The fact that I take drugs is not something I hide from the people I am close with, it is not something I really think should be hidden, or ashamed of. Whatever side of the drug debate you stand on I don't mind, and I understand both sides of it. I have seen what they can do to people, I have experienced at least some of what they can do, and I have also seen some of the ways that they can really help people too... so how do you know when its too much?
Bill Hicks once said that we never hear about the positive drug stories, so I want to give you a couple of mine that actually changed my life substantially for the better. Lets offset a few of those "man cut up his girlfriend with a samurai sword" news articles okay?
For an awful lot of my younger life I was plagued with low self-esteem, there are a bunch of reasons for that which are probably better discussed in a clinical setting but I understand them and I have worked on them. And much as most of you who know me may find it incredibly hard to imagine, there were times in my life where I was very quiet, nervous, shy, and unable to talk to people.
And that really does seem like a different life to me now, but during my teen/early adult years I really just latched on to a few core groups of close friends and they were my people.
So when I moved to Sydney, I found myself alone in a huge overwhelming city with no real friends, and I had to really force myself to go out and try to meet people. And then I found MDMA (E, Molly, ecstasy)....
On MDMA you feel like you can trust everyone, you open up, you can talk for hours with any old random you find in a gutter or smoking area of a club, and you have thoroughly meaningful conversations with those people. (there is also a lot of hugging, glowsticks, and dance music)
So for somebody like me it really taught me that if you are not scared of the rejection of being that honest and vulnerable with people, you CAN absolutely make meaningful connections with other human beings. And I think unlike most people who run around on pills the most core difference was that I realized that if I could have those conversations with people on drugs... there was absolutely no reason that I couldn't also have them while sober. And so the noisy emotional vulnerable honest creature that you all know and love today, was born from those sweaty Sydney nightclubs and long rambling bullshit talks in hotel bathtubs. And so it will always be hard for me to hear strenuous anti-drugs objections, because the gift of meaningful moments with people is the one thing that has actually saved my life more times than I can count.
And then of course there was the moment I described earlier where LSD allowed me to inspect myself enough to be able to realize who I really am, and what that actually means to myself.
But another time I did it, I was basically home alone and having some self-diagnosis time, and I thought to myself how would the 16 year old me react to the me of today, would that wide-eyed sober child approve of my drug taking antics and my running around the world throwing my life away on a regular basis. And so I basically had this conversation with myself, and it was deeply therapeutic, at first I felt like he would have been disappointed in me. So I also explained all of the once in a lifetime moments that I had along the way. In the end it was really nice to feel like we had resolved our differences. For anyone who has never taken LSD that will probably sound super rambly and odd... but for those few who have, you probably understand.
SO.... all these beautiful things, and yay moments.... and then the other shoe drops.
Another substance I play with on occasion is GHB (GBL, fantasy) and it basically takes you from sober to the pinnacle of drunken selfish obnoxiousness in the space of moments, and lasts for around two hours. You will basically be a loved up floating monstrosity of self absorption and you will be incredibly horny. In short its a really dangerous feeling for someone who is repressing who they are, because on that substance you give absolutely zero fucks about hiding things.
And so while I was overseas I was able to get litres of it at a time reasonably cheaply, and you only take 2mls of it at a time to get high. So whats a girl to do with literally hundreds of doses of readily available relief from feeling like she needs to hide, but do a lot of it, on a regular basis.
The thing with GHB is that you start getting used to it, so you start taking more of it to try and feel like it did early on, but REALLY it is affecting you just the same and the higher dose is actually a bit more than you should ever take at once. And that leads to... spontaneous unconsciousness, in public places...and if you do it long enough, your body will actually panic when you try to stop unless you reduce your dosages very very gradually.
If you have ever wanted to feel like you are having a stroke... that is how you do it. So that is the one time I have ever been physically addicted to a drug, it hospitalized me, it caused depression and erratic behavior and it was really not good for me.
And yet.... even now if I can get just a little of it once in awhile, I still do it, I just don't ever want so much of it available to me that I can ever become dependent on it again. And that's the real kicker, knowing why you do a drug, knowing what it does to you, knowing its all an illusion... it doesn't always help. Sometimes a fake moment of being truly free to be yourself is worth it still, even at such heavy prices.
And of course there is the standard drug of damage, the most ill-reputed of desperate filth... crystal methamphetamine (P, Crank, Shabs, Meth)
When I was going out partying back in the day I tried crystal meth a bunch of times, and it never really held that much allure to me, it was fantastic for partying all weekend, but I never really felt the thrall a lot of my friends did during that period of my life. It only ever felt like a tool to remain awake and focused for long periods of time.
So how have I managed to find myself having problems with it?.....Work.
In the past year or so, I have found myself using it more than I ever did before simply for the fact that it allows me to focus and be productive, and I have always struggled with that. At one stage I actually did visit a psychologist for an evaluation for ADHD and while she said that I was definitely symptomatic it was not negatively impacting on my life enough to medicate it. BUT... that was when I was unemployed and not in a relationship so there was no yardstick with which to measure it anyway.
So here I am, in a job which involves juggling numerous large scale projects and I am the only one in my office who can handle that work so it all falls to me. And so on occasion I have used meth to achieve the required miracles, but of course that comes with all of the downsides, what goes up must come down... and on that substance the down is a nasty haze of uselessness for a few days where I will be ridiculously unproductive. Right now I am doing my best to avoid that, and it has been mostly successful, but really, I just wish I could feel that focused in some way without it.
The other thing about that substance, is that it can be used to buy yourself a 12 hour window where everyone else is sleeping to get some you time when you are totally drowning in work and feel like you haven't had a moment to breathe. And that can be a really enticing proposition when you are depressed and need a break.
And theres your vicious cycle again... afterwards you will experience a massive burst of depression on top.... and so you want a little more to feel better again.
So there you all go... drugs.... my experiences....
And at the end of ALL of that... I still think there are a lot of situations where drugs are actually super beneficial, and for those of us who need that level of escape sometimes there are just not any options to relieve the root cause that makes us need that escape. Its not always about robbing old people to get "high", sometimes its just a desperate need to express parts of ourselves we normally can't.
For me... I need to start transition sometime soon, which means finally talking to my employers about it, which means finally talking to my doctor about it, which means a lot of really hard moments... so forgive me. There is a plan to handle this in the long term. And in the meantime kids, if you want to take drugs PLEASE do them safely around people who will take care of you.
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