Just one of those weeks.

[Warren]

When in fuck's name did crack become a drug for people to shrug over? That's somewhere way outside the park of recreational drug use. Getting dumped is the least of that boy's worries.

Word. Crack is kind of like heroin. If you're using, you're in real trouble.

[Ian Moulding]

As for pot, who cares?

I
AM!
Canadian!

(Sorry, Yanks. Bad joke.)

Doesn't matter. We're going to arrest you anyway.

You guys can have him. Emery's a profiteer, not an activist. His trick is to get involved in some sort of issue like censorship or decriminalizing pot, and then market the Hell out of it.

Pot, caffeine, alcohol, nicotine = Recreational drugs

Crack = Bad news

[Christwriter]

Bad week? No, but bad year.
-Parents finally decided to get divorced
-Parents getting divorced because father is financially and emotionally unstable, emotionally needy and downright Unsafe Person to be around.
-Did not know above about father until parents split and father started going "oh, poor me, your mother left me, isn't she a HORRIBLE person" instead of going "Now, this is between me and your mother and has nothign to do with you" like you're supposed to say to your kids when you get divorced. GOD I am sick of being the monkey in the middle.
-Met boyfriend-now-ex-boyfriend who turned out to be needy and clingy. First one is a repeat of Dad. Not fun.
-Liveing in Grandparents house. With cats who SHOULD have died years ago but hadn't. (one did two weeks ago, thank god for small favors, but it wasn't the one that leaves large piles of EXTREAMLY foul-smelling poo on the stove)
-Live-in-Aunt regularly treats me like window-treatment unless she's drunk, when she treats me like a lump of foul-smelling poo.
-Live-in-Aunt is an alcoholic and won't admit it. Ever. (Look. When the doctor says "Quit drinking for your health" and you quit drinking BEER and start drinking wine, you've got a problem. When you make up for no-beer by drinking TWO FREAKING BOTTLES OF WINE A NIGHT you're a alcoholic.)


Subhuman: Dumping people because they use drugs is not mean. It's SMART. Addiction to drugs does really, really nasty things to people. It alters personalities and it makes otherwise kind, compassionate people turn into criminal assholes. I am not quoting some ajenda or propaganda, but speaking from personal experiance. I knew a guy who was quite frankly a great guy. Three kids, loved the kids--you couldn't doubt that he loved the kids, honest, trustworhty personality, and when you're with him AND HE WAS SOBER you knew you could trust your life to him. But he was a heroin addict and that came first in his life. Loved his kids? Yes. Didn't stop him from abandoning them when he stopped being sober and started using again. Did he love our family? I don't doubt it, but he still stole stuff from my dad to pay for his drugs. I honestly believe that if it were a choice between a million dollars and his kids, he'd choose his kids every time, but when it's a choice between the drugs and his kids, he's always picked the drugs. He's now going to die because he got Hepatitus from using dirty needles. It's heartbreaking and depressing, not just that his life is totally shot but because of what it did to his kids. We once took care of them because we couldn't stand the idea of them getting taken by the state, and his pretty, sweetheart five year old daughter told my mother "I really hate to say it, but I'm beginning to hate my Dad."

I think the only drugs that are "safe" enough for someone to stick around a user are weed and Ex. Maybe a couple of others. Crack, Heroin, Meth, PCP and LSD Are. Not. Safe. The side effects of the high make the user dangerous to be around, and the highly addictive nature of the drugs mean that if a user gets well and truely hooked, it doesn't matter if he's the re-incarnation of Billy Grahm or Ghandi, he will do whatever it takes to get his fix.

It's ugly, it's dangerous and it really does ruin lives. It LOOKS harmless from the one side, but I grew up around people who were coming out of addiction and who had to literally fight every single day to stay sober. Using, especially using a very addictive, dangerous drug, is a very, very VERY good reason to stay away from someone.

CW

[Ian Moulding]

Damn, all sorts of people here are having rough times.

CW, divorce often brings out the worst in people. I hope this let's-us-the-kid-as-a-pawn business ends soon. At least you're aware of the behaviour; That gives you some options to deal with it.

First one is a repeat of Dad. Not fun.

