There is obviously a part of the brain that is hard wired for intoxicants. Much like the search for the divine, in that all cultures have that need. Also, that the two sometimes go hand in hand.
There's also the connection between suffering and the experience of the divine. The few people I've known well who were heavily involved in NA or AA have treasured their past history of addiction even as they rejected it.
1: well, sort of. There's a part of the brain (all of it) that's wired to respond to neurotransmitters, and if you use enough intoxicants it eventually becomes wired for intoxicants. As far as the search for the divine, there's interesting research that powerful religious experiences and powerful drug experiences are not all that different.
3. What I'm talking about Sifu is the need for the intoxicants in the first place, not after the addiction. First thing Noah does after the flood is plant grapes, make wine and go on a three day bender. http://www.thebricktestament.com/genesis/noahs_insobriety/gn09_20.html
Most of the research deals I believe with psychedelics. There is strong evidence that psychedelics have the potential to give real, lasting, life-altering experiences of genuine value, similar to religious ones.
I think with a lot of powerful addictive drugs, the experience might be more about the absence of God. Which is a kind of experience of the divine as well. Psychedelics are not addictive.
Who knows, though. Based on what you see in bars, alcohol is not a good route to the divine. But in the New Testament wine pretty clearly seems to be the drug of choice for the early Christians.
Reading the lives of the saints tells us that many of them would be in institutions today with either borderline personality disorder or because they kept self-harming for the high.
4: what I'm saying is that the reason intoxicants work is that they trigger neurochemical responses which are also useful in normal brain function. However, I'm alluding to neuroscience research and you're alluding to the Bible, so we may well be talking past each other here.
5: mostly psychedelics, yeah, but opiods cause frontal lobe deregulation too, I believe. So do various kinds of sedative/xanax-y things.
There is strong evidence that psychedelics have the potential to give real, lasting, life-altering brain damaging experiences of genuine value, similar to religious ones brain damage.
people kicking dope sometimes shoot up with water, just to soothe themselves with familiar rituals
The times I've quit smoking cigarettes for long enough to actually call it quitting, it has been because I've had enough weed (and free time) to scratch my itchy lungs.
8: That evidence is pretty shoddy, in fact.
But then again, look at the ne'er-do-wells who are disputing it.
I am more interested in why people have the need for the mind altering experience. People have obviously gone great lengths to find a high. I mean, licking the frog is not exactly the first thing that comes to mind. when life is nasty, brutish and short, I guess we look for alternatives where we find them.
Excellent post Alameida.
I recently spent a lot of time preparing for a case of an addict. Court went well, but there is deep, deep pain and lots of contradictions in the life of an addict.
Excellent post Alameida.
I recently spent a lot of time preparing for a case of an addict. Court went well, but there is deep, deep pain and a lot of contradiction in the life of an addict.
wine pretty clearly seems to be the drug of choice for the early Christians.
The drug of choice, indeed. Though I suspect that wheat ergot is probably responsible for most of Revelation.
Thanks, Will, now I'm seeing double.
It's a strangely sweet recognition in the post that the enablers, the friends wanting to bring drugs and works, are doing so as their own fucked-up gesture of love. Probably not all, probably some are doing it to keep her where they are. But some just want to help ease the suffering the only way they know how.
Anyway, your friend will be in my thoughts Alameida.
My impression is that Bible-era was not that strong, but the fermentation process killed bacteria.
Thanks, Will, now I'm seeing double.
Typical addict. Always blaming others.
my dad decided to quit smoking one time by just smoking a joint whenever he wanted a cigarette. it didn't go all that well, (though he eventually quit cigarettes by other means).
This is probably a good place to say that I am so horribly hungover right now. I feel like utter ass.
walt, my impression was that the bible-era was wicked strong.
HBGB, you should have 2 eggs over medium, hash browns, bacon, strong sweet coffee, and 3 extra-strength tylenol washed down with a generous mixture of fresh-squeezed OJ and vodka. fix your shit right up. and on that helpful note, I'm going to sleep.
Thanks alameida. I've got ghosts like those ones.
Confess your sins, heebie. Did you mix grape and grain, or just overindulge, in the search for meaning?
Ass udders, on the other hand... (nsfw)
I totally should. Unfortunately, I'm in my office at school.
There's only one way to settle this dispute. To the Internets!
Not tylenol! Aspirin! Tylenol and Alcohol: potential to be way bad.
What about ibuprofen? Not as bad as Tylenol, making-your-liver-explode-wise, right?
