[07] Are You Hardcore? by Anonymous

Catch-22

Bluelighter
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Mar 16, 2001
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After years upon years of recreational usage of drugs, one's eyes become quite stoic to the psychological effects on a user. One can watch people become strong, one can watch people become weak, one can watch people fall. The memories, at least the ones that our memories are able to retain, last lifetimes, for life on the edge is the only life worth living, is it not? What is it that attracts people to drug use? Is it the dangers and excitement of engaging in such unorthodox activity? Perhaps it is the spiritual growth or 'mental expansion' one can receive from certain substances. Maybe it is simply the temporary vacation from reality that seduces us. Whatever the cause, people use drugs, and people have been using drugs for thousands of years. Obviously, it is a trend that isn't going to end sometime soon.

Within each subculture of the underground world exist many of the same personality traits, and the same cultural significances of use. A great many of us occasionally take it to the extreme, and some of us more than on occasion. We wear our tolerances as medals, and consume our catalysts of choice to flex the muscles of experience. The bravest and most untamed of drug users throw the might of their intake out as though it were a milestone of lifelong achievement.

Consider, for a moment, that our society may be moving towards a level of acceptance for the personal exploration of the altered states of consciousness. In this foreseen future, brave and untamed may, perchance, correlate with ignorant and irresponsible. Even tolerance may show itself a symbol of un-experience. Basic pharmacological knowledge and personal anatomy will replace the anecdotal experiences one has from those times that hard core went a little soft.

A true experienced user knows how to fight tolerance. After all, we want our substances to be cleaner, stronger, and more cost effective. We all want to feel healthy and functional in our daily lives. Showing off tolerance not only puts our personal health in danger, but it puts our wallets in danger as well. For drugs to effectively evolve into our society, our society needs to learn the key elements of responsibility. This leaves no room for showing off our experience. Instead, why not use our experience to educate others in a responsible manner.

There is no use in being hardcore. There is no purpose in requiring an immense amount of drug intake, or to prove one's strength to others. People can use drugs and maintain intelligent airs, respectable jobs, and fully social lifestyles. All this requires is moderation and responsibility. When a consumer uses the drug of choice, a few questions should be asked. First, why are these drugs being used? Second, when was the last time these, or other drugs were used? And third, are the answers to the first two questions interfering with the user's life? With the lives of others? Constantly attempting to prove how often one uses psychoactive drugs, and how much one can handle, leads down many different roads. None of these lead anywhere near a path of social, economical, or spiritual contentment.

As stated above, years of use will allow one to observe plenty of hardcore users. Many of these include overdoses, economical ruin, and mental disorders. This is not to say that excessive use will ruin everyone's lives. The purpose is to get the user to look ahead in life, to look further down the road in life. If one's drug use is not getting them anywhere now, it sure will not be in the future. We all have control over our lives, regardless what we think, and we all have the ability to live content and healthy lives into our elder years. If we want our usage to find acceptance within our modernized world, we need to practice intelligent decisions of moderation and responsibility. Hardcore lifestyles will never find a place in this complex society, and with that, drugs never will either. We can drop out of our spoon fed reality and socially conditioned culture, but are drugs really worth giving up an education? A satisfying occupation? If one can find a satisfying life without our society, then by all means, enjoy. But for most of us, a compromise between drug use and acceptance would be much more satisfying. Perhaps the saying, 'sobriety is the worst drug of them all' holds some truths, which is why occasional breaks can be healthy, stress relieving, and entertaining.

People are still people, regardless of their leisurely activities. People deserve a right to privacy, and a right to choose what does/does not go in their bodies. We cannot let our use interfere with our lives or the lives of others. We need to convince our society that people are able to use responsibly, and maintain perfectly functional lifestyles. A real hardcore user doesn't flex experience, intake, or tolerance; a real hardcore user knows the ins and outs of the body, the mind, the substance, and the source.
 
Reminder: I am posting this essay on behalf of someone else. These comments are not an official policy statement. Whether you want to agree or disagree, please put your thoughts in this thread. Do not send me PM's or emails unless you are contributing a new essay of your own. Thanks!
 
what were you on when you wrote that? because it makes your writing nice, and i'd really like to get some and consume it in heroic doses. please provide me a detailed list of your sources so i may attain your level of intelligence and insight.
 
insightful
Makes me somewhat reflect upon my consumption and the degree to which it affects past decisions.
:)
PEACE
 
Either acid or weed and caffeine aided in this essay. He's right though. Who the hell likes to brag that it takes a blunt to the head, half gram rails or 5 bags of heroin injected to get off? It doesn't make sense. I don't necessarily think people brag about their tolerance so much to seem hardcore to other druggies as much as to show how out of control their life really is. "My life is worse." "No mine is." Where does this get us? The whole practice is fatalistic in nature. Like the high school sophomore who brags he smokes 3 packs of cigs a day. It's obvious being reckless with the use of any drug inevitably leads to unhappiness. The sad part is that unhappiness leads to reckless drug use. Where does this cycle break?
 
