Memories of my youth: Trying a lot of drugs but not really being a "user" of any of them
I think that drugs have a real chance to ruin some people and then there are other people that will have a go at them, find them ok, have a good time on them, but then also realize that this is something that can be very damaging to their ability to operate and then just opt out of using them in the future.
I know a few people whose lives were turned upside down by addiction and therefore I want to let everyone know that I am in no way advocating for drug use. I can see the danger. I just think that there is a certain type of person out there that has an addictive personality and if it wasn't for the illegal drugs getting them all out of whacks it would be something else. The people I know that destroyed lives with drugs were really unreliable and kind of failures even before drugs stepped into the picture so it wasn't actually all that surprising when they took it to an extreme. Rather than focus on them I would prefer to focus on myself because I have a much clearer image of that.
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When I was in high school I wasn't really very much into partying. I was kind of a nerd and enjoyed sports. I also had a pretty strict family life so the idea of rolling around in a field all night while my parents thought I was at a sleepover wasn't something I would have been able to get away with. I didn't really even enjoy drinking and would be one of those straight-edge kids at a party that on the rare occasion that the police would raid the place, I would be the person calmly walking towards them, because I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. Other kids were jumping out of windows and over fences and I just walked up and said "hello officer, what can I do for you?"
I knew people that smoked a bunch of weed in high school and especially in college but I never really took to it because I am one of those people that became paranoid about my own behavior when I was stoned because I would get the giggles and also lose my train of thought really easily. I guess I don't really like the way that it makes me feel slow. I'm not a super active guy anymore and I have some friends that will bring a joint over that we have a few puffs on the porch with, but getting stoned off of weed was never really my thing. I don't think I have ever actually purchased any of it.
Acid and Mushrooms I did both of them one time. This stuff seriously took me out of the game, so to speak, and debilitated me to the point where I felt really silly about how I was behaving afterwards although at the time I couldn't really help it. I guess I don't like being like that because of the sense of shame that I felt afterwards because most people are a completely different person on hallucinogenics... I was anyway so those were both a once only sort of thing.
Ecstasy was really a big deal when I was in college and I had mixed experiences with this. On one hand it could be a lot of fun and really opened up the senses. It was pretty handy if there were a bunch of girls that were also doing them with you and no, I don't mean this in a rapey way. I'll let you fill in the blanks there on your own but the reason why I never really did this all that much and found it easy to say no to was because if you got ones that were good, it was a really long commitment. I would say you are going to be in that "zone" for 4-8 hours on a good pill and I don't like to be committed to anything that you cannot possibly get out of for that long an amount of time.
I had a run in with meth one time and that was enough to convince me that this drug is truly dangerous. It's just a dirty high and it feels nervous, if that makes sense. Plus the total inability to sleep for long stretches of time afterwards an the fact that the next day or perhaps 2 days are completely destroyed because of it is all the reason that I ever needed to stay away from that shit. The two people I know that seriously screwed up their lives with drugs were both meth-heads. If you listen to only one piece of "stay off drugs, kids" advice listen to the part about staying away from meth. Not only does it have more cons than pros but it also is from dubious origin. There isn't exactly a lot of quality control in the meth world and you never really know what you are getting. Now that we have whatever that super dangerous chemical that is killing people left and right in the mix these days as well, it's just to dangerous and has more of a "junkie" feel to it than any of the other ones.
I never tried heroin nor knew anyone that has in a needles sense. That's a level of crazy that I never wanted anything to do with and if anyone had so much as suggested it to me I would have seriously reevaluated our friendship.
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Watch the film "Requiem for a Dream" to have a powerful look at heroin addiction.
The only drug that I ever did that kind of appealed to me and I actually sought out a few times in my adult life was cocaine. While I do not advocate for the use of any drugs (or even alcohol for that matter) I can see why it is that people enjoy cocaine. It puts you on a different plane intellectually and just makes everyone more suave. you have no fear and you are logical as well as smooth and witty. At least that was the case with me. It also makes everything you do more fun.
I think my favorite part about cocaine was that once you did some of it, you got really high for around an hour and then you either did more of it or you came back down. This is just the right amount of commitment for me. You can go and have an absolute blast for a couple of hours and then call it a day. It is also extremely expensive so anyone other than the most irresponsible person is going to only dabble in it every now and then.
One of the downsides about acquiring this drug in USA anyway, is that there are a lot of scammers out there that load it up with things that are meant to grow the weight and therefore the profits but the ingredients don't actually do anything except make you need to use the bathroom.
in all of these things I never let any of this screw up my work or school life. I didn't get a multi-day hangover from any of these other than the one time I did meth and that was enough to convince me to never do it again. I suspect this is why the people who do meth do it all the time because the only way that they can feel not terrible is to do more meth. That's not a good thing at all now, is it?
I am happy that I tried all of them and had the willpower to not get hooked. Now when someone talks about these drugs I don't have the Mr. Mackey approach of "drugs are bad and if you do drugs, you are bad." I have more of an informed way of thinking about it.
Like most people I have a few friends that are very functional on weed and they seem to be stoned basically all the time. I have not seen a negative impact on my friends that are like this but I do think there is a danger there. Those catch-phrases about it being a gateway drug is absolutely true because it's always the one that people do first before moving on to the "hard stuff."
I don't regret my drug use and I think it says something at least somewhat good about me that even though I was at maximum stoopid between the ages of 17 and 24 or so, I still had the presence of mind to know that all of these things should be used sparingly. I never really even think about using these days and will even pass on grass most of the time when it is offered to me, which isn't often. People don't get involved with drugs nearly as frequently once they are past the age of say, 35 or so.
What about you? got any experiences or stories to share?