(And Coke is excellent for a hangover. I hate soda generally, but the sharp-sweet-fizzy keeps the fluid you need down.)
When I'm wickedly hung over, neither aspirin nor Alameida's curative breakfast will remain in me for longer than a couple of minutes. Nor water, for that matter. The only remedy I've found at all helpful is the same one I've used for smoking cessation.
33: not as bad I don't think, but not great. Aspirin is the safest way to go.
35: Coca-cola, man. Not diet, the real stuff. That's what it's for.
32: Yeah, everybody knows you should instead mix uppers with alcohol, right?
Phở makes for a spectacular hangover cure.
8: That evidence is pretty shoddy, in fact.
Chronic users don't see any adverse effects? Call it whatever you want, but from what I've seen, "damage" is as good a term as any.
Vitamin B for hangovers. Just not vitamin B in pill form on an empty stomach. Eggs are rich in vitamin B, as I believe are green leafy vegetables and organ meats.
32 seconded. Never take tylenol for a hangover. I'm not sure about the NSAIDs. My preferred remedy is a 32 oz fountain coke and half a joint. It's not like you're going to get any more useless.
40: Mostly it seems to go away with time, unlike physical brain damage. I have good anectdotal evidence for this, which seems to back up the lack of positive research results for damage.
Not that addicts and other users don't do all sorts of things to their bodies that aren't a good idea --- but calling it `brain damage' mostly stems from anti-drug propoganda, slightly less hysterical than the `marijuana will turn you into a psychotic killer' etc. floating around in the early 1900s.
I'm with Sifu on this one. Anything with noodles & salt.
Or, y'know, just the ol' hair-of-the-dog treatment. Which reminds me a little too much of this weekend. Apparently everyone in the DC area is utterly insane.
HBGB, you should have 2 eggs over medium, hash browns, bacon, strong sweet coffee, and 3 extra-strength tylenol washed down with a generous mixture of fresh-squeezed OJ and vodka.
So should we all.
9: Just the opposite for me. After a joint, the craving for tobacco always went way up. They're complements not substitutes.
There was a good albeit short-lived blog "into the white" about a coke head trying to quit. The blog simply disappeared one day, not a good sign.
Some addictive personalities like the ritual. I don't use any more so now I smoke cigarettes like I used to treat coke: furtively and in a very consciously measured way to keep use low so that I can maintain feeling of being in control.
Euphoric recall. I was with my wife in marital/family counselling brought on by son's druge/legal problems. I was describing my former use (which ceased 25 years ago except for very occasional joint) and the counsellor pointed out that my description of using drugs was the most animated he had ever seen me. That was the first time I realized that I really am an addict.
40: This may be a terminology problem. "Psychedelic" is often used as an umbrella term including substances that are technically dissociatives or deliriants, and chronic psychedelic users generally have a pretty broad spectrum of drug use.
by the time you've got a hangover, you're already fucked. proper pre-gaming chemicals keep those things away though. please binge responsibly.
"Psychedelic" is often used as an umbrella term including substances that are technically dissociatives or deliriants, and chronic psychedelic users generally have a pretty broad spectrum of drug use.
Yeah, I was thinking of the people I've seen who've done a lot of LSD. Shrooms and such don't seem to screw people up. But LSD? Yikes.
by the time you've got a hangover, you're already fucked
Right. Back in the day, when I got really drunk, I'd glug a ton of water right before I went to sleep and usually woke up feeling great.
when I got really drunk, I'd glug a ton of water right before I went to sleep and usually woke up
When I pissed myself
Don't blame the acid, gswift. A lot of times people who do altogether too much acid have other, underlying problems, but the evidence that acid per se actually causes any kind of brain damage is pretty much nonexistent.
Back in the day, when I got really drunk, I'd glug a ton of water right before I went to sleep and usually woke up feeling great.
This is because you were young.
(TLL: Closing italics is </i>, not <i/>. Same for any other tag.)
I've done (cumulatively) enough LSD to sink the unfoggedetariat many, many times. At one point I couldn't really talk properly and had bleeding problems in my stomach from near daily use over months w/o enough food. Thousand mic club, natch. I'm generally considered pretty bright now though, although I suppose you can never tell what was lost.
Long term heavy alcohol use, on the other hand, can definitely cause brain damage.
