Come out Come Out you Junkies

[Blaidd Drwg]

Respect for addressing your limitations.

[The Venerable Bogatir X]

Kind of, I sustained a knee injury and could barely walk, then I got beaten up by a dick bouncer whom my stripper girlfriend was fucking on the side, and the combination of all that, plus booze, lead me to think I could shoot one of them as they left the club after closing time. There was some booze and some Vicodin involved.

Earlier that day I put 50 rounds through it and sighted it in.

The door opened and I thought "What the fuck am I doing?". I unloaded everything, put the gun in he trunk, and drove home and started getting my shit together the next day. Definitely a weird episode

Holy shit....I just caught this.

[The Venerable Bogatir X]

Believe addiction is more of a bad habit you learn by constant practice and calling it a disease is an excuse.

I honestly thought this way until a few months back. But humor me: if addiction as disease is true, then even if as much as 10% gets/has the affliction, then the other 90% should not suffer by way of illegal activity that should not be illegal, which is one reason why I am pro legalization.

Can't disagree with that logic. My growing Libertarianism leads to me people generally being allowed to do what they want to their own bodies. My limit is reached at the point where for example folks ride motorcycles helmetless than want gubmint to fix them when they sustain a brain injury; same with somebody who becomes addicted then wants government provided rehab.

Own your freedom. YMMV.

Concur.

[The Venerable Bogatir X]

The disease concept is still confusing .If it is ,I have it. They say my brain is different then yours. That I possibly changed its chemistry with regular abuse Look here

THIQ-Biochemical Culprit.

The Alcoholic can take on responsibility for arresting their disease.

Know what i know for fuckin sure?. If i pick up it will be a matter of couple weeks maybe before Im in a complete spiral. I don't want to be in that spiral.I don't want to lose my jobs or my son or my self respect. I start to lose the ability to make the correct choice. it makes me want to take everything to the point of death

I have sat in front of a plate of cocain with my left arm gone completely numb holding two fingers on my neck feeling my fluttering pulse and going back in to snort another obscenely large line. fucking suicide...if not a disease, its a mental illness.

Good post, too. Nugget worthy thread already.

[Sangoma]

Shaf is my hero.

[The Ginger Beard Man]

This may be a cop out, but I don't give much thought to whether or not it's a disease. I just accept it, because it makes my life easier that way. Same with a higher power. Yeah, there's a power greater than myself. Is it God? The Tao? Physics? All of the above? Sure, why not? I don't really give a shit what anybody calls it. It doesn't matter.
When I was 26 my liver would just start vibrating for no apparent reason, and every day I woke up completely obsessed with booze. And I would constantly tell myself I wouldn't drink for that day, and then drink.
I figure that is definitely a mental illness, if nothing else.

[The Ginger Beard Man]

Believe addiction is more of a bad habit you learn by constant practice and calling it a disease is an excuse.

I honestly thought this way until a few months back. But humor me: if addiction as disease is true, then even if as much as 10% gets/has the affliction, then the other 90% should not suffer by way of illegal activity that should not be illegal, which is one reason why I am pro legalization.

Can't disagree with that logic. My growing Libertarianism leads to me people generally being allowed to do what they want to their own bodies. My limit is reached at the point where for example folks ride motorcycles helmetless than want gubmint to fix them when they sustain a brain injury; same with somebody who becomes addicted then wants government provided rehab.

Own your freedom. YMMV.

Concur.

Based strictly on the anecdotes of other people, I'm not sure that rehab isn't a complete waste of time and money. Success rates seem astonishingly low. But then again, success rates in AA seem astonishingly low, too. There are no reliable statistics on this (AA) but it's sad to think about all the people I've seen come and go.

[syaigh]

Believe addiction is more of a bad habit you learn by constant practice and calling it a disease is an excuse.

I honestly thought this way until a few months back. But humor me: if addiction as disease is true, then even if as much as 10% gets/has the affliction, then the other 90% should not suffer by way of illegal activity that should not be illegal, which is one reason why I am pro legalization.

Can't disagree with that logic. My growing Libertarianism leads to me people generally being allowed to do what they want to their own bodies. My limit is reached at the point where for example folks ride motorcycles helmetless than want gubmint to fix them when they sustain a brain injury; same with somebody who becomes addicted then wants government provided rehab.

Own your freedom. YMMV.

Concur.

Based strictly on the anecdotes of other people, I'm not sure that rehab isn't a complete waste of time and money. Success rates seem astonishingly low. But then again, success rates in AA seem astonishingly low, too. There are no reliable statistics on this (AA) but it's sad to think about all the people I've seen come and go.

