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[badstar]

Please, allow me a moment to admire my own verbosity whilst contemplating the current post.

Before I begin, a few words to whomever may be reading...

I will put this entry behind a cut. Pease read behind the cut only if you are willing to keep a few things in mind...
1. I am not locking this entry.
2. I am not screening comments.

3. Some people, no doubt will find this entry quite offensive, disturbing and/or worrisome.
4. This may or may not be safe for reading at work, school, house of uber-conservative in-laws who like to read over your shoulder. Text-only. Subject matter: recreational drug use (mostly hypothetical), Underage drinking. Underage smoking.

5. Please share thoughts and comments. However...please do not comment just to tell me I'm wrong/stupid/irresponsible etc.
Conversely, please don't comment just to tell me I'm right/that's cool etc.
Constructive thoughts please. Personal experience more than welcome

6. If I were looking for parental advice, I'd ask my mom.

7. I will get verbose, probably redundant and will probably have no particular point to half of what I say. That's me. I'm like that sometimes.

8. This is personal here. I am well aware that I am posting it in a public forum for the world to see. I consider myself to be a fairly open book and have no secrets save what I have been asked to keep in others' confidence...but for gosh sakes, don't go blabbing and copying this everywhere. If you have any convcerns, comments, questions about whatis written herein, please address them to the Proprietress Of This Web Establishment (That would be Yours Truly)

I probably have nothing to worry about here, but I think most people reading this will find most of this post to be quite unlike me, so I guess I just felt like it all needed to be said...



I used to be very anti-drug. I listened in school when they told us that drugs were nothing but bad for you. I pinned the anti-drug ribbon to my backpack and wore a read tshirt during drug-free week.

I was also anti-alcohol. Though not so staunchly. There was a time that I said that I would never drink. But other people drinking in moderation didn't really bother me so much.

I am still anti-cigarettes. I am the only person in my family...pareants, step parents, siblings, step siblings and both sets of grandparents who does not and has never smoked. My sister started when she was 15. got pregnant when she was 18, quit smoking when s found out, had the baby and may have waited an entire week before picking it up again. My brothers started when they were 11 or 12. From the time I was 15, everyone thought i was 18 or 19, so they used to beg me to go and try to buy cigarettes for them. So did their friends. This continued until I moved to Texas. I never did buy them cigarettes. After I turned 18, if I was going to the store and my mom handed me money and asked me to grab her a pack, I refused. There was one time in the past 7 years that I actually did pick up a pack at her request. If memory serves, it was the day after my grandfather died and I was too wrapped up in my own conflicts to bother refusing.

On alcohol...I always hated beer. I tasted wine a few times when I was 17 or 18...wasn't too impressed with it but was abandoning the "I'll never drink" idea for "I may have a drink once in a while someday if I find drinks that I like." To this day, I only drink drinks because I like the taste of what I'm drinking...the exception to the rule is tequila shots...and they're just fun to do otherwise I wouldn't bother.

I graduated from high school, I moved to Texas and went to college. I started drinking at 18. (Don't get the wrong idea, I never drank heavily. To this day, I can't say that I've ever been drunk. I've been buzzed a few times. There was a period of time when I moved back from Texas for about 2 1/2 or 3 years that I would go to the occasional party and drink well...considerably more than I should have. Sometimes on an empty stomach. And be barely buzzed or feel no effect whatsoever. It was at one such party when I had quite a few drinks...I never bothered to count...but one drink included Everclear or something very similar, when I thought about it and realized that I was feeling no effect whatsoever...it wasn't that I was *wanting* to be drunk, it was that I should have felt somethign with all I had been drinking. I didn't. I never had a hangover either (Never have had one)

This disturbed me. I'm not talking about a drinking problem here. I'm talking about me having maybe 2 drinks per month on a normal basis and then maybe 3 times a year drinking a lot all at once. I am not a small person, but I did have more tolerance than I should have. I was drinking and not paying attention because I felt so little effect. After that party, I started paying attention. And over time, my tolerance started decreasing considerably. My first buzz was on Chelle's 21st birthday. That was after 4 shots of tequila in somewhat rapid succession. I felt kinda lightheaded, detatched from my body and a bit silly, but I was completely in control of myself and my mom said that she never would have thought I was buzzed if I hadn't said so...said I was being pretty much like my typical self when I'm hyper.