10, 11: I came away from my admittedly introductory psychopharmacology classes thinking there's reason to be wary of hallucinogens. It doesn't look like most commonly used drugs are one-way tickets to IRREVERSIBLE BRAIN DAMAGE OMG!, but a decent number of heavy hallucinogen users seem to wind up depressed. Strangely, the stuff that's most likely to screw up your life also seemed to be least likely to screw up your brain. Except PCP, which sounds so unpleasant that I can't understand how it's become a recreational drug.
Though I suspect that wheat ergot is probably responsible for most of Revelation.
The fascinating Bread of Dreams argues that the peasants of pre-industrial Europe were in altered states pretty much all of the time, thanks to spoilage, fermentation, opiates, hallucinogens and hunger.
LSD is a proper psychedelic. And it's no more damaging than mushrooms, certainly. This is just anecdata, of course, but I've done metric shitloads of LSD in my life and am still perfectly functional. The standard caveat is that if you've got underlying psych problems, you really oughtn't be doing psychedelic drugs. And again, the folks who are acid casualties generally have a drug history that covers a whole lot of substances. Hard to separate the effects.
Anyone whose spent time around heavy psychedelic drug users knows it does seem to make fairly long term changes to them. Whether that's irreversible, I have no idea.
In much the same way that heavy cannabis use turns some people into wankers.
61 is true. I knew a lot of people who used heavily at one time ... I can't think of one who exculsively used one thing. Lot's of people have favorites, but that's about it.
further to 64: considering how poorly medical science understands multiple drug effects even with clinical trials and some semblence of control, it's hardly a wonder that very little useful can be said about the effects of mixing street drugs.
I second the glass of water method. When you go to bed you will absolutely not want the water, but force yourself. Hopefully you're not far from a bathroom, but get a chamber pot if you are.
I stopped getting hangovers decades ago, if I drink only beer. My capacity for alcohol apparently expanded faster than my belly did (and yes, my belly and bladder did expand plenty). I always wake up to pee in the middle of the night at least once.
Just now I had my son make me three mixed drinks (he's a connoisseur or whatever you call people who buy quality spirits) and I came pretty close to a hangover the next day. It goes down faster.
I've heard that both B and C are good, but it's all urban legend. The glass of water thing is tried and true.
66: And if you do wake up in the middle of the night (which I often will if I went to bed drunk), have some more water after you pee.
Water works up to a point. It doesn't counter-act really hellish hangovers [either through preemption or after the fact].
For me, if I can force some food down along with the water, that usually makes a big difference the following day. Then, if I eat as soon as I can stand it in the morning, that also helps.
Luckily, I rarely get hangovers these days -- I probably don't drink much less over a month than I did, but I do drink much less in any one evening.
Whoops, 59 was me.
I agree, it seems like it all depends primarily on the individual. I'm just especially wary based on family experience: I've got an aunt who dropped out and moved to India when she was younger, did a ton of acid, and is now chronically depressed. But obviously that's not the case for everyone.
At any rate, the basic idea I came away with from school is that you can screw around with your dopaminergic system more-or-less safely if you're rich enough, but messing with serotonin too much can make later life kinda bleak.
68: Yeah, if you go on a proper three day binge, you're going to feel like shit afterward, regardless.
(and I should add to 69 that it's not at all obvious that the LSD is to blame for my aunt's depression, although her siblings seem to think it is)
PCP is not a psychedelic.
From Mark Kleiman's review article on the drug war in the American Interest:
HallucinogensHallucinogens ("psychedelics") have a unique risk/benefit profile. Addiction is extremely rare, but users, especially young users, risk injury from accidents and lasting damage from frightening subjective experiences.
The excesses of the 1960s discredited hallucinogens and largely put an end to what seemed like a promising field of research. But former hallucinogen users are far more prone than former users of other kinds of illicit drugs to report that their lives have been lastingly enhanced by their experiences. Recent studies show that these drugs may have clinical potential in reducing the fear of death among terminal patients and in the treatment of some psychiatric problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder. There are also hints that the use of hallucinogens in very low doses might enhance creative work in the arts, the professions, mathematics and the sciences.
Some hallucinogens have been used for religious/spiritual purposes for centuries, if not millennia; the kerkyon, the sacred beverage used in the Eleusinian Mysteries, seems to have contained ergot, a precursor of LSD. A recent experiment at Johns Hopkins University showed that psilocybin, the active agent in "magic mushrooms", when given under controlled conditions can safely and fairly reliably produce effects indistinguishable from classical mystical experiences, with apparently persistent positive effects on mood and behavior. The Native American Church, which claims a quarter of a million members, has had special legal permission to use mescaline-bearing peyote buttons in its services for more than half a century, and no apparent harm has resulted. The Supreme Court, interpreting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, has now ruled that other churches using other chemicals may do so lawfully if the religious motive is genuine and the practices reasonably safe.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/ai2/article.cfm?Id=224
57: In the sense of "apo-functional".
