things.

I go on a bit cos I care. Firstly I care for my own sake - these are not good things to have inside your head forever so it good to let a few out now and then. Secondly cos I care for and about anybody who is currently dealing with addiction. Thirdly - in many ways the most important one cos it's the only one that doesn't involve having missed what could conceivably be avoided and averted to at least some degree - is cos I care rather a lot about people who are teetering on slippery slopes and dizzying spirals. The people who have those extra choices no longer available to the first and second situations. I know how it feels to be essentially given a bit of a lecture of unremitting doom and gloom - feels like "Well that was you but I'm not ever going to do those things cos I know the risks so just won't do that stuff. As PTCH is so fond of pretending - if you're good at drugs all this grotty stuff can't happen cos you'd have to be an idiot - and an arsehole - to do any of that stuff and then keep doing that stuff. This makes perfect sense and is absolutely true right up until it isn't. That change is hard to explain cos it really does sneak up in tiny baby steps and it's not something that can be understood without being in those shoes at that moment. I still can't think of a single addict whom that change skipped over though. Another of those fatalistic outcomes that at one stage - several stages - was just a choice only not many would spot that it's a choice cos it's one of the first big choices you make when taking the first real steps down that path.

Us ex-junkies all say this stuff to everybody considering it as a career choice. It's really not just a conspiracy to cover up the fact that actually it's great and we just failed at being proper junkies. Quite the opposite. We graduated whilst others are still slogging their way through the daily coursework. Don't ever believe for one moment it's fate and that's all there is to it. Frankly that's outright cowardice. Choice after choice after choice. Any one of them can be the one you decide to if not give up on the idea at least just not for now. Mañana, mañana. There's always time for just one more mañana to think about whether what think you want really is what you think you want or just tha Big Lie dripping sweet poison into your ear as it did for all who believed it for a while.

As Julie says, there are plenty here who care even if they don't really know you - they know something of that aspect to you and that is something many of us share. Would be impossible not to care. Nobody deserves addiction. Those that think they do perhaps even less than most cos they tend to have... their reasons to think that. Those reasons are the difference between succumbing and succeeding at the earliest possible juncture. Deal with the reasons - don't bury yourself in a mountain of avoidable ones too. Have you ever thought about perhaps looking into some form of support? There are drug counselling and support services in every town and city in the land more or less. They're not as bad an idea as they seem at first and you don't have to be a Skid Row junky going through the motions to get your script (and probably sell it for what you really want). Prevention better than intervention further down the line. There's also any number of forms of counselling and therapy for whatever unerlying issues there may be. Some don't work for some people but there's something to suit just about all needs if you make that set of choices. Even I gave those a shot - but not properly cos I was too busy keeping the wolf from the door. Works much better in the pre-wolf days I suspect. Or at least could and is definitely better than the wolfy option.

Blimey. I'd best stop before I bore myself to death. Which is just what I would be thinking back when I was at the teetering stage. I swore I'd never be one of those horrid ex-junkies who insist on pointing out that it's just a deeply crappy existence when it's so obviously the answer before you get to be the horrid ex-junkie breaking their youthful oath of allegiance to a thing you had no concept of really when you took it. Every now and then somebody does find something amongst the background drone - signs, signals and suggestions amongst the noise. So I will keep boring lots of people, and will probably quite annoy some of those who haven't hit any of that really grubby stuff yet, but I wouldn't be talking to them - would be talking to that one that doesn't get away. They do exist. If they choose to.

 

[Chatative]

I miss all the best conversations... I obviously go to bed too early.

English Literature because I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career and I find it super easy. Since I started uni I've kind of been thinking about becoming a lawyer (at least that's what I always say when people ask). I don't know though really, as much as I'm naturally intelligent and have coasted so far I'm well aware I won't get away with that forever. The problem is I don't think I'm interested enough in education to commit to it to the level I would need to if I went down the law route.

If you want to know anything about law... I'm the man to ask. I've got a law degree. Not only that, but I ended up taking law after losing heart in a history degree, because I found it interesting & thought it would offer better career prospects. Here is the truth of the matter...