My tolerance decreases considerably more as time goes on. This does not bother me. The most I've ever drank was maybe 2-3 drinks in a night once a week for a very short stretch of time. Then for my 24th birthday, my mom took me outI had 4 drinks that night- all the same thing but the bartender made each subsequent drink considerably sweeter and with less alcohol...when I finished the last one, I ended up with a mouthful of sours mix and was so disgusted that I could drink nothing but ice water for the next 3 days. I didn't drink any alcohol for 6 months after that.

I was a little disappointed to realize that I seem to have developed an allergy to malt beverages. I realized this sometime back. I hate beer, but I do like Mike's Hard Lemonade. Last one I had was at a party about a year ago. At a party a few weeks ago, there was Mike's Cranberry Lemonade, which I had never tried and wanted to...when I had food in my stomach, I decided to. I drank one. It didn't take long til my cheeks were burning and I was feeling very light-headed for at least an hour- almost but not quite room-spinning dizzy. There you have it...tastes good, but I won't be doing that again. I had never had that strong a reaction to the stuff. I won't press the issue. I drank a lot of water.

I have had 2 or 3 drinks since then. All of them stronger than a Mike's, None of them malt beverages, none of them caused any kind of reaction even close to the Mike's.

I have no great desire to drink. Even to make mudslides anymore- and I make really good mudslides. It would not surprise me if at some point in the not-so-distant future I just stopped.

On a somewhat-related note...both of my grandmothers are/were alcoholic. Though, neither one has any makred effect on my life. My mother's mother died when I was 9. She was only in her early 50's...52 I think. Maybe 54. She was diabetic and drank heavily. That complicated everyhtign and eventually killed her. She lived in Philly and when I was very young, I saw her maybe 2-3 times a year.

My father's mother is a functional alcoholic. Most people have no clue. Hell, I had no clue until I was 17 or 18...and I lived with her and my grandfather for 5 years. She gets drunk on one or two light beers. She just gets emotional and starts calling people crying and slurring her speech.

It's in my family, and while I am reasonably sure it is not something that I would have a problem with, I'm not stupid. I will not drink at all if i'm depressed, worried, upset, if I've had a bad day, or if I'm even joking about needing a drink.

So there's where I've been on alcohol.

Believe it or not, the primary topic of this entry is drug use.

As I mentioned before, I used to be totally anti-drug. (Ok with medecine though). That went right up through high school.

One time during the early part of my senior year of high school, I happened to be in the hallway just as the principal and a teacher were getting ready to search a student who was suspected of having drugs on his person. Apparently they couldn't perform the search without having another student witness to be sure that the student was not mistreated or abused. I was pulled in. The student was sitting at a desk of his own volition, made no attempts to get up and leave though he very easily could have, he was never actually touched. They asked him to take off his shoes, turn out his pockets, empty his backpack and open his textbooks and shake them out. Several bags of pot were found in a textbook with the inside of the pages cut out. It got out that I was pulled into this and somehow became construed that I was the one who had reported the student. for being in posession of drugs. I had never seen the guy before that day. For several months, I heard random voices calling out "Snitch" and "Tattle Tale" when I was walking through the hall in a crowd. Over time, I realized who was doing this, it was a couple of students that I was aquainted with through a club that I belonged to. Fed up with it, I ended up going to the teacher who was the advisor of that club for the very reason that I knew that she was the only person that would really be able to put a stop to it because they would listen to her. After I spoke to her, it stopped pretty much immediately.

I guess I was a little naive because honestly, I was pretty horrified that someone would bring drugs to school. I heard thigns about different people, but had never seen it fisrthand. Rumors were one thing. A hollowed-out textbook full of pot right in front of me was another story.

