FOAK: Serious Questions, regarding mental issues etc.

Wacky baccy makes me feel like this when I'm at a party and there are
people smoking it. Ok, you need to have a window closed for the fumes to
build up... but I think I have a low tolerance for the stuff.... like
chocolate, although I've never tried smoking chocolate.

 

To answer the second part of that - there's a long history of drugs in
ritual going back to early shamanic practices. [1]

Looking further at the first part - how wide a net are you casting
when you look at what counts as a drug? The body is capable of
producing its own natural high and various methods besides chemicals
can be used to make it produce that reaction.

So to rephrase your question *and* bring it back on topic is the
desire to experience the body's natural high [2] fuelled by a need to
replace something that is missing from a person's life?

[1] one of the main aims of ritual is to experience different levels
of conciousness - academics are having a field day with the other
aims.

[2] the experience of riding a bike to your limits and trying to
extend them for example.

 

And that can change.

And that can change.

So are you somehow outside of 'human nature' then?

Hey, Blaney's a bot.

I don't think he is. I think he's making a philosophical point and
you're clever enough to know that.

I like nice intelligent thoughtful funny Blaney can we have him back
please?

 

I drink beer because I like the taste. Am I missing the point?

 

so you'd happily drink alcohol-free beer if it tasted the same?

If yes, you're in a pretty tiny minority.

 

Having gone "cold turkey" from nicotine a few times, after 24 hours
I'm fine so long as I avoid smoke for another few days.

Having gone "cold turkey" from morphine pills (MST 50mg twice
daily to nothing due to prescription **** up over a bank holiday
weekend) I can vehemently say that that was fucking hell for 5
days and took something like 6 weeks for my body to get back to
normal. Morphine is in the same family of drugs as heroin.

So I'd say what you read is utterly, totally, complete bollocks.



frag

 

If it tasted the same, I would.

There are very few beers I like or drink and those I do, I like them for the
flavour, not the alchohol.

 

I think that depends if you feel the need to change your personality
and/or block out whats happening in your life ATM.



frag

 

Probably, I've never tried one that didn't taste horrible though. If I
suddenly discovered that the brewers have been lying and my favourite beer
actually has no alcohol, I don't think I'd stop buying it.

 

It's not when it's a matter entirely under my control.

 

It won't. I know me, and it won't.

It won't. I know me, and it won't.

I mean: specifics, not generalisation.

No. **** off.

 

weirdo.

 

Triple oxymoron!

Which newsgroup are you reading? *Can't* be UKRM.



frag

 

Except that I was talking about addiction, and you were talking about
withdrawal.

Still, don't let the facts get in the way of having a pop - go and
stand in the corner with Muck; I'm sure he'll give you a few choice
insults to throw my way.

 

You really are a tiresome fool, aren't you.

 

And posting that isn't going to convince him there's more to you is
it?

 

It's just a shame that those with the most flavour have highest alcohol
content, eh?

 

... that could change ..

Biological and psycological processes are subject to change just like
any others. My father suffered (as do I) from horrendous migraines well
into his 50's. The for no apparent reason the triggers that used to
produce migraines no longer did so. Why? No-one knows - but *something*
changed about his physiological processes to make something that was
previously impossible now possible

"The very nature of being me" is dependant on many many many different
factors (lets not get into the nature/nurture or chemical automaton
theories here). *If* you can define exactly what makes you you (and how
to stop it changing) then yes - I would say that you have a fair chance
at not changing.

Lets take another example now - me.

Before 5 years ago I would have said that it was impossible to be
addicted to painkillers. Physically *and* psycologically addicted. Then
I started having arthritis and discovered the long term effect of
chronic pain can be a dependance (just short of addiction) on those
painkillers - not in order to add something missing but in order to
take away something (ie the pain). And in my attempts to forsee the
future I had never imagined that I would have arthritis and so said
something very very similar to you - "I would never become addicted to
anything".

And no - this isn't an attempt to prove that you are no better than me
merely that I have seen a similar situation in the one person that I
have a good chance of knowing a lot about.

Of course there are external factors - unless you live in a
sensory-deprivation tank. The actions of others round us have an
inevitable effect on how we ourselves think and act.

I'm not so concerned to prove you wrong - I am merely pointing out that
the old phrase of "no man is an island" has more than a grain of truth
about it. As does the concept of not discounting future events when
none of us can foretell what will happen in the future.

I would be happy to be proved wrong. Send me an email from your
deathbed to tell me I am [1]

Phil.

[1] If we have email then and not something better

 

Same applies to any physical addiction! The drug is only the drug
because it has a physiological effect on the bodys systems. If heroin
just had as much effect as a glass of water people wouldn't get
addicted to it.

Drugs become addictive because of their effects.

Phil