Clan x86
General Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: iago on March 28, 2009, 12:51:02 pm
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http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/1999/08/27/heroinson/
That's actually a really cool story of a guy who got into drugs young, escalated up to being a junkie on the streets, then eventually .. well, I won't give away the ending ;)
I spent a good chunk of time reading this yesterday at work, and I'm glad I did -- it's actually really interesting, especially the part about the relationship between him and his parents.
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Moral of the story: Drugs are good for you!
Actually, I didn't read it. :P
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Haha, obviously. :P
Moral of the story: heroin is bad. :)
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Haha, obviously. :P
Moral of the story: heroin is bad. :)
But the others, not so much? ;P
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Haha, obviously. :P
Moral of the story: heroin is bad. :)
But the others, not so much? ;P
In that story, no. Throughout school (both highschool and university), he passed with great marks and was doing all kinds of drugs.. it wasn't till he got on heroin that he ended up in the gutter. :)
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Haha, obviously. :P
Moral of the story: heroin is bad. :)
But the others, not so much? ;P
In that story, no. Throughout school (both highschool and university), he passed with great marks and was doing all kinds of drugs.. it wasn't till he got on heroin that he ended up in the gutter. :)
I thought that was what Towelie was saying?
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Haha, obviously. :P
Moral of the story: heroin is bad. :)
But the others, not so much? ;P
In that story, no. Throughout school (both highschool and university), he passed with great marks and was doing all kinds of drugs.. it wasn't till he got on heroin that he ended up in the gutter. :)
I thought that was what Towelie was saying?
Look at the timestamp. My bedtime is that - an hour or so. Shut up.
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:)
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or maybe you are just doing heroin?!
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or maybe you are just doing heroin?!
I think it's more likely that he's addicted to paint fumes. For shame, also, very nice work on them miniatures. :)
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or maybe you are just doing heroin?!
I think it's more likely that he's addicted to paint fumes. For shame, also, very nice work on them miniatures. :)
Well, I HAVE been painting my condo this week.. lots of VOCs to inhale!
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Haha, obviously. :P
Moral of the story: heroin is bad. :)
But the others, not so much? ;P
In that story, no. Throughout school (both highschool and university), he passed with great marks and was doing all kinds of drugs.. it wasn't till he got on heroin that he ended up in the gutter. :)
What are you talking about? I read the story. It's definitely anti-pot, anti-alcohol, anti-most drugs. He described himself as completely addicted to pot, and arranged things so that he was never six feet away from being able to smoke it. He also described his marijuana using days (14-22) as extremely unhappy, and essentially blamed his (pot) addiction for being indifferent about his university studies, indifferent about his writing, spacing out during important events, indifferent about his relationship with his parents, etc.
I don't think I've ever read such a strong anti-marijuana story.
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What are you talking about? I read the story. It's definitely anti-pot, anti-alcohol, anti-most drugs. He described himself as completely addicted to pot, and arranged things so that he was never six feet away from being able to smoke it. He also described his marijuana using days (14-22) as extremely unhappy, and essentially blamed his (pot) addiction for being indifferent about his university studies, indifferent about his writing, spacing out during important events, indifferent about his relationship with his parents, etc.
I don't think I've ever read such a strong anti-marijuana story.
It's interesting that way. He described himself as being very successful while using the drugs, especially in highschool, but also with the negative consequences that you mention. I don't think it's incredibly anti-marijuana, but there are definitely negatives as well as positives.
It seems to me, from the story, that his life didn't really fall apart until he tried heroin.
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What are you talking about? I read the story. It's definitely anti-pot, anti-alcohol, anti-most drugs. He described himself as completely addicted to pot, and arranged things so that he was never six feet away from being able to smoke it. He also described his marijuana using days (14-22) as extremely unhappy, and essentially blamed his (pot) addiction for being indifferent about his university studies, indifferent about his writing, spacing out during important events, indifferent about his relationship with his parents, etc.
I don't think I've ever read such a strong anti-marijuana story.
