How long can IL stay sober?

[The Ill One 0]

Just a random thing I figured I'd throw up here. Beats the hell out've actually being productive, right? Right. I don't intend for this to be a long term, turning straight-edge type deal, but rather just remaining sober for a few months with occasional cigarette or so.

[Guest Beingz0wningj00]

La Parka my car, bitch.

[Vasarian_Brandy 0]

Car.

 

EDIT: Téigh trasna ort féin!

 

(Grin)

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

IL, have you ever considered treatment? I mean, it's not my place to preach about your lifestyle, so I won't, but you're way too young to have so many... issues...

 

Don't you have anybody IRL that you can talk to at all? Somebody whose solution to life's problems isn't to get high?

[The Ill One 0]

I see a therapist and a shrink on a biweekly basis. Plus my friends, even the non-sober, are helping me out.

[Guest Horse hockey!]

Mi marka para La Parka.

 

Seriously, IL, I hope you stay sober the rest of your life.

 

Or at least until you're legal.

 

As far as cigarettes and alcohol goes.

[Crowe 0]

"Phft. I give you 'til right... about... now... light up, bitch~!"

 

What? You think I would encourage you to stay sober?

 

Ahahahahahahah!

 

Though, get off the alcohol.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

Okay Crow, I'll bite: why only alcohol? I mean, if you're okay with him doing the other stuff, why object to the sauce?

[HollywoodSpikeJenkins 0]

I just hit a year IL. If I can do it, you can too. Just fight the temptation that all your friends offer.

[Guest Fire and Knives]

Alright, look. There are a couple very important questions you have to answer about your drug use if you're going to make any kind of progress at all.

 

-What's the primary reason you do drugs?

 

-What are the positive and negative effects of your drug use?

 

-Can you stop taking drugs/drinking/smoking?

 

-Do you want to stop taking drugs/drinking/smoking?

 

-Do you enjoy your experiences with drugs more often than not? If not, why?

 

If you're not satisfied with the answers to any of these questions, then you may have a problem. I say 'may' because only you really know; if, in your mind, the benefits of drugs outweigh the potential consequences, then you don't think you have a problem and you're not going to reduce your usage at all.

 

Depending on what it is you're using, quitting cold turkey might not be a good idea. If you're dealing with anything addictive, i.e. cigarettes, a more gradual reduction in usage is more likely to be successful, at least in my experience. If you're dealing with drugs that don't create a physical addiction (acid, shrooms, etc.) or only create psychological attachments, (pot) a careful consideration of the positives and negatives of each individual drug is in order. You may be able to simply reduce the frequency with which you're consuming these drugs - preserving the benefits and eliminating the problems together - but if the problems these drugs are creating are more severe in terms of family/work/school/what have you, you should definitely consider quitting these entirely.

 

One more thing, and this is the most important part:

 

Drugs are not good, and drugs are not bad. Drugs are things. They have no moral value. Your reaction to them and the effects they have on you are the only things that are good or bad, and these are the things you're considering.

 

Your friends aren't going to help you with this, your parents aren't going to help you with this, and everything your therapist says in relation to drugs should be taken with a LARGE grain of salt. The druggies and the sXe kids are both wrong because they're assigning a moral value to things that have no moral values. Take that list of questions and think about them as honestly as you can. The only person you can lie to about the answers is yourself - drugs are a totally personal decision, and anybody that tries to force you one way or the other with the words 'good', 'bad', 'right,' or 'wrong' is either ignorant or a fucking liar.

 

Hope that helps.

 

K.

[the.weej 0]

To take a point from what Kibagami said, a good start to staying sober would be to not parade around your usage or your intentions to quit. Not making a poll like this is as good a beginning as any.

 

-Z

[muzz 0]

How old are you again?

[Crowe 0]

Okay Crow, I'll bite: why only alcohol? I mean, if you're okay with him doing the other stuff, why object to the sauce?

Mainly, it's the anger I've developed over the fact that since I'm a smoker, I get alienated in society. And I get hassled over "harming" others. And I get hassled to quit 'cause it's bad for you! Yet, the people tell me this drink heavily and binge on the weekend. It's the double standard. Even though alcohol is horrible for your body, destroys families, kills, causes fatal accidents, impairs judgement and let's not forget, causes cancer, there are still no proper warnings present on bottles and cartons and there are no restrictions on advertising at all. This disgusts me. Why does the tobacco industry get clamped down while the alcohol industry gets away scott-free? It's the double standard.