I know at least 4 people who have been doing weed or something daily for 20 years or more (up to 45). All were career underachievers but had no other serious problems, though one has a mild lung problem. One of them was, IIRC, a daily LSD user for a time.
Supposedly daily use isn't as vivid as it seems because you can't get the full effect without a recharging period between sessions. Maximal craziness would require use every 3-4 days, I think.
I think there is good evidence, at least as these things go, that LSD is worse than shrooms.
PCP may be nasty stuff, but ketamine at least is quite effective as an antidepressant.
A B-vitamin (a a gram of C too) is part of my bender stack of shit. At least in alcoholics, b-vitamin depletion seems to be one of hte main things that causes damage.
PCP is not a psychedelic.
PCP is classified as a dissociative.
if you've got underlying psych problems, you really oughtn't be doing psychedelic drugs
Having spent my fair share of time in the so-called party scene, it really does seem to me to be an "it depends" matter--depends on the person, not really the substance (barring a few, like PCP or meth, that I've never seen do good things to people). People who are more or less responsible in general seem to be more or less responsible with their substances, regardless of what those may be on any given weekend. People who aren't responsible can't really be trusted with anything, & they're the ones you end up babysitting when they've had too much gin.
Oh, but on preview, yeah, I'd agree with 69 that messing for too long & too frequently with the dopamine/serotonin receptors can be a bad thing.
re: 73
I wasn't kidding about excessive long-term cannabis use making some people into wankers.
I'm sure no-one would diagnose the people I know with any clinically described condition. But, nevertheless, they are lazy, self-obsessed, credulous idiots who are, often, shitty people to be around.
I know plenty of people who are long-term casual users with absolutely no problems at all, of course.
Street "LSD" can be anything. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of street shrooms were dried grocery mushrooms dosed with something or another.
We just had an impromptu family conference when my bro (rehabbed), my son (unrehabbed), and I (unrehabbed) tentatively agreed that my hott 14-year-old niece avoids stoners.
BTW, my hott niece was a nerdy fat girl at 12. We were preparing the little talks about how physical attractiveness is shallow, social scenes are toxic, and that eventually she'd find the right guy with proper values, but now we're working on the opposite set of little talks.
73: 57 was not apo. I don't know how you want to define functional. phd, class standing,random awards, whatever. It doesn't mean much I think, but whatever measurements people might propose, I do well in.
As for daily use, it does work better if you cycle it a bit. You can up the dose too though. After that got worrisome, I started 72 hour cycles, roughly, but you can extend trips by adding dose as you go. You can always do something else on off days, too.
Isn't acid kinda hard to come by now, after they busted those two big manufacturers in Kansas a few years ago, and after the Grateful Dead tours (the main distribution network) stopped?
Shrooms were better anyway, though they were harder to obtain, back in the day. You could fall asleep after coming down.
Apparently "Prophylactic vitamin B6 (pyritinol) reduced the number of hangover symptoms by approximately 50% in one study." And I think we can all assume that the responsible hosts of UnfoggeDCon II will have prophylactic vitamin B6 on hand.
82: Hopefully both genders will be well stocked with prophylactic B6.
tentatively agreed that we're glad that my hott 14-year-old niece avoids stoners.
83: A courteous guest does not arrive empty-handed, after all.
So, is this JFK the same one who was the winner of the "sex in unusual places" thread?
My family has had real problems with substances, but out of seven kids the worst problems have been a Christian mission overseas which got one brother killed, and a hellish marriage to an ambitious, go-getting, sociopathic small businessman.
85: But I thought the consensus was that the primary responsibility for prophylactics lies with the host.
88: Eh, fuck the consensus. Assuming either you or the consensus is properly prepared, of course.
86: JFK had a fairly atypical adolescence, by the sounds of it.
Isn't acid kinda hard to come by now
My understanding is that acid manufacture is not that difficult. Rumor had it that R/eed chem majors made it when I was there, and would have made more if it hadn't been for a legendary prof with uncanny olfactory abilites.
87: This does not by any stretch apply to all religious groups or people, but I'm inclined to think there is a subcategory of religious experience that is an addictive-type thing, only just removed from substance abuse.