It's interesting that way. He described himself as being very successful while using the drugs, especially in highschool, but also with the negative consequences that you mention. I don't think it's incredibly anti-marijuana, but there are definitely negatives as well as positives.
It seems to me, from the story, that his life didn't really fall apart until he tried heroin.
I think his life definitely fell apart before that -- I am pretty sure, from the way the story is structured, that he associates the beginning of his downfall with his first use of pot. And in the middle of the story, just before trying heroin, he says the he hadn't yet suffered many "external" consequences, which suggests that he had suffered "internally", as a result of his drug use.
He does say some good things about how pot made him feel, but it's only on the first page, and in association with when he first started using. This type of praise could be applied to most drugs. And then he counterbalances it, to make you wonder whether even these positive effects were illusory:
I tried everything during those years, including hypnosis, psychotherapy, relaxation therapy, counting sheep. But nothing worked until I smoked pot. Suddenly, I could sleep at night -- or during the day, or in class, or behind the wheel of a car, for that matter. I became less obsessive. I felt more controlled and less anxious, although the opposite was probably true.
Then right afterwards:
Within a week of trying pot, I was smoking it every day. Within a couple of months, five and six times a day. Within a year, I was selling it, and using other drugs to try to pick me up or slow me down: cocaine, mescaline, LSD, speed, prescription painkillers.
Then:
Even more pernicious, my persona as a drug-addled protege was becoming my identity. If I stopped getting high all the time, if I stopped showing up to school drunk, wouldn't I just be another staid, over-achieving suburban teen?
Then:
In my junior year of high school, I was arrested for breaking and entering; a couple of months later, I passed out while interviewing the principal for the school newspaper. My parents' reactions to my drug addiction were different: my father furious, my mother betrayed. During the years when my dad wanted to be harder on me, my mother had pushed to give me more freedom, arguing that I was doing fine and just going through normal teenage rebellion. He wanted me home by midnight; she said I had earned the right to be out late. So the fact that I had been deceiving them hurt them both, but it was like a personal "fuck you" to my mother.
Then (describing his college experience):
Mainly, I smoked pot: At one point during my sophomore year, I set up my dorm room so that I would never be more than 5 feet away from a pipe or a bong. When I ran out of weed, I would rip apart my furniture and scrape my floors in a desperate attempt to locate an errant bud or a forgotten joint.
Then:
In November of sophomore year, something snapped. I would smoke pot, and five minutes later need to smoke again. I would drink, but as Tennessee Williams so accurately described it in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," I never got the click. So, at 19, I checked into an inpatient drug detox and rehab program at McLean's Hospital in Belmont.
Then (after going clean):
So eventually, one Wednesday night at around 11, I went and bought a bottle of vodka and sat in my room alone until it was done. The next morning, I bought a bottle of red wine and drank it down before lunch; by the time Thanksgiving rolled around, exactly two years after I went into rehab, I was once again smoking pot every morning.
I'd say all-round, he seemed pretty desperate and unhappy and addicted before he tried heroin. On the whole, it's definitely discouraging of any type of drug use. But yes, everything crashed pretty quickly after he started using heroin.
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Good observations.
I guess the impression I got was that the drugs he used as a teenager ("cocaine, mescaline, LSD, speed, prescription painkillers") didn't destroy his life, and the consequences, besides the family stuff, were reasonably minor.
I'm wondering, based on his experiences and escalation of use, if he looks at his teenage drug use in a more negative light than he would have otherwise, because he wants to stay away from any influences. By thinking about it in a negative light, he avoids the temptation to start again. Just a thought. :)
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Hmm.. I think the pre-heroin consequences were fairly important: 1) he was very unhappy, 2) his family felt betrayed, and 3) he lost his ambition. I think it's impossible to feel addicted, like he was, and be happy -- and happiness is really all that matters, isn't it? (And he retrospectively describes himself as quite depressed). Besides, if he was checking himself into a rehab/detox program at the hospital, then he was not in good shape. Also, the family stuff, like you said, is important. And then his ambition. He didn't seem to really care how he did once he reached college, and his interest in writing seemed to fade; pot and alcohol seemed to become the focus of his life. That's an important consequence, regardless of whether he got some good marks.