I will also say at this point, I don't really get the "peer pressure" thing that everyone warned us about. "Don't drink or smoke or do drugs just because others are and you want to look cool."

Can I honestly say that I never felt pressured to drink or smoke or do drugs because others were and I wanted to look cool. Not even once, in high school or college?? The answer is one of the few times I will ever speak in absolutes...Yes. I can honestly say that I have never felt pressure to do these things to look cool. Every choice I have ever made about drinking, drugs, smoking has been completely my own.

I went to one high school for 9th grade. It was fairly small, suburban/rural Lancaster county, very conservative place. ...600-650 people. I know that people did all kinds of things. But no one ever talked about it in school. Not in front of teachers anyway. Yeah, sure that was 9th grade, but most of my friends were juniors and seniors, so I wasn't just hanging around with a bunch of scared freshmen.

10th grade I changed schools. The school was a little bigger- about 1000 students, the district a bit less conservative. Although both school districts bordered right on the city, the first school was much more rural. It was also considerably more well-to-do and racially diverse. I had no idea which of these, if any factors made it differnt. What amazed me was how much students talked about getting drunk or high. In earshot of teachers. And I don't remember many of the teachers saying much of anyhitng about it.

The first time I actually remember smelling pot was November 1st 1997. (I swear I only know the exact date because it was the day after Halloween, freshman year of college.) I was at a concert...Dave Matthews Band, Smashing Pumpkins, The Rolling Stones...Matchbox 20 opened, but we missed that and I didn't really care. I was there to see Smashing Pumpkins. But I digress.

So I was at this concert with some of my friends...Will, Tedd, Ani, Robbie, Ani's brother and someone else that I can't remember for the life of me...probably Robbie's girlfriend. And I suddenly smelled what was the most nauseating thing I could remember ever smelling, and I developed a nasty headache. I asked what the smell was and everyone looked at me like I had just landed from Mars. I got a little defensive, they all backed down and Will says "Um...that's pot. You know, marijuana" Smell went almost as quickly as it had appeard and my headache and nausea cleared up before too long.

At some point in the few months after that, my standpoint became "It nauseates me, but if you're going to do it, just keep it far from me." About that time, I started wondering why it was such a bad thing for people who are terminally ill to use it to relieve pain. For a long time, that was about where I stood. Keep it away from me, if you're not hurting others with what you're doing, I don't like it but out of sight, out of mind.

Which eventually became "If someone wants to do it and they're not hurting someone in the processit doesn't bother me, just keep burning pot away from me because it gives me a headache"

I don't know when I realized that it no longer gives me a headache. While not one of my favorite smells, I guess at this point, I'd say I'm neutral.

A couple of years ago I started going to Playa Del Fuego. There's all sorts of interesting things there. Suddenly, I''m being offered all kinds of things that I can't identify. I turn it all down politely "No, thanks for asking though" And over the course of a few burns start to become curious about some things. There have been a few times that I've seriously considered trying a few different things. I'm still not quite willing to try anything. That may or may not change in time. I'm kinda curious about psychedellics and hallucinagens.

At PDF a few weeks ago I was offered the fairly standard array by a multitude of people. Declined it all. Scott offered me some mushroom tea on Saturday night. I did ponder trying it for a few minutes before I realized that it was far too close to burn time and I wasn't about to play with fire having ingested something that I don't know how I'll react to or how long the reaction will last.

My brother Anthony almost died once a few years back of an acid overdose. Some chick he was hanging out with put like 10 hits in a glass of juice that he was drinking without telling him. She thought it was a great joke.

My brother Mike smokes pot. Frequently. My mom's smoked it a few times. Once with my brother. Says that it doesn't really impress her. I was quite surprised to find this out about my mother. But in a way, I really wasn't.

And then there's this other thing...if you've read my journal long enough, you've probably noticed posts where I describe very...shall we say interesting experiences. Some of you have seen me very uch in those states (tecie...like in the aquarium) or soon after. In no such case has there ever been any kind of drug or alcohol in my system (Ok, so at any given time, there would be a slight chance of say Tylenol or Advil...but the chances of me having those in my system are extremely minimal seeing as I might take such a thing twice a year.)