An old boss of my husband's claims to have worked in the MIT lab that supplied most of the East Coast's acid, back in the day. The school was apparently very sympathetic to the students, as opposed to law enforcement -- they got tipped off way ahead of all the raids.
My understanding is that acid manufacture is not that difficult.
Yeah, my sense is that if you've got an ordinary organic chem lab setup and competences, there's nothing special about it.
91: The really clever ones come up with stuff that isn't illegal yet.
Very good post Alameida. Thank you.
subcategory of religious experience that is an addictive-type thing
Oh, absolutely.
Umm, Is this a confession post? Hey, I wasn't so bad, just chippin, never downers, I could always stop when I wanted to. But to this day, decades later, I get goosebumps when I see a syringe on tv. Movies like Candy with G Rush, I shouldn't watch those movies. I just like the fucking needle.
1,2:I ever tell ya I cried like a baby reading Zarathustra and fucking Tractatus and many others? I don't fucking know, peak experiences baby, seratonin junkie. Maybe the drugs somehow trained me to ecstasy. Coffee & cigarettes & no food no sleep a layer of dirt allover me & pushing the brain til it screams.
Ecstasy. I still don't know if it was worth it.
Is there anybody here who didn't instantly know who 98 was?
I have a friend who had all the equipment, supplies, and skills needed to make ecstacy, but didn't dare order the sassafras oil, which is the key substance and which is controlled. I told him that he should start a boutique root beer brewery, but apparently that dodge doesn't work.
He was a manic, obsessive-compulsive guy, almost Aspergy, and he strongly felt that ecstacy had been objectively good for him. Of course, his comparison was amphetamine.
I have a friend who had all the equipment, supplies, and skills needed to make ecstacy, but didn't dare order the sassafras oil, which is the key substance and which is controlled. I told him that he should start a boutique root beer brewery, but apparently that dodge doesn't work.
He was a manic, obsessive-compulsive guy, almost Aspergy, and he strongly felt that ecstacy had been objectively good for him. Of course, his comparison was amphetamine.
I have a friend who had all the equipment, supplies, and skills needed to make ecstacy, but didn't dare order the sassafras oil, which is the key substance and which is controlled. I told him that he should start a boutique root beer brewery, but apparently that dodge doesn't work.
He was a manic, obsessive-compulsive guy, almost Aspergy, and he strongly felt that ecstacy had been objectively good for him. Of course, his comparison was amphetamine.
I have a friend who had all the equipment, supplies, and skills needed to make ecstacy, but didn't dare order the sassafras oil, which is the key substance and which is controlled. I told him that he should start a boutique root beer brewery, but apparently that dodge doesn't work.
He was a manic, obsessive-compulsive guy, almost Aspergy, and he strongly felt that ecstacy had been objectively good for him. Of course, his comparison was amphetamine.
The drugs have apparently had an effect on Emerson.
subcategory of religious experience that is an addictive-type thing
Much behavior at Christian-rock concerts indicates this.
BTW, my hott niece was a nerdy fat girl at 12. We were preparing the little talks about how physical attractiveness is shallow, social scenes are toxic, and that eventually she'd find the right guy with proper values, but now we're working on the opposite set of little talks.
"If they hate on you, they're jealous. If they don't hate on you, feel free to consider learning their names. Everyone hates the Yankees because they're so successful. But if they had the chance to be the Yankees, they'd take it. Shake it, don't break it."
99: Well, me. But I'm a little slow. Proving that not imbibing in pharmaceuticals does not guarantee effective brain function...
I've heard that prologned psychedelic usage can lean to involuntary repeating of finger movements.
I blame the matriarchy, probably B herself.
I worked for 5 years as a phlebotomist and have had interesting conversations with junkies about veins.
109: I've had junkies stare in unabashed jealously at my veins. I've also had multiple requests, while hospitalized, to be used as a training subject for nurses/interns who need practice. Apparently they're like a big target saying `jab here'.
More like "having a lot of older guys on motorcycles flirting with you isn't necessarily a good thing."
111: Yeah, the motorcycles can wait till she's a few years older.
The veins on the back of the arm above the elbow are the last ones to be ruined.
Dammit, all the really interesting drug conversations happen when I'm at work. For what it's worth, I too have done bucketfuls of acid.
When I was younger, I would just down a lot of water and take an aspirin before bed. These days I seem to be very prone to hangovers.
Much behavior at Christian-rock concerts indicates this.
