I don’t do drugs.
I’m not boring, or innocent, or prudish.
I just don’t do drugs.
I’ve never had the desire to, and I certainly don’t feel like I’m missing out by not doing them.
But then that’s spoken like a true clean person. Like someone who doesn’t know what they are missing out on. And I don’t. And I like it that way.
I know people who do drugs – not every day, just every now and again. People that light a joint a few times a week, or pop a pill to party. And I sometimes wonder, ‘How did you get there? When did you start? How does it make you feel? And do you really like it?’
One such person comments, “I started smoking pot when I was about sixteen. I hated it, but everyone else was doing it, so I continued to join in. Now, I’ll do it once or twice a week, just alone at home, because it really relaxes me and calms me down.”
Excuse me? If you want to relax, do yoga. Try meditation. Don’t smoke shit that whacks you out. Pot makes you paranoid. I’ve been around far too many people that can’t hold a decent conversation because they are overly conscious of everything they say, overly stressed out with every aspect of their life, except in the moments when they are high.
Another I asked said, “I don’t feel like I can have fun anymore without swallowing a pill. Alcohol just doesn’t do it for me, pot sedates me; I like having something that peps me up and gets me buzzing.”
And I find it terribly sad that someone should need to rely on a drug to get them excited about life.
I’ll never forget reading Kate Holden’s In My Skin – a memoir about the time in her life spent entirely addicted to heroin. A nice, quiet, middle-class girl that got hooked, and battled, for many, many years, a heroin addiction, prostitution and all manner of emotional and psychiatric conditions as a result.
The book was so moving, so honest, that I actually had to stop reading it in some points because I felt as though I was going to be physically sick. I sympathised with her, I truly felt for her, and sometimes I just couldn’t believe that this young girl was walking the same streets as me, but in very different shoes. I still can’t believe that upon looking back at her youth, the memories she has are ones so ugly and bleak.
She battled. She hated herself, hated heroin, but just couldn’t give up. And why? Because deep down, she liked heroin. In some tiny way she liked the way it made her feel. And as she attempted to stop using, she would do it ‘one more time’ because she liked the way it felt soaring through her veins.
Reading In My Skin taught me a lot; about judgement, and addiction, and pain, and justifications, and lies, and strength. Most of all, it taught me a lot about other people. And how easy it is for them to slip through the cracks. How their families may ignore them. Or their friends may encourage them. Or maybe no one has ever been there to really love them. It taught me to never judge another person, but, in the same moment, to never accept that what they are doing is ok, if you really don’t think it’s ok.
Some things are not ok. Some things are not cool.
Whether you use drugs once a year, or once a day, there’s no real difference – you use drugs.
The perception that marijuana is no less dangerous than other drugs is utter rubbish. Whether its affects are noticed instantly, or in years down the track is irrelevant – it’s just not good for you.
And the justifications are hilarious.
“Drinking alcohol out of moderation isn’t good for you, so as long as I don’t use out of moderation, I’m fine.”
“People eat McDonalds and poison their insides too.”
“It’s a natural drug.”
Alcohol and McDonalds are bad for you. That doesn’t make your decision to shoot or light up any more reasonable.
Subject changing and fact finding is so prevalent when all people want to do is justify why they’re doing something. Everyone has a reason; because they can’t cope. Because they are stressed. Because they need a pep up. Because their friends made them do it. Because, because, because.
I’ve only heard one person come out and say, “I use, because I like it.” And I appreciate their honesty. Because the excuses and lies? They are just damn annoying.
And for my most favourite of all; “I do drugs to expand my mind and be at one with my creativity.”
Oh, ok, excuse me then. I must be terribly dull and entirely uncreative. I must not know what it’s like to imagine. Clearly I’ve got to be out of my mind to understand that.
The idea that to be creative, or moved, or to really feel, requires some sort of drug is utter bullshit. I prefer to keep my brain entirely in tact, thank you very much. That, I’m sure, will serve me much more in future than an ‘experience’ or two.
I sometimes wonder if I’m one of the rare few left that just isn’t interested in drugs. That chooses a good nights sleep over a pill to pep up. That’s learnt how to ‘be’ in the present to feel true calm, rather than puffing away to achieve it. I hope I’m not. Because I can already see the effects that drugs are having on a generation that has more potential than they’ll ever know.
