Hey Gib, its a pretty interesting ordeal youve got going here. I appreciate that you took the time to see this through and report on it. Its science, if nothing else.
What occurs to me simply is that society is not healthy enough for you to simply get better by being inside of it without the states of costly joy with had overtaken your life rhythms.
All I believe as far as true restoration is concerned is harsh treatment like the Russian shamans did, using a lot of ice water and physical exertion.
You take drugs because they genuinely expand experience.
No need to assume that experience simply shrinks back to its original form and is content with that.
One can never simply correct a drug-influenced physiology back into place - one can do without drugs very well if one simply has a reason for the endorphins to activate without them. These aren’t going to be knitting circles or yoga classes, nor self-disciplined karate or something - they need to be shamanic, “crazy” - one simply needs the craziness to continue without the drugs somehow.
We do use drugs for a reason. We evolved on them. Addictions are just addiction to a certain evolutionary mechanism. DNA gets addicted. DNA can get us out.
That means I suppose Im with Reich on this too - DNA activation is after all based in sex. Regeneration has to draw on sexual impulses, these have to be brought to couple with the Earth of ones soul. If Id be to put it in yogic terms it’d be a mulahadara-swadhisthana path that needs be forged. and from there on, to the ego, manipura.
The holy grail of the recovering addict is to restore the ego, and I believe the ego can only be built from the ground up.
The higher centres form rather an impediment to reconstruction of the ego until they are “enlisted by the dirt”.
Earf - by Ceres!
Thrive, you weird chemical experiments.
“What I want is to improve my life, not to prove anything to anybody,”
As long as this is true, I think you’re on the right path. Unfortunately though, for what I am offering, you have to get to admit that before improving your life, it is about stopping the destruction. It has to hurt, you have to allow yourself to feel the extent of it. Because the means are so harsh, self-improvement is not really nearly enough of a reason. To begin with.
At my rehab, we call him the Enano. I guess that’s literally midget, but it also has all the connotations of dwarf and leprechaun and troll. I guess in our case the real translation would be gnome.
Sometimes he’s pale and horrible, more often he is cute and friendly.
That you have pinpointed him speaks of an acute philosophical mind and is an important step, too. He’s a thirsty bastard, he is.
I’ll even give you a sneak peek (to our thing): the entire thing is about becoming friends with him. Learning to pamper him. For you cannot ever, ever defeat him. He is stronger than you. No matter what, if there is ever a choice between what he says and something else, it will always be what he says. You can test this out. And perhaps ask yourself: was it the king that decided you have ADD and need medication for it, or was it Wormtoungue? I mean I think that’s kind of rude, calling him that. But who’s idea was it really?
And a warning: if you truly have been abstaining, to some degree, for 1 1/2 years, he will be very thirsty. And he is insidious, it might not happen the first or third time you drink or do some drug. Like amphetamines.
Annoyingly, FC is right philosophically. But that is absolutely useless knowledge as far as stopping the destruction goes. For that, you can only really trust people that have the same thing and have figured out a way to lead a happy, a HAPPY life, withoud drugs or alcohol.
“Like a motherfucker,” my rehab therapist used to say. We were all spitting at him in our minds. Hah.
Well, as scientific as one can get in these matters. Make no mistake, I’m steeped in bias and prejudice, preconceptions and misconceptions. How can one not be in this kind of affair? But I think there is something to having a scientific attitude, or trying to at least. That is, an attitude of trying to be as objective as one can, and relying heavily on experimentation for your conclusions. Time is key too. That’s why my two month stints were never satisfactory. A year and a half is a lot more time, enough to allow certain persistent patterns to emerge and be noticed.
That’s one of the more noble reasons, but it is unfortunately far too often not the main reason people do drugs. Most the time, people do drugs to get a buzz, to feel good. And yes, the experience of intense euphoria might count as an expansion of experience well beyond the normal range of sober brains, but if this is all you do, it gets old quickly. The continual practice of expanding experience requires expansion in different directions–one time into euphoria, the next into visuals, another into profound insight, and even into dark hellish places. ← The willingness to delve into hell as a means of exploring experience is what sets apart the men from the boys, the true psychonaughts from the junkies. I always bring up salvia divinorum as the prime example–an altered state of consciousness for sure, yet anything but pleasant.
