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TabascoElvis wrote:when you drink or use can you control how much you drink or use EVERY time? And if presented with some reasonable cause to stop completely; legal issues, marital issues, job issues, health issues, could you never do it again?

Not going to lie, going cold turkey would be really hard. Especially when so many of my family and friends drink. Most of them though can handle drinking, which actually makes it harder. No need for vigilance from anyone else. It's also tough to talk about it with that crowd. They can't relate.

But for me its not so much "can I control how much I drink after I've started every time?" When I drink too much it is more of a conscious decision ahead of time. If that makes sense. I rarely ever go into a night of drinking not knowing how many I might have ahead of time. If I decide ahead of time I'm going to have a lot, then yeah, its tough to stop after only 2. But most times I decide I'm only going to have 2 or 3, and I stick to that. Actually, most of the time I decide I'm going to have zero, and I do. I always give up alcohol for Lent and don't have a drop that whole time. My biggest problems are:
1) I struggle when I'm happy and things are going well. I feel like I can let my guard down and slack off I guess. I do not get the whole "drown your sorrows" thing. I'm the opposite of that. I have zero desire to drink when I'm sad. Instead, I exercise more and eat less when depressed.
2) The other one that was disturbing was one time I drank during an extremely stressful time at work. I think I wanted myself extracted from the situation. I felt trapped in a situation where none of the outcomes would be good. So, hungover, I called in sick. That's the only time I've ever done that.

Cocaine isn't always the best thing to throw into the mix when you're a heavy drinker, and it's expensive, but I've never actually met anyone who used on anything close to a daily basis, or even when they were sober. And almost everyone I know does it occasionally. There's this weird thing about it where people think it will quickly ruin your life. Heroin and alcohol are really the only things I've ever seen take anyone down.

haltz wrote:Heroin and alcohol are really the only things I've ever seen take anyone down.

Acid too, I'm sure. I know I have.

I agree that most of my friends that are frequent coke users don't really abuse it, nor is it some nightmare gateway drug that leads to H and meth overnight. I just know, personally, that I'd be that guy that people would say "Wow he really needs to lay off the coke".

Trill, I also have had to deal with a friend just completely collapse into ruin because of acid. I don't think anyone in that circle of friends has heard from the girl in years; last I knew she was moving to Cali to try to sell bead necklaces at some big music festival. It was weird to see just how fast her mind and body went to hell. Blech.

Not that I'm disputing your stories (I believe both of you), but I'd think you'd have to do obscene amounts of acid to become permanent mush. Or I guess you could get a hold of a really, really, really bad batch or something.

I mostly avoided anything that required snorting or injecting. Just too scary for me. I tried just about everything else and came out of it ok. But I would be terrified to be a parent now. So much of the stuff that's out there you just have no idea what is in it. There are so many synthetic approximations that are sold as the real thing and that stuff is extremely dangerous.

Percocet and vicodin and that kind of stuff isn't too dangerous in moderation, but I had several friends whose lives were ruined by oxycontin. They were getting the hardcore 80mg ones that hook you immediately and are as bad as heroin or anything else you can find. Some of them are still on it, the rest had to take suboxone or methadone to stay off. Percocets can also be bad if you take too many. I had a friend who died before age 30 because he had progressed to 30 or 40 pills a day and his liver shut down.

trill wrote:

haltz wrote:Heroin and alcohol are really the only things I've ever seen take anyone down.

Acid too, I'm sure. I know I have.

My old favorite.
But yeah, I knew a dude who lost vision in one eye from staring at the sun for way too long while he was tripping.

Alcohol is the only drug that the actual act of doing it can be fun. How many times do people try to bounce a ping pong ball onto a syringe and then take that shot, or get held upside down and see how long they can take a hit, or race to see who can snort a line the fastest? Drinking is fun. It is infinitely more socially accepted than any drug, including pot or pills. It is addictive. It kills what more than all the other drugs combined (granted bc of easier access) on a yearly basis?

Thats not to say alcohol is bad or worse than other drugs. Or that other drugs should be legalized, though its a decent opening argument. But, seriously, people treat alcohol like it is not a drug. Or that, at a minimum, its use is somehow less dangerous than all these other drugs. And sure. One beer is exponentially safer than one syringe full of heroin to the neck. But no one drinks one beer.

Not to really disagree with you, but aren't cigarettes still the biggest killer?

AWvsCBsteeeerike3 wrote:Alcohol is the only drug that the actual act of doing it can be fun. How many times do people try to bounce a ping pong ball onto a syringe and then take that shot, or get held upside down and see how long they can take a hit, or race to see who can snort a line the fastest? Drinking is fun. It is infinitely more socially accepted than any drug, including pot or pills. It is addictive. It kills what more than all the other drugs combined (granted bc of easier access) on a yearly basis?

Thats not to say alcohol is bad or worse than other drugs. Or that other drugs should be legalized, though its a decent opening argument. But, seriously, people treat alcohol like it is not a drug. Or that, at a minimum, its use is somehow less dangerous than all these other drugs. And sure. One beer is exponentially safer than one syringe full of heroin to the neck. But no one drinks one beer.

I disagree, I do drink one beer. I drink almost every day, it's part of my diet basically. Usually more than one, but sometimes only one.