I knew a guy whose favourite way to do acid was through the eyeball (speedy uptake, i guess). Easy enough if you've got liquid supplies and an eyedropper... but he was perfectly happy to tuck a tab or two under an eyelid. I always wondered what it was doing to his eyes.
I've found the key to avoiding hangovers (for me) is not to drink water before going to bed, but to drink it between beers. Also, drinking without eating a full meal first? Bad bad bad.
114 was me.
What might be worth more is that I know several people who way outstrip me psychedelics-wise in jobs that are as intellectually demanding as they get (e.g. Sr. Kernel Engineer, computational neuroscientist: that sort of thing).
Drinking a good quality vodka or other distilled liquor seems to help ward off the hangovers. I'm told this has to do with the lack of toxic impurities.
102:Not the drug ecstasy, the experience. We called it MDA back in the day, didn't do it much. Uncontrollable crying for hours.
Reading & writing in this thread is making my shoulders & neck muscles tighten, a little tremble, the palms turn up so the inner elbow is exposed, breathing a little faster. I ain't shittin ya.
Is why I felt so fucking good when I switched the other night from Pullman to SW. Did Flippanter have any idea how SW's life & words would get me off? I can use that intellectual shit to get physically high.
Guns, labs, bikers, weird sex...aww fuck I can't do this shit. Sorry.
MDA and MDMA (ecstasy) are very different drugs. One is great, the other is 24 hours of shitty.
Guns, labs, bikers, weird sex...aww fuck that sounds pretty much like my teens.
We called it MDA back in the day
MDA ≠ ecstasy (MDMA), though it's often sold as such. I kinda prefer MDA, all in all.
Hey, there's one difference between me and Tweety!
If you take a huge dose of MDA, it's a fun ride, iirc.
Drinking a good quality vodka or other distilled liquor
I can drink single malt all night and be fine the next day. If I drink vodka all night, I will be fine but won't remember a fucking thing. If I drink wine to excess, it will not be a happy morning. It is not possible to drink too much beer, unless one is using the beer bong or involved in a boat race.
It is unfair to have a hangover when one wasn't drunk.
It is not possible to drink too much beer, unless one is using the beer bong or involved in a boat race.
Have you tried barleywine? Troëgs Mad Elf? There must be some way you can drink too much beer.
I have never been as thirsty in my life as the morning after I drank more than I ever have before or since. It was the only time I've ever viscerally felt like toxins needed to be flushed through my system.
119: You know, the whole War on Drugs junk would be more believable if it wasn't obvious that quite a lot of the time, dangerous drugs don't hurt you or ruin your life.
127: Sadly this latter is not true. I knew a kid who drunk himself to drowning (internally) on nothing but stubbies, no bong or racing. I think it took him about 35 or so. It was a long time ago, so the details are fuzzy.
129: Or Maudite, for that matter.
130: Sounds like we could make a poster!
Never do drugs, you might end up like these people.
For what it's worth, I too have done bucketfuls of acid.
Me too. Not in several years now, though.
So anyway, it turns out that Old Overholt is being dropped from the inventory of Pennsylvania.
Is there a place I can mail-order alcoholic beverages? I'd actually gotten used to drinking that.
134 et. all.
I can just see it now: UnfoggedCon X: a trip down memory lane.
Kenneth Rexroth has a lot of stuff online, and he has a contemptuous piece on SW. Read a long article somewhere on the ideologies, the philosophies that apparently are often generated by anexoria nervosa sufferers. Just cause they're pathological doesn't mean they're wrong, ya know. I was under 90 pounds once.
Self-abnegation, self-destruction ain't easy ain't pretty ya know. Gotta be complete, gotta chew your pride & ego like, noooo at the same time you are letting your body devour itself. Can't be no weekend ascetic.
131. I should have said, "for me". 35 beers over what time period? Maybe not racing, but certainly more than just "sipping".
a trip down memory lane
If only we could remember.
Vodka also eradicates my memory (so thoroughly in fact that there have been mornings that I've wished I had been drinking vodka instead). Whiskey treats just right, but I'm prone to overindulge.
The thing that's helped me most hangover-wise is smoking bans. I'm so much worse off in the morning if I've been in an unventilated place with smoke than if I've been in a smoke-free bar or somewhere people are smoking outside. It's like the difference of 2 or 3 beers.
138: Afternoon and evening, so a good few hours. The guy drank himself to death by drowning before the alchohol poisoning caught up to him --- I'm in no way suggesting it was `normal' drinking.