If only they stayed clean long enough to see it too.
Great article Sandi! I feel much the same way about drugs and wonder why and how I managed to steer clear of the illegal ones while others do indeed ‘fall down the rabbit hole’.
Thought-provoking piece, Sandi
Drugs are always going to be a controversial issue, but the manner of controversy can differ between people. The fact of their illegality is often the sole reference point touched on when discussing the morality of use, i.e. – drugs are bad because they’re illegal. That, to me, is a poor argument, not least because soft drugs are legal in some countries, in much the same way that the legal age of consumption of alcohol differs between nations. The fact that I could go into a bar and buy alcohol in Australia at 18 but would have been prohibited from doing so had I travelled to America at the same age says nothing about the morality of whether I or anyone else should drink to begin with; only that the age limit was determined arbitrarily, or at least differently, between countries. So, to take pot as an example: if I went to Amsterdam and got stoned, where such behaviour is legal, is my behaviour still reprehensible? Or has the benevolence of the law suddenly put my actions on a different level?
Addiction and use are two separate things. If you can accept that it’s possible to drink alcohol without being an alcoholic, and if you can simultaneously acknowledge that alcohol is a drug to which some people are addicted, you should be able to make the same argument about pot, for instance, or ecstacy. It’s inarguably true that some drugs, legal or not, are stronger than others: their effects more severe, the chances of addiction higher, the risks greater, and that’s a factor which should always be taken into consideration. There are different categories of drug – some naturally occuring, like mushrooms or peyote, some chemically created, like meth or heroine, some adulterated/distilled from natural substances, like opium, and some souped-up versions of existing intoxicants, like hydroponic marijuana. To class all these things under the one umbrella of ‘drugs’ and treat them as if these distictions didn’t exist, however, is like putting a dog, a cat, a horse and an elephant in the one zoo exhibit and referring to them all as ‘mammals’ – technically accurate, but ultimately unhelpful.
In Australia, significantly more people a year are killed by cars than by illegal drugs. Addiction is nothing to be taken lightly, but part of what frustrates me so much about the whole drugs debate is the unwillingness of people to distinguish recreational use from addiction in the dialogue, when clearly, it’s a relevant distinction to make. If it weren’t, neither alcohol nor cigarettes would be legal, or everyone who bought either substance would be addicted to it. In cases where addiction does accur, I’d also contend that the ability of friends and family to intervene and for the user to come forward without legal repercussion is pivotal to early diagnosis and help – certainly, this is true of alcohol. The fact that users of illegal substances are automatically in danger of stigma and professional repercussion has nothing to do with an intrinsic moral failing on their behalf, and everything to do with legality.
My own position is that there is greater benefit to be had from legalising soft drugs, at the very least, than from keeping them illegal, for the above reasons and others. Nobody should be forced to take drugs, drink or smoke because of peer pressure, but the fact that some people do so does not put them in the majority of users, nor does it mean that every voluntary user is automatically an addict or a corrupting influence. I’d love to see more discussion about drugs: it’s an important topic, and one that isn’t going away. Our generation isn’t the only one to have tackled the question, and I don’t think we’re the most hard hit by it for that reason. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep our eyes and brains open.
What bugs me about the drugs thing is the whole celebrity factor and how the papers/magazines react to them.
Pamela Anderson just admitted – wait for it – that she’d had coke in the past.
What? Really? I mean gosh, you think you can trust celebrities, and then they admit that they were once into such a hardcore partying lifestyle.
What a farce. Why are we pretending to be outraged when every D list celebrity and up has embraced the celebrity lifestyle by getting off their face!
Kate Moss gets snapped snorting and it’s all over the papers. Katherine Jenkins, everyone’s favourite hot Welsh opera singer, also admitted it recently. Cue hushed whispers between friends and headlines on the Daily Mail and all the other classy news-sources. But it’s just the done thing so why all the fuss?
Drugs have always had a glorified image, and the celeb stuff certainly adds to the street cred, which is why us friendly mortals get on the bandwagon.
I don’t really know where I’m heading with this, I think I just wanted to have a rant. Sorry Sandi! Really liked the article though, clearly it provoked my thoughts!