What Drugs have you done and why?

[Bennyboy]

Let’s have an honest conversation about our personal drug use, why we use drugs, and how the war on drugs impacts us, our families and society. Please answer the questions below and reflect with me in the "comments" section.

What drugs do you use on a daily, weekly or annual basis?

While you may not consider yourself a “drug user”, virtually all of us use drugs on a daily basis. Our society is swimming in drugs. Coffee, soda, cigarettes, Prozac, weed, Ritalin, alcohol, cocaine, and sleeping pills are just a sample of the drugs that we take to get through the day and night.



Which drugs do you use?



Why do you use the drugs you do?

Most people use drugs for joy and for pain. Enjoy having some drinks at the end of the day? Enjoy a little smoke or shot of espresso after a nice dinner with friends? Many people bond with others or find inspiration alone while on drugs.

On the flip side, many people self-medicate to try to ease the pain in their lives. Ever had too much to drink to drown your sorrows over a breakup or some other painful event? Smoke cigarettes to deal with anxiety or stress? What are the reasons you use drugs?



Which drugs have you become dependent on or addicted to?

Some people associate drug use with addiction or dependence. Dependence is not necessarily a bad thing – think of a person with diabetes who needs insulin, an office worker who needs a cup of coffee to start the day, or a person with debilitating pain who uses marijuana to get through the day. But when someone’s dependence on a drug becomes problematic, that’s when it turns into an addiction.

People may also assume that trying certain drugs, like meth or heroin, will guarantee an addiction. The truth is, only about 10 percent of people who ever try “hard” drugs like cocaine or meth become addicted. I know this may be hard to believe, but even the governement’s own numbers show this.



Do you know people that have tried illicit drugs? Did they develop a problem? Which drugs have you tried and have become addicted to them?



What image and who comes to mind when you think of a person who uses drugs?




MORE AT LINK: http://www.alternet.org/drugs/what-drugs-have-you-done-and-why

[Atman]

1. Agent Mike thanks you for your participation!

You may receive a personal visit for follow-up questions.

[VanillaRhapsody]

2. None of your business Officer!

[ileus]

3. None...

Because I'm high on life, never saw the entertainment value in illegal drugs...

Plus the cash can go toward things that last.

[NoOneMan]

4. psilocybin, pot, alcohol and caffeine

I've never had a major "problem" with anything other than caffeine, though family history with alcohol. Alcohol makes me feel like hell so I stopped cold turkey two years ago.

I take pot regularly (2-4 times a week) for pain and relaxation. The shrooms I take every 6 months to clear my head, get insight, relieve stress, induce creativity, etc. Psilocybin is a great "reset" and tool to examine who you really are and what the world really is (lets you examine things without your ego and preconceived notions in the way).

I've also dabbled in some one time use of a handful of psychoactives like E, but never incorporated them because I didn't find they gave real longstanding value for mental and intellectual development personally (though I understand therapeutically many of the substances Ive tried have promises).

The only problem drug I know of friends and family having issues with is alcohol, in terms of both its destructive effects and addictive properties

[quinnox]

5. Caffeine and aspirin are the only ones I use

I drink coca-cola on a daily basis. I also take aspirin daily. In the past, I smoked pot a couple times, and that is it. And I drank alcohol for a period of time when I was in college. I have never tried anything harder, nor would I.

To expand on why, I just like caffeine. It seems to make me more alert. And I like the focus it gives me. Also, there was a recent study saying those who use caffeine daily cut their suicide rates by 50%. And that caffeine is maybe a mild anti-depressant.

About aspirin, I get headaches sometimes. And I really like aspirin, because it makes any headaches go away. And also, it has been suggested in studies taking aspirin daily has many health benefits, such as reduced cancer rates and other things. Aspirin is from nature, by the way.

Oh yea, I did try smoking a pipe for a very brief time a long time ago. But I find smoking to be disgusting. And I have never been addicted to anything, except maybe caffeine. But just about everyone uses that. I might have a fancy imported beer maybe once or twice a year. I do like champagne, but I will have that maybe once a year as well, like at Christmas or New Years.

[mick063]

6. I would love to answer this honestly but

This thread is being archived by the NSA, I work for a contractor of the US Government, and my memory isn't good enough to ensure that what I write would 100% match the paperwork I filled out 14 years ago.