I know what you meant, many find beer slows them down enough they dont' get very drunk. I suspect this goes away somewhat with concerted effort. I was just offering an extreme --- there is no safe physiologically limiting about beer, really.
That's why I don't smoke. I might have picked it up in the Peace Corps, where lots of people did, but every time I had an experimental cigarette or two, it was on a night when I was drinking and ended up with a hangover that could kill you. The aversive training was convincing enough that I can't look at them any more.
The only thing I've ever developed an aversion to through behavioral conditioning is mussels. Sometimes I wish it would happen with ice cream.
Nicotine blocks some of the effects of alcohol, meaning that smokers (I doubt second-hand smoke delivers enough nicotine to be active) drink more to get the same amount of drunk. Ergo, smokers are more prone to hangovers.
140: I'm just the opposite-- vodka is fine, but whiskey tends to lead to blackouts.
Retired the bucket long ago. It seems clear enough that pretty much any substance can be abused to harmful levels. Water, wine, cheese, peyote, whatever. That doesn't mean that people at even the moderate bucket level need to be at the wrong end of a wagging finger.
This is not what i tell my kids, though.
there is no safe physiologically limiting about beer, really.
Of course you are right. I just find that for myself, I get too "full" before I get too drunk. When i was younger, that didn't happen so often.
vodka is fine, but whiskey tends to lead to blackouts.
Liquor in general led to several embarrassing scenes, so I've pretty much stopped drinking anything more powerful than wine.
Huh, I tend to find that smoking a cigarette after a drink or two makes me feel a lot drunker than I felt the smoke.
He's probably full of shit, but my dad reports that while he was in the Navy, he once got caught smoking after lights out, and that was heavily frowned upon or against the rules, because his sergeant made everyone in the bunker dress to attention while he smoked every cigarette he had on him. Which was nearly a carton's worth. So he says. As I write this I think he must be full of shit, but the look of panic when he tells the story certainly seems authentic.
This thread is making me want a beer and/or a cigarette, which would be quite do-able, since I'm working at home.
Bad, bad!
150: This was actually a large part of why I started smoking in college, now that you mention it. But still, the last really nasty hangover I had followed an excess of both drink and cigarettes. The last time I drank way too much since I quit smoking, a hangover was not among the horrible repercussions.
152: Even a whole pack would be pretty embarrassing, so he may have just been hyperbolic....
nearly a carton's worth
I'm pretty sure smoking just five or six cigarettes in a row would be enough to make me sick.
153: huh, i missed that thinking about `near a carton'
157: I know a ton of people who's parents used this technique to try and keep their 12 year olds (or whenever) from smoking. Usually managed to delay a year or two.
152. I was just wondering at the mix of terms. I believe that it happened. Sounds like typical NCO behavior. Having your messmates pissed off at you isn't a good thing.
his sergeant
In the Navy, that would be Chief, as in Chief Petty Officer. Smoking gives away one's position, which is one reason why it is controlled when one is in the military. What reportedly happened to your dad would be the common punishment for the offense.
They say the glow of a cigarette could be seen for 15 miles on a dark, moonless ocean.
My rules were: no needles, no snorting. Everything else got the green light. Good times, but I wouldn't let someone pay me to relive them. There's a lot of shame wedged haphazardly between bound volumes of pleasure.
I have absolutely no idea who might be Simone.
160/162: I wasn't paying attention to the story, what with him being my dad and all. The one thing that I've learned about the military is that I am a deep disappointment to generations of my family.
160: I don't believe anyone sat down and smoked most of a carton end to end. The threat may have been there, of course. If you inhaled at all, you'd be puking well before you got through them. Even if you didn't it would take a hell of a long time.
He did say he puked the whole way through, and that it took hours. It didn't sound like a scene from Cool-Hand Luke by his telling.
The puke on the deck would have made him really popular.
145: Are you sure? I'd never heard that before, and some quick googling makes it look like the nicotine + alcohol combo potentiates dopamine release, which would mean you'd need less booze to get as much payoff. I think it may actually be the smoke that makes the hangover worse (my own experience lines up with Becks').
Even sober, nicotine increases alertness and focus. It would make sense that that would have the effect of making you less drunk.
169: The Nature article is now behind a paywall, but here's what I blogged at the time. It actually cuts BAC in rats.
Sure, if drug interactions were additive.