I have a lifter who has been sober eleven years. She says she goes to multiple funerals every year for people who just couldn't stop. All the sober ones I know quit on their own accord, with help, and continued help, but it came from within.

[knuckles]

This might be a bit off topic but lets not forget rehab is big business.My first rehab was 32 years ago. Mrs Reagan "just Say No" era. I was the first kid in my high school that went to Drug rehab called Drug rehab and not something else.The insurance companies had killer policies for middle class white folks in middle management. Rehabs became very popular to dump troubled kids who abused drugs and they could keep you for months, all covered. my first stay was 80 days. Shake and Bake is 21 days tops nowdays.. The director of the floor was an ex convict, pimp ,herion addict. Delbert.

Delbert would quite often have you stand in the middle of circle of us miscreants and threaten to hit you with a phone book for not getting "Honest"

Delbert had ties with a expensive halfway house in the great north. I relapsed. My folks had money and had lost their patience. He convinced them that this was best
Me and every other kid from St louis that was sent there folks all had money.
This place as run by a bunch of recovered bikers .Not rolex wearing wanna be douchers on this years Harley, Fuckin ex nasty fuckers who had seen the light.Or just sick of being sick and going to the joint all the time.The place was filled with a bunch of street kids from NYC, (One of them shot dope with Johnny Thunders) and some guys from TX and all over .Most were all there to help get a reduced sentence for possession or outright big sales.Most had pending court dates or some shit.
You use and you were out.We weren't allowed for the first month to have any contact outside.Phone ,Letters nuthin. If we went to meeting you had to hold a Brothers belt loop. 4 months and then you could get a job and move into a house that was ran by other brothers of the house
Turned out the sister of the gentleman that owned and ran the halfway house had a sister that ran an expensive foster home . I didn't adapt that great. I was 17. I smoked some grass, tripped a few times ,dabbled in speed and had a really shitty attitude and bad grades.I liked drugs but from what i know now didn't know what true addiction was
My parents signed me over to the foster house ..but not before ole Delbert got flown out with his hot white attendant to attend a camp out next to one of the thousand lakes.Fucker wouldn't even look me in the eye
So Im in a foster home my folks are paying 12 hundy a month in 80's kind of money.Funny thing is I got better . They were hard but fair . They paid attention . Corrected me . I joined the wrestling team . Lost every match.In this place if you show merit they would put you through college after your year was up. My Parents realized that they were about to lose me ...forever .. They told me I could come home. offered me a car.I made on of those decisions that changes your whole fuckin life and what could've been. I went home ...the rest is a bunch of really shitty decisions after that..by the time I was truly addicted everything had changed..VA hospital was a joke, Beds in clinical rehabs went fast and it all ddnt speak to me. and then eventually I just didn't care anymore .and for about 16 years it was a poorly funded, amateur Motley Crue video till it got ugly...so yeah Rehab is racket..I jst wanted it this time

[The Venerable Bogatir X]

174 votes as I make this post. Anyone else think the 21% percentage of alcohol use (not abuse, but rec use as defined in the survey) seems extremely low? I don't think the survey is asking what one had a 'problem' with, but what one has used. This is exhibit Zz as to why I mistrust polls and surveys: I don't think people are lying, but read too far into the question.

Thoughts?

[Blaidd Drwg]

174 votes as I make this post. Anyone else think the 21% percentage of alcohol use (not abuse, but rec use as defined in the survey) seems extremely low? I don't think the survey is asking what one had a 'problem' with, but what one has used. This is exhibit Zz as to why I mistrust polls and surveys: I don't think people are lying, but read too far into the question.

Thoughts?

I think the hasty manner I framed the question left a little room for interpretation becuase that number seems fairly low..perhaps people were thinking currently versus over the course of their lives.

I meant it as a summary of lifetime experience. Why? becuase it's my strongly held opinion that unless you have some first hand experience with a thing, what you think you know about that thing is not just wrong...it's almost pathologically wrong. Now there's a range of experience that one might have studying the pharmacology or doing social work or growing up in an alcoholic household or workign in law enforcement where you might develop a strong sensibility..but if you want to run your jib in black and white terms, you better have a more than a hint of the breadth of possibilities...that lets say weed is not so bad, but a lot of people have problems with opiates and depression..or that mentally unstable people should not do psychedelics.

I love ya, Jack but your breezy comments on addiction are so phenomenally fucked up and simplistic that it's like me telling you how you should be able to drop bombs and not crash planes. Now we're all guilty of cognitive biases, I certainly have a big fat one re: the police, and I've learned by talking with folks like Naps and Holland that it's a lot more complicated than I can understand...so my polemics are limited to just that..one guy yelling about one side of the argument.

To me the highest form of innate intelligence is understanding that there's much you don't understand while still trying to understand it even though you wont ever be able to...