Unless you are particularly passionate about law, you will find it very boring at times. Don't get me wrong, some subjects are very interesting but others are a real drag. By the end of 4 years, I found it so boring that I decided not to do my DLP (called LPC in England) and go on to find a traineeship. A traineeship is increasingly hard to find these days & is usually a lot of hard work whilst being poorly paid. The fact of the matter is, for the majority of people, you will end up doing fairly mundane things like conveyancing, family law & succession/trusts when you go on to practice. You can of course do something exciting like criminal law or, if you are after the big money, corporate law... but you need a higher level of commitment yet again for the likes of what those areas entail.

I wouldn't go into law lightly. It does have good career prospects but it is not easy & will be huge life commitment if you go on to practice. I know quite a few people that also chose not to practice... some after the degree like myself, others after spending money on & completing their DLP and I've heard of people who even quit shortly after going into practice. I don't think the drop out rate is much different to any other course, but we started off with 300 & only about 140 people finished the LLB.

To be fair, I am intelligent too & I coasted my degree... I skipped a lot of lectures, had some resits even had to take extra courses - it was a lot less fun & harder than if I'd committed myself properly. Sure, I got to take drugs fairly regularly, went on nights out & generally dossed about but I would do it differently now given the choice. (Ironically I might go back to Uni, so I might get that choice) I'm not saying that you should be a book worm; a big part of university is the lifestyle & extra-curricular stuff. It's as much about developing as a person as getting a degree. In as much, I agree with what OTW said here:

So basically you are just extending your high school phase, fucking around until real world responsibilities come knocking. This is your problem and the reason you are bored. Kept house wives sip wine and read books all day. I'm not saying that your degree is pointless (well, ok just a little bit), but you are hardly using it to change your life for the better.

University is a great opportunity & there are a lot of things you can do. I would highly recommend doing something to further your CV. Everyone these days has 2:1 & good grades... you need something to make you stand out. Work in a charity shop, join a debating society (mooting society if you do law) ... join some society for some hobby or another & get involved later down the road... club treasurer or president etc. There is the OTC, but I suspect you aren't the running around in fields sort of girl. Take up a team sport. Go climb a mountain for charity. (Childreach do, or used to do a Kili climb - I was supposed to do it but I never bothered to raise the necessary funds because I was too busy taking drugs.)

The point it, there is a wealth of opportunities for you at university & outwith if you just go and find them. By all means take up a hobby like suggested but I'd try to tie it in with getting involved at uni somehow. Maybe you already do stuff during the term time, maybe not... but think about it. You'll regret it later if you don't at least consider it.

Aww That's not true. All the regular posters in at least EADD care.

This.

 

[lurching]

If you want to know anything about law... I'm the man to ask. I've got a law degree. Not only that, but [...]

To be fair, I am intelligent too & I coasted my degree... I skipped a lot of lectures, had some resits even had to take extra courses - it was a lot less fun & harder than if I'd committed myself properly.

Is completing a bachelor's after skipping lots of lectures and being forced to do re-sits and extra classes now equal to having "coasted" a law degree?

 

[Chatative]

You do like nit picking don't you?

I don't think it is really possible to 'coast' a law degree as such the way you envisage it. I put in minimal effort & got a 2:1... that is coasting in my books. I'm more getting at the ' I won't get away with that forever' part... if you put in as little effort as possible & add drugs into the mix, it's almost a certainty you will run into the sorts of problems mentioned above.

You can coast without going to lectures you know... for 1 of my courses I only went to a single lecture, didn't borrow any notes & got a good mark cramming for it.

 

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

Great! Both me binlids are at the beach with their friends, and what are me and the wife doing? Fuckin' DIY and housework! Got no drugz, no booze and no dosh I fuckin' luv sundays me....

 

[lurching]

You do like nit picking don't you?

I do, prolly because of my background in exact science instead. I often wish that wasn't so, cos I could sure use some more sweettalking skills.

 

[Chatative]

Talking is overrated...

You can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?