I will say that I scored an absurdly high score on my ASVAB test, but the Navy limited the technical fields available upon enlistment because my enlistment paperwork openly admitted that I had used marijuana. This was in 1984. I was told by more than one sailor, "You should have lied."

Although I have not used it in decades, that Navy impediment has caused me to take a pro legalization stance ever since.

[handmade34]

7. to add to the discussion...

I worked on this study (NSDUH -National Study on Drug Use and Health) for many years... gives some perspective on an academic level... not personal stories though

http://www.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2k11Results/NSDUHresults2011.htm

[JeffHead]

8. Alcohol and weed. Quite frankly it's the only thing keeping me from strangling people. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Caffeine, I know, I am boring!

Or you mean my legally prescribed meds?

[alittlelark]

10. Why? ....do you have any?

[PDJane]

11. I am not addicted to anything but tea at the moment.

I don't drink alcohol or pop (the latter is completely out; I'm really sensitive to corn products). I tried speed in my misspent youth, and loved it, but that is a problem, I have discovered, with depression. Didn't take it more than once or twice. I do take Cymbalta. May end up using pot for neurological pain, if I have a choice between that and the heavy neurological drugs.

I once worked as a transcriber on a temporary basis during a study of drug-addicted minors. It was enough to make me tired, heartbroken and wary of anyone offering drugs of any kind. I don't think that I can bear another tale of a child given drugs as an adjunct to sexual abuse. Please, if you love me, not one more.

I have known too many alcoholics, as well. I've managed to avoid that.

Truthfully, I have been addicted to the prescription pad; a neurologist was layering drugs after an accident. I tossed them away, went through withdrawal (mostly slept through it) and woke up starving. That's the very last of that. Interestingly, when I stopped, I had no cravings. I was told that meant that I wasn't truly addicted in the way that most addicts are, if that makes sense. I apparently was addicted because of the constant care and feeding of that addiction by someone who should have known better.

I don't know how you can possibly manage those few people who are truly addictive personalities. It's been my experience that if you take away one addiction, they tend to develop another kind of addiction, or an addiction to something else. We need a much better handle on that particular illness.

[temporary311]

12. Weed, and caffeine.

Never became addicted or "dependant." Haven't touched weed in about 12 years, and have had caffeine only rarely since I gave up sodas a couple years ago. Never touched tobacco, and I find alcohol to be gross, at least for drinking. I occasionally use some in cooking, though.

[Zorra]

13. Drugs are boring. nt

[quinnox]

15. and often, deadly

There are many famous people who can't resist their lure, and they end up paying the ultimate price. There was an actor from the tv show Glee who recently died from a drug overdose. He was 31 years old.

And many other rich and famous people have died from drugs. Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, River Phoenix. The list goes on.

[Marie Marie]

14. Chocolate - and it is legal.

[brooklynite]

16. How about, none?

When I was "snipped", I was given a prescription for pain relief; never touched them.

[Bluenorthwest]

49. No caffine? No liquor?

You actually skip the wine at dinner?

[brooklynite]

50. No, I don't consider it a drug.

[Warren DeMontague]

62. Alcohol most certainly is a drug.

[Ino]

17. Sugar & carbs

are my addiction. I am ashamed

Also one daily coffee. But I'm not ashamed of that

[olddots]

18. I believe i have taken everything other than ketamine

that is all the information I choose to give on line .

[Socal31]

19. None, ever.

Now please hire me, future HR employee doing my background.

[kenny blankenship]

20. I have given up bath salts and moved on to air freshener.

Bath Salts were weak tea.

[rppper]

21. Quite a few....

Never went for heroin, and I never bought coke...used when someone offered a rail, but frankly, it's horrible on my sinuses...weed, booze, ecstasy, various pills, speed....mostly all when I was young and foolish...parties and such....all prior to navy service....now just some weed every now and again.....an occasional shot of scotch or a Sam Adams....I worked with addicts for nearly a decade, I've seen the destruction it does firsthand, and I have a history of addiction and alcoholism in my family...I try to keep it very moderate..

[icymist]

22. Only rain water and Grain Alcohol...

Must protect the precious bodily fluids!

[ohheckyeah]

23. This is a pretty personal question.

Why would you want to know or care?