That's kind of where the Enlightenment came from..I think it's probably good for our species to keep at it, messy as it may be.

[Really Big Strong Guy]

I have ran the full gambit on the androgens perspective (but I am almost totally removed from that experience as it was over a decade ago; but boy was there some shenanigans at that time). Also take SSRIs for social anxiety. Don't drink. Don't smoke weed - eat too much already and not good to smoke anything when your asthmatic. Avoid the other stuff. I do take the occasional Xanax (perhaps once every three months) when I cannot shut my mind down. Valium does nothing for me, but the Xanax makes me sleep for a good 12 hours, then feel hung over and nap all day the following day. Absolutely hate the feeling and basically causes me to waste most of weekend. I right it off to "down time" and "recuperating from a heavy training cycle" normally.

[nafod]

174 votes as I make this post. Anyone else think the 21% percentage of alcohol use (not abuse, but rec use as defined in the survey) seems extremely low? I don't think the survey is asking what one had a 'problem' with, but what one has used. This is exhibit Zz as to why I mistrust polls and surveys: I don't think people are lying, but read too far into the question.

Thoughts?

I don't think that is 174 individuals voting. I think that is 174 boxes ticked. I bet almost everyone ticked alcohol, so there are probably about 33-40 people voted.

[powerlifter54]

174 votes as I make this post. Anyone else think the 21% percentage of alcohol use (not abuse, but rec use as defined in the survey) seems extremely low? I don't think the survey is asking what one had a 'problem' with, but what one has used. This is exhibit Zz as to why I mistrust polls and surveys: I don't think people are lying, but read too far into the question.

Thoughts?

I think the hasty manner I framed the question left a little room for interpretation becuase that number seems fairly low..perhaps people were thinking currently versus over the course of their lives.

I meant it as a summary of lifetime experience. Why? becuase it's my strongly held opinion that unless you have some first hand experience with a thing, what you think you know about that thing is not just wrong...it's almost pathologically wrong. Now there's a range of experience that one might have studying the pharmacology or doing social work or growing up in an alcoholic household or workign in law enforcement where you might develop a strong sensibility..but if you want to run your jib in black and white terms, you better have a more than a hint of the breadth of possibilities...that lets say weed is not so bad, but a lot of people have problems with opiates and depression..or that mentally unstable people should not do psychedelics.

I love ya, Jack but your breezy comments on addiction are so phenomenally fucked up and simplistic that it's like me telling you how you should be able to drop bombs and not crash planes. Now we're all guilty of cognitive biases, I certainly have a big fat one re: the police, and I've learned by talking with folks like Naps and Holland that it's a lot more complicated than I can understand...so my polemics are limited to just that..one guy yelling about one side of the argument.

To me the highest form of innate intelligence is understanding that there's much you don't understand while still trying to understand it even though you wont ever be able to...

That's kind of where the Enlightenment came from..I think it's probably good for our species to keep at it, messy as it may be.

BD,

Interesting point. My reference is 100% family, training partners, and navy folks who spent a lot of time and effort working building their addiction, and who ignored the warning signals both internal and external that lots of things in their lives were coming off the rails, but they kept at it and f'ed themselves and most people around them royally. And at some point they were "addicted" and it was the disease's fault. is there some personal anger there? Yes. If there are other realities i would not be surprised and am open to adjusting or adapting my opinion. But to be honest i have bigger fish to fry right now so pondering the spectrum of addiction is not on my list of priorities, but if this conversation expands i will follow it the best i can.

[Blaidd Drwg]

BD,

Interesting point. My reference is 100% family, training partners, and navy folks who spent a lot of time and effort working building their addiction, and who ignored the warning signals both internal and external that lots of things in their lives were coming off the rails, but they kept at it and f'ed themselves and most people around them royally. And at some point they were "addicted" and it was the disease's fault. is there some personal anger there? Yes. If there are other realities i would not be surprised and am open to adjusting or adapting my opinion. But to be honest i have bigger fish to fry right now so pondering the spectrum of addiction is not on my list of priorities, but if this conversation expands i will follow it the best i can.

I can respect that. I did not mean to be dismissive of anything other than your apparent glibness in categorizing something that is less well understood than quantum theory. As I stated before, I don't even disagree with the excuse/behavior notion entirely. There is an element of truth born out by experience and science that you can cure the effects of addiction quite effectively soley by changes in behavior or environment. While we all have bigger fish to fry, (for instance GS'er are once again posting in the TTF) I'm pleased that you will remain open to ideas which are complex.

[DARTH]

You lie-men motherfuckerers!

Almost 200 of you answer and less than 40 have done weed at any time in their lives? I call bullshit!