First relationships are usually repeats of the patterns we learned from our parents. It's easier that way. Don't worry too much about it, just keep an eye out for the needy ones.

loved the kids--you couldn't doubt that he loved the kids, honest, trustworhty personality, and when you're with him AND HE WAS SOBER you knew you could trust your life to him. But he was a heroin addict and that came first in his life. Loved his kids? Yes. Didn't stop him from abandoning them when he stopped being sober and started using again.

Replace heroin with alcohol and it sounds like my dad. I hope the kids here have some sort of stable adult in their lives; The knowledge that not all adults were fuck-ups kept me from going nuts as a kid.

When you make up for no-beer by drinking TWO FREAKING BOTTLES OF WINE A NIGHT you're a alcoholic.

Or French.


Some cruel humour...

Q: How many AlAnon members does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: None. They just sit back and watch it screw itself.

Q: How can you tell when an addict is lying?
A: His lips are moving.

[War]

I've finished sulking and have come back

Hooray!

[Levi-chan]

I've finished sulking and have come back

Gah! Didyouknowhowmuchimissedyouandiworriedsomuchandohmygod!!

*huggles mimo*

[Blackaby]

I've finished sulking and have come back

*dances* Ever planning to visit the irc channel?

[Princess]

I've finished sulking and have come back

Gah! Didyouknowhowmuchimissedyouandiworriedsomuchandohmygod!!

*huggles mimo*

I've been fine, drinking from puddles, sleeping in doorways, selling matchsticks you know the drill.

*dances* Ever planning to visit the irc channel?

Once I figure out MIRC I'll be all up ons (If you haven't guessed by now I am kind of e-tarded)

[Blackaby]

If you got AIM I can log on and walk you through it.

[Sortelli]

I've finished sulking and have come back

Hooray!

Hip hip hooray!!

[Subhuman]

Okay, just to clarify: I'm not suggesting that crack use should be taken lightly. Quite the opposite. But RA said that her boyfriend wasn't a crackhead - it was just a recreational thing, and so far, it hasn't caused any serious problems in their relationship. I said before that as long as his habit wasn't putting other people in danger (and it wasn't, at least up until this point), she shouldn't dump him because of it. Now, this isn't to say that his recreational crack use won't cause problems down the road, because it's a known fact that crack is insanely addictive and is pretty much the hardest drug to kick. Just listen to the rehab horror stories.

If RA has a problem with his drug use, then yes, she should dump him. But dumping him purely on principle, especially when she's shared drugs with him before, would be incongruous with their relationship so far.

(This, of course, is an entirely subjective opinion. I wouldn't dump my boyfriend if I found out he was snorting the occasional line, but someone else might find it grounds for a breakup. Whatever RA feels is the right choice.)

[Ian Moulding]

Subhuman, you make several excellent points, and do so in a clear and succinct manner. However, you are a fuzzy pink lizard. As a firm believer in ad hominem arguements, I dismiss everything you have to say as silly.

[Yeahduff]

Crack's bad news, whether you're starting your addiction or are well on your way. This boy may have it "under control" now, but it won't last. If RA's smart, she never does crack again, and tells him to never do crack again, and if he says no, she walks. But fifteen year olds unfortunately are not known for being smart.

Sorry to be mean, but this is damn serious.

[Sortelli]

Considering that you're pretty much hooked after one taste of crack, it's not like it is a habit that has any possibility of NOT putting you or your loved ones in danger, though. Addiction to far lesser vices can put enough stress on a relationship as it is. Crack's just right out of the friggin' ballpark. You don't do a little crack occasionally after a hard day at work.

I'm not talking about it necessarily being grounds for a breakup, either, but it sure as hell should be immediate grounds for detox.

[Protectmyballs]

One of my shoulders is higher then the other

One of my nuts ... uh ... RUN!

[Christwriter]

it was just a recreational thing, and so far, it hasn't caused any serious problems in their relationship.

Ok, at the risk of sounding REALLY self righteous and sarcastic:

Most illegal mood altering substances--and coke and heroin are at the top of this list--work by producing a chemical similar to one the human brain produces. Coke produces a "Feel good chemical", sort of like an anti-depressant, and heroin produces a chemical similar to a pain killer, but both are "similar to" in the way that a tiger is "similar to" a house cat. You do not want the tiger sitting on your lap the way your cat would.