[Comrade Grumpy]

24. I covered the bases in my youth, but I can't keep up with all these durned newfangled drugs.

Synthetic this and that. Methcathinone. MPDV (or is it MDVP?)

I grow my own pot plants. I like doing that.

[spanone]

25. it's NOBODY'S business what i put in my body or why. i own it, no one else.

[jberryhill]

26. Tonight? Or, like, ever?

[quinnox]

31. I'm drinking "Sheaf Stout" right now,

this thread kind of inspired me to pick up one of those imported beers at the store. It's Australian, not bad.

[jberryhill]

32. Meh, it's summer

Summer is no time for stout.

[quinnox]

33. heh, I guess

I honestly don't know what stout is, I just liked the bottle label. It is kind of heavy tasting, but I decided I like it.

[jberryhill]

34. You're just saying that to provoke me, right?

Wait wait, don't tell me "Epic Fail Ale?" "Anchor Steamfailboat"

[quinnox]

35. lol

it is true. But I'm going to look up stout on wikipedia right now.

[jberryhill]

37. Jesus wept

[quinnox]

38. this is what I'm drinking at this moment...

[H2O Man]

73. Respectfully disagree.

It's not just for breakfast any more. Or something like that.

[HeiressofBickworth]

27. My tea isn't a drug

It's more like a religion.......

[trackfan]

28. Alcohol & Caffeine just about every day. Aspirin is always around.

I've never been much of a pot fan- first tried it in 1975, and will take a social hit now and then, but it doesn't do much for me. (Interestingly, I was part of a drug trial during cancer treatment 30 years ago for a synthetic form of pot; it made me feel strange, and hear bells, but didn't really make me feel good; it may or may not have been effective as an anti-nausea drug for chemotherapy, not sure about that). Although they make you feel real good for a short time, I really haven't had any cocaine or other uppers since the late 1980s. They just make you feel too thrashed afterwards. Tranquilizers make you feel good, but are dangerous to mix with alcohol, and their effect is short lived. I haven't had hash in about 30 years, but I remember it as always being a nice pleasant high. Mushrooms could vary from mediocre to great; a nice hallucinogen. By far, the most wonderful class of drugs, for me, are various opiates. I've had Morphine, Codeine, Oxycontin, Dilaudid, Percocet, Darvocet, Vicodin, and others. I love 'em all. If I had not been fated to be both broke and cheap most of my life, I would have become an addict. However, I am both broke and cheap; so I only get to indulge in these things when fate makes them available, which is not very often. So, a nice Martini before dinner, and a couple of glasses of wine with, are pretty much it for me.

[Th1onein]

29. "Let’s have an honest conversation about our personal drug use." NO, LET'S NOT.

It's none of your fucking business, and to engage people in a public forum in this kind of exchange is reprehensible, and I question your motives.

See: http://pastebin.com/irj4Fyd5


Technique #4 - 'INFORMATION COLLECTION'

Information collection is also a very effective method to determine the psychological level of the forum members, and to gather intelligence that can be used against them. In this technique in a light and positive environment a 'show you mine so me yours' posting is initiated. From the number of replies and the answers that are provided much statistical information can be gathered. An example is to post your 'favourite weapon' and then encourage other members of the forum to showcase what they have. In this matter it can be determined by reverse proration what percentage of the forum community owns a firearm, and or a illegal weapon. This same method can be used by posing as one of the form members and posting your favourite 'technique of operation.' From the replies various methods that the group utilizes can be studied and effective methods developed to stop them from their activities.

[darkangel218]

46. +1000 nt.

[Vanje]

72. That is an interesting link.

I havn't seen all of it here, but I've seen some of it. I've fallen for some of these tactics too, I'm afraid.
Thanks for sharing this.

[Blue_In_AK]

30. On a daily basis,

Synthroid, Restasis, coffee, and a little MJ. I use Synthroid because my thyroid is dead, Restasis because I have dry eyes, coffee because I like it and MJ because it helps my arthritic knee and helps me go to sleep and I like it.

I'm not addicted to anything, except I do get a headache if I don't have my morning coffee.