Did it ever occur to you that he might just be very intelligent? Tokey the cycle breaks when you can find happiness again without drug use. Strangely enough, there are clean and sober people who exercise or walk the dog when they're sad. Excellent read, as always.
 
^^ My thoughts exactly!

Why do drugs always have to be the reason behind a smart, insightful and intelligent article or any form of work
 
I completely agree with the above two posters. Brilliance, clarity of thought, insight and intelligence are not the product of drugs. They are natural talents that untold millions of people have cultivated over the years through scores of paths other than drug use.
 
Lol, i agree. When i write something that i feel strongly about i do it sober. IMO drugs alter my concious in such a way that what i am writing is usually not my true feeling. Well..it is a true feeling, but it is altered by the drug to put a happier, dreerier, etc.. spin on it. This was a very good post involving many of the same ideas that have gone through my head before. It is good to get a reiteration every once in awhile!
 
"Sobriety is the worst drug of them all." I think it's the best drug of them all. It's that time when you can exercise what, if at all you've learned from your use and experiences. Once you go so far in the world of certain drugs you realize just how amazing and complex the universe is and you feel a responsibility to carry that into your life and the lives of others. I know I feel that responsibility as a positive one and one that keeps me reaching out from my ignorance and darkness. With or without the aid of another mind altering substance life is pretty mind altering already. Knowing this has always helped me to keep addiction at bay.

I've always looked upon asking for help or riding out the feelings of whatever desolation drives you to an addiction as much more hard core than actually giving in to something you know will only end you up right back where you started.
 
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don't forget the other reasons people look to drugs, depression, abuse, economic. these need to be adressed. if a person feels they have nothing to lose, and suicide is still around, then exercise with the dog might not be the prescription for them. ssris dont quite cut it either, but they're a start, greedy as the drug companies are.

prohibition is no answer. somehow we've managed to put millions on the road and most people follow the rules of the road. it takes education and the proper tools to integrate something like drug use into the culture. give it time, more selective tools will be developed, especially based off genome research and brain scanning. prohibition will become a hard argument to make if we can provide people with the right environment, education, and drugs to improve their process of thinking and living.
 
EXCELLENT ARTICLE .i have been wanting to write about this for the longest time...but as usual my brain was too scattered so my precious thoughts just wasted away. I love discovering pieces that have somehow, "read my mind " ....its as if the the flow of the universe is working its gifts on my fried brain :)
 
That's fabulous. I am what I would consider 'borderline hardcore' in that I am using my drugs of choice regularly and taking large doses... dunno if it's to prove myself but I definitely know what the writer is on about.

Has given me a new perspective on drugs and drug use... the 3 questions are ones that should be asked all the time but rarely are until it's too late..

Thankyou, whoever the writer is :)

Astaroth.
 
dyscotopia, you wrote a good essay. Good job.

Personally, I can write like that after a night of drinking. I used to have the ability when I was high, yet for some reason lately I have lost the capabliity.
 
Amen brother! Very insightful post. I think that is the best post I have read to date here on Bluelight. At least the one I can relate too the most. Couldn't have said it better(if I could express myself as well). The problem is that most of us have to go through the period of "hell" to finally realize what our usage is about and what addiction truly means to us personally as people living within a society who views us with fear and distain (largely) and considers us outsiders. There are those of us who started in the 60's and 70's who have "respectable" jobs in the community and who's collegues(sp?) would be absolutely shocked if they knew who they were really working with. We survived but as was mentioned in the original post have seen much in terms of the various consequences drug use can have on individuals.
 
well God damn if that wasn't the best thing I've read in a long time, especially the thoughts about moderation and using the experience to learn from and educate others. that 'hardcore' underpinning exists like a burning in so many people, and drugs showed me that I needed a healthy place to be 'hardcore'; for me, that's music. Like with life, becoming terriblly shackled to the great moments from drugs blocks out the potentially negative experiences that can teach us something we really need to hear.
 
That was an AWESOME essay....if everyone would read that essay and seriously think about everything the author wrote, and I mean seriously think about it, the whole "drug culture" would be in generally better situation.

At least that's what I think.
 
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