Drugs

When I was 6, I was prescribed Gyrocaps for asthma. I discovered if I took them, I could stay up all night reading and not fall asleep until school the next day, which I thought was SO cool.

When I was 10, my mother took me to my first concert - Three Dog Night (and now my age shows) and at that concert she (undoubtedly fucked up beyond all reason and sense) passed me my first joint. It was love at first inhale. It sent me to a nice world filled with soft sounds, pleasant fragrances and comfortable surroundings.

When I was 11, I took up smoking. Marlboros. the first day I smoked, I smoked four packs. I loved it. It smelled good, it tasted good, it felt good, I always had something to do. At 11, my hormones were already boiling out my ears, cigarettes gave me something to do to calm me and work off the nervous energy.

When I was twelve, I discovered the Zombie. The Zombie is about three shots from whatever bottles happen to be open, mixed together and rapid-fire guzzled at lunch at school. My mother was a heavy drinker, she always had about five bottles open, it took her two years to notice they were emptying too fast.

See, the thing is, I like drugs. I have been shovelling heavy-duty pharmaceuticals into my blood stream since I discovered Nodoz in high school.

Drugs keep me alive, and I mean that literally. The asthma meds keep me breathing, the hypertension meds keep my brain from exploding (I was told at the e/r that if my bp is not controlled soon, I will have a stroke within 5 years).

When I had cluster headaches, I took opiates to survive the pain, and on several occasions was suicidal even with the painkillers, so they very literally saved my life. I got dependant on them, went to detox, but since they never managed to fix the headches, as soon as I was out of detox, I was back on pain meds, and starting to ramp up dosage again. Every doctor was convinced I was just a junkie lying about headaches to get high. But then, the headaches stopped, and surprise, surprise! I was off pain meds in less than two weeks. Now I am on them when I need them without a problem of escalating dosages or tolerance. Was I addicted? Yes. Was it terrible? Less terrible than the pain would have been without the meds. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. If the cluster headaches ever recur, you can bet your ass I'll do the same thing over again, and just hope that either they go away again, or I die, before I have to do the detox shit again with cluster headaches.

A bit on detox: Shut the fuck up, you sanctimonious bastards. I am NOT going to go sit with a bunch of neuvo-born-again morons gripping coffee mugs the size of small tanker-trucks, chain-smoking camel unfiltered extra-tar, extra-nicotine cigarettes and telling me how I am powerless in the face of my addiction. I was powerless in the face of my pain. My addiction actually EMPOWERED me to take some small bit of control from a circumstance that was rapidly spinning out of control. In so doing, I escaped the tortures of the damned with my family intact and my extended support structure still taking my calls. Because of Oxycodone and Phentanyl (the lollipops rock), I never succumbed to the desperation I felt.

Anyway, back to drugs. As you can probably tell, I like them. Especially the two classes of drugs that have been used for thousands of years in shamanic contexts, the hallucinogens and the dissociatives. I use these to do what is sometimes called astral projection, sometimes called Shamanic Journeying (one of my teachers called it "goin' and lookin' " and another called it spiritwalking). I don't use drugs to ENHANCE this experience, (altho that is, admittedly, why I started experimenting with them) but rather to, as many relaxants and intoxicants do, put some distance between the seer and the seen.

I call these drugs Sacrements, because as I understand the concept, a sacrement is something that sanctifies one, or makes one pure or holy. In short, it is a thing you use to become closer to the divine, or the truth, or the spark, or whatever you believe in. Also among my Sacrements are non-drug items. Sex, kinky sex (it is a different deal entirely), long, difficult conversations with loved ones, teaching, learning, fighting, dehydration-fasting-sweating (sweat lodge, PJ, circlespinning) and composing poetry.

I like drugs. Marijuana should be legal for all of you folks (because of my medical condition, it is already legal for me (sorta)), pain medicatin should be easy to get and easy to increase. Withdrawal hurts like hell for three or four days, but it is no worse than a really bad flu. Hallucinogens should be legal to create possess and cultivate (and I am tempted to say that everybody should try mushrooms once, but I have met people that couldnt deal)

Questions about this stuff are welcome.
Lizard