In my youth, I did a lot of drugs. I loved psychedelics, took literally hundreds of trips. I did a fair amount of speed pills in college, a little crystal back in the late '60s, cocaine (snorted, not smoked), various and sundry cheap highs. I preferred uppers, not downers, so I never tried heroin, 'ludes or anything like that. Ecstasy and so on was after my time. I was never addicted to anything, although people all around me were.

I have no image of drug users. Almost everyone I know uses a drug of one sort or another.

Is that enough for you? I'm retired, so I'm not worried about permanent records or anything.

[REP]

58. Does the Restasis work for you?

I have pretty terrible dry eyes; bad enough I get cysts on the inside of my eyelids and on my sclera and often, a vessel will rupture in an eye. I've seen the ads, and hate to ask for a drug I've seen on TV, but this is getting tiresome!

[Blue_In_AK]

67. It seems to work pretty well.

I still occasionally use some of those gel eye drops, too, but I think the Restasis has helped.

[bhikkhu]

36. Plenty of drugs when I was in my 20's. Nothing whatsoever for 5 years now

...and that "nothing" includes no tobacco or alcohol. I've even cut out caffeine of any sort now, as it makes me a bit sick.

Worst drug was ecstasy. I watched it drive friends of mine into nervous panics and emotional wrecks, then I did it anyway and wound up just as bad for a time. The turnaround time coming back from that was years.

[lpbk2713]

39. No recreational pharmaceuticals for me.

Binge drinking was as bad as I ever got. And that was a looong time ago.

[HiPointDem]

40. why would anyone ask such a question on an internet chat board?

[Duer 157099]

41. All of them n/t

[Arctic Dave]

42. I was addicted to Flintstones children vitamins.

I blame my parents. They pushed it on me at a very young age. They said things like, "if I don't take it I would get beat up for being a skinny weakling".

By the time I was in middle school I was chopping them and snorting them. When I graduated I was smoking them a few times a day.

I hit bottom in my late twenties when I was found strung out in a ditch after a weeklong bender of mainlining them.

I want to say that I am clean of Flintstones vitamins for 15 years now and taking it one day at a time.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

71. Same here. And now I look like Fred Flintstone. Especially my feet.

[Peaceplace80]

43. Rolaids

I ashamed to admit it, but I have to sleep with at least 2 bottles on my nightstand. Sometimes I get the urge to chew on a few in the middle of the night. I am trying to wean myself off of the fruit flavored, taking it one day at a time.

[sagat]

44. I'm not a weak-ass, so nothing.

[BainsBane]

48. no sugar or coffee?

[leveymg]

45. Why not?

Whimsy and nonsense. May it serve you well.

But, if you want meaning and good production values, try this one:

[dkf]

47. No illegal drugs ever...caffeine is my drug of choice.

[hobbit709]

51. Never did heroin, at one time or another probably everything in the book.

to get high of course. Never liked downers. Will take major painkillers only if nothing else works. My last script for Vicoden(20-no refills) lasted me a year.
I first did LSD while it was still legal, tried all the other hallucinogens, some I liked, some were worth doing once.
Been smoking pot since I was 16, I'm 63 now.

[matthews]

52. What drugs have YOU done? nt

[Bennyboy]

55. Most of them except Heroin and most prescription drugs.

I knew the first time I smoked pot (with my elder cousin Skip in the playground at the school behind my house)that I would smoke it every day for the rest of my life. Like a door opening or at least a window, into otherness. I've always known that i was WAY different than everyone else and pot helped me fit in a bit with all kinds of people, jocks, heads, bikers, hippies, Jesus Freaks and Black Panthers. I am still like that.

it also helps me with what are now considered to be mental issues and such, but when I was a kid (or young adult) were not considered as such.

I still smoke it, and concentrates and edibles) and it helps me with pain, creative inspiration and keeps me from being pissed off all the time.

LSD: I stayed with my cousin over the NYE holiday in 1968 and he took me to a concert at Winterland. The grateful dead. I was 13 and had smoked pot twice, I think, then. The kool Aid was passed, the bus come by and I got on. If pot was a window then LSD was telescope and a microscope. Anything was interesting and everything was interesting. On ten thousand levels. KABLOOEY. There was no turning back after that......To her dying day, My Mom always said "you were always different after that".....LSD is fun as hell. Again something I am sure I will do many times in the future and have done it in the recent past.