170: Or less noticeably exhibiting the symptoms of being drunk. Coffee doesn't make you sober (i.e., reduce BAC.) (171 argues that it actually reduces BAC, but it could *not* do that and still make you feel more alert.) And a college buddy has a story of a friend mixing vodka and mountain dew, getting progressively drunk & wired beyond belief at the same time.
There are days I wish I had started smoking.
173: Don't do it Cala! Quitting sucked so damn hard, and I was only a pathetic excuse for a half-hearted smoker anyway. (Not that I think you were seriously considering. But that will definitely be the focus of my "don't smoke" talk with Rory when the time comes.)
Irish coffee is a great thing.
Not sure why I'm objecting to this, but I'm not sure you want operationalize "make you sober" as "reduce BAC." I think it'd be better to think of "make you sober" as "perform on various tests of physical reflexes, mental acuity, and emotional volatility in the same manner you would if you had a lower/normal/zero BAC."
On the other hand, the law operationlizes it that way, if you determine dui via a BAC %.
176: Largely because the law takes it that way. The rest can vary person-to-person anyway.
Come back walking dogs, and the juicers have taken over the party. No fun.
176, 177: Police officers, or anyone else enforcing DUI laws or otherwise screening for drunkenness, need a quick way to determine if someone is in violation. It's likely to be over-inclusive.
Drunk people aren't fun? This may be the craziest thing mcmanus has said.
Police officers, or anyone else enforcing DUI laws or otherwise screening for drunkenness, need a quick way to determine if someone is in violation.
Duh. If they have pulled you over, then you are drunk. res ipso facto loquitor. They will testify that you failed the field sobriety tests. The only way to avoid the dui is if the intoxilizor 5000 proves that you were not drunk.
Quick logic test:
Blowing .08 means that you are presumed to be drunk, and .05 means that you are presumed to not be drunk. Do the words "presumed" mean the same thing in those two situations?
If you answer yes, then you are wrong.
Indeed, you could blow a .01 and they could still decide you seem drunk and arrest you.
I suspect between being female and not huge, I probably blow by that limit at one or two drinks.
If I had my notes from Evidence handy I could write a long incomprehensible comment about different types of presumption, whether or not they're rebuttable, and what the status of the fact being presumed becomes if they are rebutted. I suppose I could still do that, but it wouldn't have anything to do with what my professor said.
Hmm, forgot about online outlines. D.1 here looks like what I was taught.
I probably blow
But only when comfortable condoms are available, and never in the front part of the bar.
If you blow a .01, have you really blown at all?
185: Even if both are legally defined as "rebuttable presumptions," in practice only one is really going to be.
In fact, I think if it's a "presumption" of intoxication, it has to be rebuttable -- having the element of an offense irrebuttably presumed would violate the right to proof beyond a reasonable doubt. My first oral argument ever dealt with presumptions and the constitution. I was once articulate about it all.
In my state, .08 is not "presumed intoxicated" but is itself the offense.
That doesn't mean that people at even the moderate bucket level need to be at the wrong end of a wagging finger.
This is not what i tell my kids, though.
Funny; that is what I tell PK, more or less. I might read him this post (probably not, as he's unlikely to ask about drugs while I still remember that it exists, but it's the kind of thing I would read him). I'd rather have him avoid stuff because he knows it's addictive, or (as McManley says) shaming, than because of me scolding him (which seems too easy to ignore).
Plus I think that a lot of folks who end up addicts, at least the ones I know, do it because they were using, in part, to self-medicate for some problem or set of problems they didn't have any other way of dealing with. Of course, this ignores the "it's also fun" theory, but that's my rough half-assed naive theory about the distinction between recreational users and addicts.
Great, very sad post, Alameida. I wish you were coming to DC.
I am! And so are you! Hurrah!
But I'm sad that I hear Alameida isn't, really. I think the boyfriend and she would like one another.
If you blow a .01, have you really blown at all?
Who would you consider a .01? Does this mean I'm not gay?
FACTA LOQUUNTUR
I think the boyfriend and she would like one another.
I'm sure you'll be able to find someone for a three-way regardless.
182 is wrong. I had a friend who was pulled over for drunk driving, even though he was perfectly sober. They pulled him over, made him take the sobriety tests, and when he was manfestly sober they let him go.
I had a comment ready to go, I was pwned by that fucker, Hamilton Lovecraft. Why must you pwn me, HL? I have so little else in my life.
196: You'll be a FIGHTER JET made of SOBER!!
Way late reply. Congratulations Alameida on 18. w00t!