Right. You can’t just have an experience and expect it not to change you. You remember it even after it fades from consciousness.
Yes, or perhaps deep fulfillment.
We’re addicted to everything we need to survive–more than we can ever be to drugs–we’re addicted to food, to water, to the air we breath. Drugs hijack the areas of the brain that are addicted to these things and replace them.
So what does this mean? That one cannot rebuild one’s ego based on prior drug experiences? That one must be “reborn” in a sense, as though he completely forgets his prior drug experiences?
While I appreciate your words, I’m not sure I understand them.
What do you mean “self-improvement is not really nearly enough of a reason”? What other reason do you have in mind? Do you mean self-improvement is not motivation enough?
And while I agree that stopping the destruction comes first on the path to self-improvement, I’m not sure whether you’re insinuating that I’m not doing that. (I feel that I am; I’m not sure how it could be otherwise). And you said “for what I am offering”… what are you offering that I’m not taking? We both seem to be talking about self-improvement. Are you offering a different kind of self-improvement? A different path to it? One that requires the admission that stopping the destruction has to come first? As though one could alternatively walk the path to self-improvement without this admission?
^ I’m confused.
Are you sure we’re talking about the same thing?
Yes, every drug user will attest to an inner “demon” that drives and haunts him, but my metaphor of Wormtongue and King Theoden is very specific and grounded on something very concrete: neurology. It’s a metaphor for the primitive brain (specifically the amygdala) and the rational brain (the frontal cortex). Neurologists know that these two brain areas play off each other and antagonize each other. The primitive brain is our emotional brain. It’s the animal brain. It runs on impulses, instinct, and immediate gratification, and it is built to react to negative/dangerous circumstances. This is why it is associated with negative emotions: fear, anger, and depression. It is responsible for the fight/flight response. The rational brain on the other hand is the thinking part of the brain. It’s responsible for our rationality and logic, and tends to be associated more with positive emotion. We are calm when we think with our rational brain. These two brains antagonize each other. They bear an inhibitory relation to each other. This is why one’s mind goes blank when overcome with fear. That’s the primitive brain turning off rational thinking. This is why we do and say things we later regret when we’re angry. This is the primitive brain suppression our better judgement and saying irrational and emotional things. This is why when we’re under high degrees of stress, we make poor decisions and bone-head mistakes.
The Wormtongue/Theoden metaphor also stands for the ADD/SCT brain specifically (or at least, my brain specifically). The ADD/SCT brain, at least the kind I have, tends to have a weak rational brain and a strong primitive brain. Thus the Wormtongue side of one’s self tends to dominate most of the time. The Theoden side of one’s self, in turn, tends to be stuck in a fog most of the time. In reality, it’s not as black and white as that, but it is closer to that than the average person.
Anyway, yes, the Wormtongue side tends to feel like a kind of “demon” or “gremlin”, and with child-like impulses and the animal-like need for immediate gratification, it would crave the kind of reinforcing stimulation that drugs can provide. If it wasn’t for the rational brain exerting it’s dominance, one would just give in to it.
Yes, you can never kill it (short of going for a lobotomy). It is part of your being. But I don’t know if it’s always stronger than one’s self. It is a part of one’s self, so its strength is your strength. The rational brain is also a part of one’s self. Whatever strength it can muster against the primitive brain is also your strength. If you tie this into neurology, like I did above, you can make the case that it depends on the person. Different brain parts will have different strengths from individual to individual. There are tons of people who have incredible self-control and powerful positive thinking. They’re rational brains are far more developed than their primitive brains. Even with normal people (or just myself), it depends on the environment they’re in and what’s going on in their lives at the moment. When things are calm and everything’s going OK, the rational brain dominates. The primitive brain rests. And then it also depends on what the primitive brain wants. If I’m trying to diet but I’m hungry, my primitive brain might twist my rubber arm and convince me to stop at the nearest KFC. But once inside, I’m not going to grab the food of the people sitting next to me. I’ll wait patiently for my order. The rational brain will always exert some level of control depending on what the primitive brain is asking of it.