When I was a sophomore in High School I did some Reds. two of them. By the time third period came around, I was totally out of it. Puking all over the school. Got busted and sent to "juvie" and expelled from the High School I was going to. Never ever took any downers again. Not for me, I like to expand my mind not destroy it....Alway been very leery of pharmies and have never taken an ellaville, ketamine, Thorazine, Quaalude or anything other than an occasional vicodin for pain. (I still have over 70 of a 100 pill prescription that is almost 9 years old now). Never an OXY, Morphine, none of that. I have serious pain, but pot seems to at least help me deal with it.

Mushrooms and Peyote I have done many times and mushrooms are really my hallucinogen of choice. I don't see Peyote very often, or mecaline but it is certainly in my drug history. Mushrooms are so freaking beautiful. As a creative person they allow me to see things that I would not be able to see or understand unless I was tripping.

Coke and crank (meth). Ever since i was a kid and playing sports, beans, or amphetamines, were part of my life. I loved speed. Employers would give you and your fellow employees speed to do more work. And, being in Construction all my life and being mostly non union, speed was the only way to keep up. then around 86 or so, meth, or crank, came around. And I loved it. I could drink all night and still make work. And the sex? HOLY Crap the sex was incredible (of course that has led to many problems in my not high on meth sex life which I have faced since 89 or so).. I bartened for years in a crazy bar and drinking and drugging wre all part of the job then....I could work, party, sex all night or day. but one day I knew I had to give it up after a long run of drinking and snorting (never did smoke it or shoot it...or anything else) and just walked away from my life at the time, leaving everything I owned. Relapsed a few times but always a one time thing and haven't done any since probably 94 or so........

Coke, the first time I ever did it was at Kezar stadium at (of course) a grateful dead concert. 45 bucks a gram, and the song, Casey Jones) had peaked my curiosity. I loved it. A LOT. then everyone got into it and from about 75 to 79 or so, it was my drug of choice over all others. i stopped smoking weed and started freebasing coke. All day long. Our house had a steady supply of coke, girls, money etc and we spent all day and night basing coke. Then, one day I went tot he store, about a mile from the house, I took three hits off the pipe on the way there, and on the way back. my girlfriend Said "Do you know what you just did" And I replied :No".... then she told me. I moved out of that house that day and never looked back. Did not see any of those people for almost 20 years. Since 1980 maybe< I have snorted coke a couple of times but am never around it.

Ecstasy: (the drug not the feeling) Had it and don't get it. Too much like coke or crank in that it is a drug, one you want more of the second you do what you have. I know not the high really and I've been in situations where there was unlimited supply and I never could figure out what the deal is. The one thing I take from it is that it makes crappy Disco and electronica sound good. With EX Bassnectar would not exist.,


DMT: love the high, haven't had much experience with it but the high is intense if only a couple of minutes long. Smells like shit and hate it when people smoke it at concerts.

Alcohol: Every single wrong thing I ever did in my life was due to alcohol. I've had some real problems due to it and my addiction personality. Without going into detail, it has really made my life hell. the weird thing is, I don't drink that much, hardly ever at home. I've spent years, decades even, sober. Then, I am drinking vodka and having blackout episodes. Something I ahve learned to temper now though, no hard alcohol and only craft beers. And i can make four beers last an entire evening so that is great. (of course when i am at a festival or know I am not going to be driving) then I might drink a few more.

the only mistake I made when on pot was that I went to see KISS....without the make up (what were they thinking?)

Ciggies. Spent more of my life as a non smoker but have smoked many times. Hated it and very hard to quit. Last time I was so embarrassed by my Smoking that I did not leave the house hardly for two years.

Caffeine: Love it, but no more than two cups a day and only in the morning. really doesn't affect me though because I can drink coffee late at night and still go right to sleep and I drink tea ll day and night.

[matthews]

56. Amazing. I shouldn't have asked because now it's all over the place. I actually didn't

think you'd answer.

Me, I kept out of all kinds of trouble because everything makes me sick. Tried coke, got sick. Drink a couple beers. Get sick. Was prescribed some 2 milligram Valiums once years ago. Got sick.

The only thing that doesn't make me yarble is pot, and I can't afford it. Plus I need to work.

Maybe that's why I'm terminally cranky.