 

This is basically the reason for my hatred of alcohol, and the fact that it turns gentlemen into jackasses and ladies into whores. I tell IL to lay off the alcohol because becoming an addicted smoker is no way near as bad as becoming an alcoholic. My. Two. Cents.

[Crowe 0]

And what Kibagami wrote is some great advice.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

Fair enough; just seems to me that one vice is the same as another.

[Guest Fire and Knives]

Not really; as Crowe's so eloquently pointed out, there's gigantic differences between cigarettes and alcohol just like there's gigantic differences between pot and cocaine, or perhaps mushrooms and heroin, depending on your taste.

 

The 'a vice is a vice' outlook is very common in every society, but it tends to promote the sort of either/or thinking that leads to either "I will not take any drugs because they are bad and possibly deprive myself of some valuable experiences" or "I will take a whole mess of drugs because they are good and subject myself and others to a variety of physical and emotional trauma because of my developing addictions".

 

Drug use is really something that should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis for the sake of everybody's sanity.

 

K.

[muzz 0]

Fair enough; just seems to me that one vice is the same as another.

I think Crowe knows that, after talking to him about it, but he believes, as I do, that there is a glaring double standard present, and that they should be seen as such ie. with warning labels and so forth.

[Crowe 0]

Fair enough; just seems to me that one vice is the same as another.

Sometimes when I can't be bothered going on a rant or explaining the diff, I just say I'm simply "trading one vice for the other".

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Kibs' case-by-case notion is a good and probably effective one. I don't know the specifics of your usage, but I will say that at your young age, you have almost certainly not had enough time to become genuinely addicted to any of the substances you take. If you want to stop, willpower can still be a major factor; it's almost unfathomable that you've already passed the point of legitimate dependency. If your friends are helping you rather than telling you to fuck off and drink with them, you're already in good shape to make the most of your own convictions.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

The 'a vice is a vice' outlook is very common in every society...

Really? I've probably never lived where you're at, but I've always found the opposite to be true; most people I've encountered who look down on one vice or another find a way to rationalize some other vice. Like someone who looks down on people who smoke cigarettes, but smokes weed themselves (my ex-wife, for example). Or someone who thinks that drinking is bad, but dips snuff (like some of the sailors I've worked with in the past).

[Guest Fire and Knives]

And the reason they have to rationalize the vice they partake in is that they've been bombarded with the message that every vice is bad. If they really believed that it wasn't, why would they be rationalizing it?

 

K.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

I'm not qualified to answer that question; I don't know why anyone would feel the need to rationalize a vice.

[Guest Fire and Knives]

Indeed. Vices are awesome.

 

K.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

I'll have to take your word for it.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

You know, in all seriousness, the best way to get over any vice is to start killing hookers.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

But, then don't you risk becoming addicted to killing hookers?

 

How do you kick that habit?

[Guest Fire and Knives]

...you kill all the hookers.

 

K.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

Bah; if there's anything I've learned from sailing the seven seas, it's that there'll always be hookers...

[muzz 0]

You know, in all seriousness, the best way to get over any vice is to start killing hookers.

Hookers are people too, even if most of them are dead inside already.

[Toxxic 0]

With regards to Edwin's comments about IL's addiction - I work with a 17 year-old heroin addict who started using when she was THIRTEEN. OK, it's a different substance, but you can get hooked young. This is not to mention dual diagnosis (using drugs or alcohol to self-medicate a mental helath problem, which in turn worsens the problem) which can be an absolute BITCH to kick.

 

Working day-in day-out with drug users of all denominations I can actually agree with Kibs' statement about drugs as 'things'. My bias would be towards the experiences they cause being bad, not only due to my personal choices, but also the people I see. However, I don't see the people who can use drugs and maintain themselves, as I only work with homeless people; on the other hand, there are ALWAYS more people ready to come in with drug problems.

 

basically - I hope you find what's right for you, IL. Given the other things you've talked about I'd be inclined to think that working towards abstinence would be the best thing for you, but I've seen the bas side effects of cold turkey as well. I hope you get things sorted to your satisfaction.