I obviously know that altered states of consciousness are perfectly possible without chemical inducement. One thought that really interests me (and conversely scares me) is what effect one would have on the other. I've known of people haveing very good experiences, I've known of people having very bad experiences.

I think I'm finished for now. Just some thoughts that I had to get out. I wrote this post over the course of almost 4 hours.

Feel free to comment, keeping in mind the request I made at the beginning of the post.

If you've made it this far...you have entirely too much free time on your hands.

Coming soon...the posts about Sex and Rock N Roll!

Comments

[kazoogrrl.livejournal.com]

I've wandered away from the indulgent times of my youth - I don't have the time or energy for it. Plus my brother is an addict, so I've tried to keep myself in line.

A bunch of my friends used to use acid while meditating/in order to think "deep thoughts" - I always thought was more impressive to do such things sober, then always have to use a catalyst for it.

Just curious - how did your brother almost OD on acid? Was it cut with something nasty? Never heard of that before.

[fuego.livejournal.com]

i honestly don't know exactly what the deal is. my mom thinks there's more to the story that's not being told. we didn't find out about it til a couple of months after the fact. he's told us that this chick put 10 hits of acid in his orange juice. he was also on ritalin at the time (medically prescribed) we theorize that it either was cut with something else, or reacted badly with something else in his system...would be of no surprise whatsoever if he was taking other things. he was running away a lot at the time, so would be gone for several days or a week at a time when we couldn't find him. he tells us that these people he was with took him into the ER under a fake name

Also...please don't get me wrong...I'm not looking for nirvanna or "deep thoughts" from this...i do not seek to reproduce or better such altered experiences through chemical enhancement or whatever. and not all such previous experiences have been pleasant...some have been far from it. i certainly wouldn't want to induce THAT synthetically. it was more a consideration, that one would very possibly affect the other. if i were ever to try anyhitng like i have mentioned, it would be purely out of curiousity. i could say : "ok, i tried it, i know for sure now it's really not my thing" or "hey, that was kinda cool. i may try it again someday."

i am well aware that there are all kinds of risks to this sort of thing...hence the extreme aprehension and long, drawn out thought process. if i ever do decide to try anyhitng, it may not be for several more years. i know what can happen, and while i take that into very serious consideration i will not let other people's experience be the sole decideing factor in my own descisions.

rereading this, i realize that i sound quite defensive...at least i think i do. it's not meant to be defensive, just further explaination of my thoughts :-)

[kazoogrrl.livejournal.com]

In my experience, the people who thought out, planned out, and worried over this often ended up having bad experiences. Not all of them, but I noticed in general the more "prep work" put into the decision, the worse the outcome. People who were knowledgeable of what they were getting into but went into it for the experience without worrying what would happen or who did not try to shape the experience ahead of time often did better. So overanalyzing can (though not always) set you up for a freak out - I credit my laissez faire attitude for helping me get through a very intense psychadelic experience (one I will not call bad because it wasn't, though it had all the marks of a bad time to many people).

Ugh, that stinks for your brother. That's one of the big problems - knowing exactly what you're getting.

[fuego.livejournal.com]

good points. though i don't *think* i'm so much planning and worrying...i dunno. maybe i am? this isn't like it's something i obsess over day in and day out, it's just something that's come to mind a bit more often lately. the only "planning" in my mind at this point is purely common sense stuff i think, that if i ever do decide to try anyhitng that i will make sure that i am 100% confident in my trust of the people around me and that i'm comfortable with the situation in general, and that i have a clue what i'm ingesting.

i realize now that my last reply sounds very much likea scientist handling a nuclear bomb or something...lol

i think i just had a lot of thoughts on the subject and had to get it out. thanks for the comments.

[kazoogrrl.livejournal.com]

common sense = good thing

I think it's something to responsibly try at least once in your life!