[Bennyboy]

60. It hasn't been without some major problems however

Home invasion robbery over cannabis and a subsequent lawsuit filed by the guy who almost shot me....


I've Known quite a few people who have been killed over pot (as I was nearly) as well as imprisoned.

Had a horrendous LSD trip that caused me to do five years of intensive investigation into why (It was made improperly due to LSD laws)...

but nobody gets out alive and compared to the trouble I have created when I was drunk, it really is nothing... in fact the LSD trip made me rethink a lot of things.... really one of the worst and best things that ever happened to me.

[matthews]

66. Yeah, I understand that 'mixed blessing' thing. And my entire life has been

spent around alcoholics. They are way more trouble than anything or anyone else. And my shrink told me that I wouldn't know an alcoholic because I have been around them so much I think that's normal behavior. Hell, I married 2. So I am sure that it' a good thing that I can't drink or else God only knows where I'd be.

But by far and away my worst problem is that I'm a 'fixer'. I was programmed from a young age.

I wish I had money and I didn't have to find work because I really like to smoke, and I don't mean cigarettes. But both those conditions are keeping me on the straight and narrow.

Dammit.

[thatgemguy]

53. Why do you want to know???

[hunter]

54. I experience an "alternate reality" when I don't take my meds...

... I've never known a drug (prescribed or not) that I'd do for fun except maybe a moderate amount of beer. I am addicted to morning coffee.

Usually I crawl out of bed in the morning because I hurt too much to sleep anymore. Once I've had my coffee and a powerful antidepressant with nasty side effects, life's not so bad.

I used to take ibuprofen, but now I can't because it makes my stomach hurt, same as all the NSAIDS.

Opiates make me feel gross. I would not take them for fun. Whenever I've been prescribed vicodin, for example, after a major dental procedure, the point where the pain is more tolerable than the gross feeling usually comes fairly soon. It's hard for me to believe people take these meds for fun.

It seems I have only three reactions to drugs. I get sick and pukey, I sleep, or I go walking off in some random direction. I used to go running off in some random direction but now my knees complain too much.

Drug abuse ought to be treated as a public health problem, not a criminal problem. When the police pick up an addict they ought to take them to a safe place where they can deal with their addiction, or not deal with their addiction under medical supervision. Much of the criminal drug trade would whither away because safe houses, drugs, and medical supervision would be freely available.

Treating cannabis as a "dangerous" drug is absurd given that alcohol and cigarettes are legal. It's so easy to grow that organized crime would lose a lot if of business if it was legalized. It makes you wonder if the criminals and the warriors who enforce these hypocritical drug laws are not two faces of the same devil.

[RebelOne]

57. I have not done any drugs in 25 years.

The only drugs I take are legal, caffeine pills (I don't drink coffee) and cigarettes, and I am a wino.

I do not have a negative image of a person who uses drugs because I have been there and done that and a lot of that.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

59. I've been to 50 plus Dead Shows. That's all I'm saying.

[Warren DeMontague]

63. Seconding the muffin guy on the dead shows.

I'm probably closer to 3 digits, but...

beyond that o-no omment-cay.

[cherokeeprogressive]

64. Pretty much every drug that existed before the turn of the century. Why?

Why not?

Never became addicted to any of the drugs I did though I did like some better than others. Weed, blow, acid, and pretty much any downers I could get my hands on.

I'll tell you what though... I never missed a day of work or lost a job or had an on the job incident because of drug use, and I don't have much patience for people who can't pass a pre-employment drug test.

[sakabatou]

68. Caffeine I use the most

[GreenStormCloud]

69. No illegal drugs, ever.

Legally, during times of strong pain (kidney stones, gout, root canals, multiple tooth extractions, gall bladder attacks, bruised ribs) I have had perscriptions for some rather strong pain killers. As soon as the medical need passed, I stopped taking them. I did NOT like the floaty-drowsy feeling soem gave me.

The most I drink is a small amount of wine on occasions. Haven't been drunk since 1985. Before then, 1967.

[Raine]

70. Caffeine, alcohol & aspirin ... everyday several times a day

because I like espresso, a glass of wine helps me relax and I have headaches so I take aspirin, BFD.

[NightWatcher]

74. Plaquenil, methotrexate, flexorill..

Touch me, I'm sick.