It's hard to say whether he looks on his previous drug use in a darker light, now that he has recovered. He obviously thought there was a problem, to check himself into rehab. In any case, denying there is a problem does not necessarily mean there isn't one.
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Haven't read the article yet, but saw this quote in Rule's post and wanted to comment. Also, did anybody read his mother's article (listed on the left side)?
In November of sophomore year, something snapped.I would smoke pot, and five minutes later need to smoke again.I would drink, but as Tennessee Williams so accurately described it in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," I never got the click. So, at 19, I checked into an inpatient drug detox and rehab program at McLean's Hospital in Belmont.
This part kind of surprises me and makes me question how much he's exaggerating his marijuana addiction. I can understand wanting to smoke another bowl to get higher or something, but it seems like he went way beyond this..."something snapped"; "need". It just seams fishy, because once you're high enough you typically just enjoy the high, get lost in conversation or whatever it is that you're doing. And the high lasts a significant amount of time, or at least much longer than 5 minutes. It's not like crack where the peak and comedown is shortly after intake.
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This part kind of surprises me and makes me question how much he's exaggerating his marijuana addiction. I can understand wanting to smoke another bowl to get higher or something, but it seems like he went way beyond this..."something snapped"; "need". It just seams fishy, because once you're high enough you typically just enjoy the high, get lost in conversation or whatever it is that you're doing. And the high lasts a significant amount of time, or at least much longer than 5 minutes. It's not like crack where the peak and comedown is shortly after intake.
Yeah, it's absolutely inconceivable that it might affect someone else differently. What a douche that guy is for lying.
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This part kind of surprises me and makes me question how much he's exaggerating his marijuana addiction. I can understand wanting to smoke another bowl to get higher or something, but it seems like he went way beyond this..."something snapped"; "need". It just seams fishy, because once you're high enough you typically just enjoy the high, get lost in conversation or whatever it is that you're doing. And the high lasts a significant amount of time, or at least much longer than 5 minutes. It's not like crack where the peak and comedown is shortly after intake.
Yeah, it's absolutely inconceivable that it might affect someone else differently. What a douche that guy is for lying.
I didn't say he was lying I said he was exaggerating. Weed's just not that type of drug.
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At that point, he'd smoked it about 5 times a day for 7 years. Maybe he wasn't getting high anymore, or he was intensely craving the sensation he used to get while smoking pot? I've heard of this happening. It's hard to question his description, without having as much as experience with the drug as he has. (Unless you have smoked that much?)
He also describes a similar thing happening simultaneously with alcohol. So his feeling that he wasn't getting the 'fix' he wanted, could be mostly psychological. e.g. building false expectations of relief, and then being disappointed.
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I suspect it's just about tolerance -- you eventually build a tolerance to most (all?) drugs (including legal ones), and you need more to get over that tolerance.
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Tolerance generally describes the condition of requiring larger doses of a drug to attain consistent effects. While tolerance to marijuana has never exactly fit the classic definition, some form of tolerance to pot does develop.
Source and more info: http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/brain2.html (http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/brain2.html)
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At that point, he'd smoked it about 5 times a day for 7 years. Maybe he wasn't getting high anymore, or he was intensely craving the sensation he used to get while smoking pot? I've heard of this happening. It's hard to question his description, without having as much as experience with the drug as he has. (Unless you have smoked that much?)
He also describes a similar thing happening simultaneously with alcohol. So his feeling that he wasn't getting the 'fix' he wanted, could be mostly psychological. e.g. building false expectations of relief, and then being disappointed.
No, not for that length. He may have been 'chasing a high' but I can't believe that something in him "snapped" and he needed or craved more hits of weed. If you're smoking good weed, you're still going to get high off of the same amount.