Stage one is recreational use. Some drugs do have a fairly large window of recreational use, but coke and heroin do not. The problem is that the chemical they produce, is produced in such high amounts that the part of the brain that makes that chemical shuts down for a while. This is a problem even with rec use because it produces a "high" which is why people like it, and then a "crash", and God only knows why nobody talks about that part. The crash is the peroid of time between when the drug is flushed from the system and the brain starts making that chemical again. With recreational use, this is a comparitively short peroid of time, and as I've never used, I can't tell you how long it is.

The reason why rec use is so short is that too much use starts to wear out the chemical producer in the brain. I would wager that using it twice in a ten-day peroid is too much (once is too much in my opinion) and it starts the cycle of use towards addiction.

In a clean person, there's a baseline for whatever chemical it is. Coke, it's a certian "feel good" level. You go above it, and you go below it, but you spend most of your time sitting on it. Coke takes you WAY above it with the high, then WAY below it with the crash, and then you have to wait for the level of chemical X in your brain to build back up to baseline level. If you use it again too early, the high isn't as high, and the crash is lower, and it takes longer to get back to the baseline. Now, this would not be a problem if the user didn't KNOW that all they needed to do to get happy again is take more coke. Another use, another not-quite-so-high-high, and another, lower crash, and then the temptation to get high and happy kicks back in.

Within a very short peroid of time, the user is no longer using to get high. He's using to get NORMAL, and cannot function at a normal level without the drug. This is what addiction is. It's no longer about the high, it's about fixing what they broke in the first place, the emotional baseline. IT DOES NOT TAKE LONG TO GET HERE, and as use progresses, the user needs more and more to get back to normal. Mood swings, which were already pretty evidant from rec use, go out of control, the user feels cataclysmically depressed when he's not using, and feels progressively worse when he is using because 1. the drug is no longer effective even at getting him back to normal and 2. he feels like warmed over crap. The longer they use, the more hooked they are, the harder it will be for them IF they quit to regain even a fraction of their pre-use health, and there's always and forever a craving to use again, because they KNOW that will make them happy. This is why you have people who have been off alcohol or narcotics for twenty-thirty-fifty years, but still go to AA and NA meetings religiously. They still want to use. They're still tempted to use, because it's something that they know will work. They crave that high, and they either spend the rest of their lives fighting it or give in, and their life gets really, really short.

Recreational drug use is like playing russian rulette, and the only thing the jury is still out on is whether or not the gun is a revolver or a simi-automatic. From this side of the game, it looks fine, but the other side, the side that I saw people walk out of, it's a roadmap to living hell. Every single addict/ex-addict that i have met, talked to or heard from started their use as a recreational activity. One man is dying of hepititus. My father lost his first marrige and my half sister because of alcoholism. People steal from their familys, they go to jail, they lose their entire lives and almost EVERY SINGLE TIME, they say "When I started, I just snorted a line at parties" or "I'd just drink one beer a whole night at a party, and then somebody showed me how good they were cold".

It. Is. Not. A. Game.

CW

[Princess]

I think that you should only do drugs if your lifestyle permits a few thousand dollars a week extra, like if you are a rock star, super model, CEO or Rapper.

[Sortelli]

That way, when they find you drowned in your own vomit, no one will be too horribly shocked at another rockstar OD.

[Vorticus]

Geez, you people make my life look like roses and song. I feel so blessed. On the other hand it bugs me that I can't do anything to make your lives any better.

[Subhuman]

Ok, at the risk of sounding REALLY self righteous and sarcastic:

Done and done. You're also missing my point, which was that RA has had no problem with her boyfriend's drug use up until now. It wouldn't make sense for her to break up with him simply because he uses drugs, because she used them with him and she knew he used drugs when they got together. This isn't news to her.

Edit: Sorry if I sound bitchy. I understand what you're saying, and believe me, I know what drug addiction is - I've seen the repercussions firsthand. But that's not the issue here. Let's just agree to disagree.