Good to hear an interviewer (Steve Cannane) with good depth in knowledge on the subject of discussion, good to hear the doc, DR. David Caldicott presenting the facts so clearly and concisely, as always he stands as a voice of reason in a world were not many professionals will come close to taking the drug users side in the political environment. Even more brilliant was the total lack of depth of knowledge exhibited by the "cockeater" Christopher Pyne during an interview that clearly exhibits his lack of ability as a politician.
Back on the topic of this thread, drug use is something that has certainly had many positive impacts on my life, however the honeymoon period is well and truly over for myself and time is approaching where if i am not careful i will begin to have more and more negative impacts surface in my life as a result of drugs. This is a fine and dangerous line to be balancing on. Drugs are great for some people for many reasons and they can also be detrimental to other people for many different reasons.
To all of you who have gained so much from drugs such as more confidence and a higher feeling of well being due to the increased social stimulation that you get from being involved in drug centered cultures such as the party/rave scene. Yes i totally understand the great impact these scenes and the drugs can have for a lot of people, but its only a change for the better if you can balance it without going too far into the scene and making it your life. The party and rave scenes are awesome for meeting people, gaining confidence, getting a better understanding on life/people/social interaction. And yes also can do wonders for the way you think of and interact with your family. All the positives you gain early however are mostly due to the introspection you do on MDMA and other drugs and perhaps a little to do with the confidence you gained from losing weight due to the speed. Once you start to abuse the drugs within the scene and once you start to allow too much of your time to be absorbed by the scene you are in, the positives start to be overshadowed by negatives. MDMA loses it magic and its then harder to think introspectively while on it. You start to lose too much weight and become unhealthy, your health is not a good thing to trade in just so your not overweight. A well balanced lifestyle that includes partying/raving is in my opinion a way to gain countless positive life lessons/changes and experiences/memorys. However focusing your life into a particular party/rave culture is a sure way to over shoot those positives you originally gain.
I started partying 3 years ago, took a while to get into it and eventually found my niche in Trance/Hard trance scene in Melbourne. Started partying on a monthly basis about 2 years ago, stepped it up to weekly about 18months back. The positives i gained had an amazing impact on my life. The positives came mostly from August 2003- Late 2004. The negative impacts probably started rearing their ugly heads in roughly June 2004 and are probably an unavoidable side effect of my continuing to party, although i try not to go out too much these days.
I would like to point out that at the age of 20 i was 110kg's, i am currently low 80's and a healthy looking 24 year old, i did drop below 80 into the low 70's and began to look too skinny and unhealthy and it took a lot of effort to break the speed habit responsible for that and to regain the weight i needed. About half the weight i lost is probably a direct result of drugs and was responsible for me becoming a more confident person(the single most life changing impact its all had on me). The social environment i am in has totally changed my outlook on a life that has become far more enjoyable for me than it was before i got out and hit the scene(drugs included). My goals and ambitions are now far more ambitious and set higher than ever, yet i feel more confident about achieving these goals than i ever did about smaller goals i used to set myself. However i want to express and emphasize that over the last 9 months or so my confidence while i am not substance effected has been deteriorating and that more and more negatives have been creeping into my life as a result of my drug problem.
Please realise that there is a great need for you to balance your lifestyle if you want to keep gaining positives from your drug use. I think a healthy and well balanced lifestyle can include drugs but a drug problem/addiction cant be included in a healthy and well balanced lifestyle.
Reasons i can offer from first hand experience as to why not to abuse party drugs.
Speed - Physical Health: Excessive weight loss; lowered sex drive; short term memory problems.
- Mental Health: Primarily I warn of chemically induced paranoia as speed induced psychosis is truly a window to and potentially a one way passage to Paranoid Schizophrenia; Agitation and massive stress build up from daily abuse, leaving more lasting effects such as agitation and anxiety, making it difficult to lower stress levels. I can rarely go to a movie at the cinema because i cant stand the thought of having to sit still for 2 hours, just thinking about it can sometimes make me edgy. These side effects have put strain on my relationship with my girl, who is one of the most positive things i have gained in my life since i started out in the scene, imagine how annoying it would be for her to be going out with a speed addict who is always agitated, cant remember promises and has such a low sex drive.
MDMA - Difficulty with depression, anxiety and short term memory loss. The way people look at you when you forget what you where talking about. If they are not drug fiends like you they obviously wont understand that your just semi permanently scattered. These side effects put strain on my family relationships, a bit of a turn around considering MDMA was the reason for me being a more family minded person and actually strengthening my family bonds. Eventually it does become straining on your family relationships as the drug becomes less about introspection and more about getting fucked up, gurning as hard as you can and seeing if you can get the eye wobbles to work even if you have to double again to get there.
Weed - The lack of motivation and depression caused by not wanting to do anything but sit on the couch smoking cones is enough to make me not want to abuse this drug ever again. However the most negative effects it gave me was the paranoia and the anxiety that followed, there was a long time where i went through many horrible experiences, paranoia is something that will always keep poking its ugly head up for as long as you abuse drugs, once you have experienced it how can you stop yourself getting paranoid about getting paranoid? Its a nasty thing to go through and it takes a lot of strength to overcome it. As the nature of paranoia is that you don't perceive things accurately and it creates a self doubt within you and it weakenss the one weapon we have that can fight it, self confidence.
Paranoia as mention above is the gateway to long term nasty and tragic side effects such as Paranoid Schizophrenia. To me weed was the trigger of paranoia, slowly paranoia seeped into other drug taking experiences however weed was its beginning. In my opinion weed is one of the most dangerous drugs to abuse. Paranoia is the beginning of self doubt and anxiety as well as a good way to develop or encourage the onset of a tragically life changing mental illness that i keep mentioning -Schizophrenia.
I know that i am sounding a lot like those zero tolerance commercials but i am really just trying to offer the best advice i can from my personal experiences. I want to state that i have absolutely no regrets about the person i have become and the things that i have done. I have just had some really close calls with negatives that have crept up on me and almost undone all the good things in my life. Its a very fine line that we are balancing on.
Gonna end this excessively long rant here as i think i have made my point, basically what i am saying can be summed up with the simple advice, Lead a balanced lifestyle that may include moderate and careful drug use. Enjoy everything in moderation. Don't get addicted to something like speed. You are just throwing yourself onto a tightrope where you have to try and balance everything while little ankle biting balls of negativity bite at your ankles and try to make you fall off, if you fall you risk losing everything positive you have gained from drugs.
Someone needs to come and physically remove me from this keyboard to stop me ranting on all night.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