I think I agree, however, that it might be a better strategy to pamper the demon rather than fight against him. But that’s tricky. The demon is like a little child, demanding candy without finishing his vegetables. As a parent, you don’t want to give into the child and just give him candy before he finishes his vegetables, but you want to do it in a loving, nurturing way, a way that sooths the child and makes him feel cared for rather than tyrannized. But how do you do that? As a parent, I can tell you it’s extremely difficult to always find a way to avoid a fight with your child while at the same time be responsible and loving. Overall, however, there is usually a clear “right” decision. If it’s a choice between letting my child have candy without finishing his vegetables and insisting that he finish his vegetables before getting candy, clearly I’m going to choose the latter. It’s the responsible thing to do. It’s what’s best for the child. Just the same, there is usually a clear “right” decision when taking care of one’s self. I won’t always know how to appease my primitive brain when it wants drugs (or anything) without giving into its demands, but clearly to give into its demands would not be responsible or caring of myself.
“was it the king that decided you have ADD and need medication for it, or was it Wormtoungue?”
Neither! It was doctors, several of them. I was diagnosed with ADD in grade 3, went on ritalin. It worked! At least as far as my education went. I took a test at the beginning of 2016. It showed I had it. My therapist today thinks I still have the condition (and typically, one has the condition all one’s life). I exhibit all the symptoms. Others with ADD who tell their stories match my own experiences exactly. So you tell me. Is that Theodon style thinking or Wormtongue. You think I just convinced myself I have ADD so that I could do drugs? Have I been convincing myself since grade 3? Did I predict back then that I would become a druggie and would need something to excuse my use of amphetamines? I think you need to believe this. You appear to reeeally have the I-told-you-so itch. The proof is in the pudding. We’ll see if it works or not.
“I mean I think that’s kind of rude, calling him that.”
Talk to J. R. R. Tolkien. That’s the character’s name!
No, I’ve seen it. It’s just very rare. It is true about 3% of the times it is claimed. Some kind of antidepressant, prescribed by a doc of course, is the norm.
Honest to goodness, this is the only one I can honestly recommend. It’s not in Alberta, but it’s in Canada. Lot of people out there with a lot of bullshit and very expensive feel-good programs that will be better at taking your money than keeping you sober. Also, listen, don’t read about it. If you ever personally decide you need treatment, you have all the internet to research and discover. Keep this one as a “fuck it I’ll trust Pedro or not” kind of thing. Quitting drugs is not an intellectual thing, and will be actually extremely intellectually offensive. What we were talking about before, yes, the only reason you would put yourself through it is that you refuse to take another second of this shit. If you need help paying for the travel, and even for the the rehab, I will help.
I did not on purpose choose a place very close to where I live, I swear to God. I think maybe the further east you move, the less prone to fucking native american holistic healing with jacuzzis you will be.
Anyway, like I said. Don’t look too much. If you ever want to, now you have it in your records.
Here’s all I will say about it and why I think, if ever you find yourself needing it, you can trust it: it is run by an addict (25 years sober).
You do not want to be lectured or coddled or whatever by some fucking weirdo psychologist. It takes one to know one. I mean this one is a psychologist, but after the fact.
No, I guess they do hire non-addicts to help. But listen, nothing is perfect, and it is run by an addict, that is the part that really matters, the non-negotiable. Think about how people all your life who aren’t addicts have looked at you or thought about you. Just because they study psychology and want to be heroes doesn’t change that. You gotta have an addict.
Doing research, I realized I had considered applying for a job there when I first got back to Canada. But helping people in that way is more of a life mission than a job, what most people would call a career. And I have other things I want to accomplish that I wouldn’t be able to dedicate time to. I think I would make a kick-ass therapist. Anyway I consider it noble work.
I don’t know how far I should go, I truly am not a professional, but I will say this: if it is, like you say, a more primitive part of the brain, it obviously then cannot be addressed rationally.
Only in a moment of despair will you accept this option. Usually a wife threatens to leave, bankruptcy, debt. Just know that when that moment comes, there is a way out. But if you think about it, you keep losing jobs, you are totally alienated from your family, you feel empty or hopeless. These are as good a reason as any.
“I think I agree, however, that it might be a better strategy to pamper the demon rather than fight against him. But that’s tricky. The demon is like a little child, demanding candy without finishing his vegetables”
What it asks is anesthetic, drugs. Even, if you are honest, astral travel. What it wants is something else, something you learn to give it in treatment. You learn to listen to it. “Ah, you old rascal, I see you there.”
A lot of it is getting rid of the shame. The fuck are all these people you should feel ashamed towards? The fuck is so special about their lives?
