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Thread: Alcohol is a hard drug

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    Registered User NikolaiI's Avatar
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    Alcohol is a hard drug

    Tip 269. Don't drink alcohol. It's everywhere in our society, but in my experience I learned it's not a good thing. I see my friends drink and see how it affects them negatively. Our society pressures us to drink, it does, in so many ways; and it makes it seem normal, sociable, acceptable, preferable, but the fact is that alcohol is a hard drug. It's better not to do any hard drugs, including alcohol, in my opinion - however unpopular that opinion may be.

    It's better for the body and mind not to drink alcohol. . . I know how enticing it is, and how much pressure there is to drink. It took me many years to get to the point where I understand myself well enough to just never drink. It's more important to me to know myself, to know the world, with a clear mind. . . and to experience life as fully as possible. I see my friends resort to alcohol sometimes to solve their problems, and I see that negative effects occur. I wouldn't have been able to realize this if it hadn't been for spiritual pursuit, for learning of people such as Bassui Tokushō, and so many others.

    I know for people who drink, for my friends included, it is nearly impossible to reverse the view on this. I know they are reluctant to change, having accepted a position, a view on it. Once people get set in their ways they are very reluctant to change any of their views.

    I personally think it is a terrible shame how the truth of so many things is covered up by our mass common wisdom. For instance, as Alan Watts points out, mescaline and LSD are medicines for the mind; if used in a purposeful way. Native Americans - bless them - knew this and it was an intrinsic part of their culture; using peyote as a way to access the inner workings of the mind, to access the spiritual world and what have you. But our society is so blind, they really have no clue. Instead they push alcohol like it is the world's clue; have fun in drunkness and oblivion. .

    I'm not advocating mescaline, and if you tried it; don't use it to seek thrills because that would be abusing something. As Alan Watts said, "If you get the message, hang up the phone."

    The thing is, alcohol works the same way as a hard drug, because it is one. It's a destructive chemical. It's ended many millions of lives and destroyed many millions more. I remember meeting someone named, "Whiskey," who lived under a bridge, and hardly ate anything at all, but always had a whiskey bottle with him. The poor man was hardly human and hardly had any speaking or cognitive ability whatsoever. Two of my grandparents died from it. It kills millions every year.

    I am not saying it is evil. It's not. And it's not bad, certainly, if you do take it in extreme moderation. But who does? 1 in 100, if that. My point is, why mess around with a hard drug? It's not necessary to live a happy life; as evinced by the millions of Buddhists, Hindus, and others who happen to live without it. Life is what you make it - your happiness is what you make it. Everyone is responsible for their happiness, and as a side point - I see so many people unhappy about stuff that shouldn't bother them at all. Why let anything make you unhappy? Nothing should, if you realize you create your life, your world, you are the maker of it. It's all your doing.

    And it's not better or worse than other hard drugs, like cocaine. If you did cocaine once or twice, but never touched it again, it would have no measurable effect on your lifetime happiness, or your ability to feel happiness. But here's the thing, if you did cocaine habitually it would destroy your brain's ability to experience happiness, to get dopamine and serotonin naturally.

    I've experimented with cocaine and alcohol, but only because I was aware of its danger, and only to know what it was like. I only did it because I have complete self control in regards to what goes into my body. I have an absolutely unaddictive personality, and I know there is no possible way I could be addicted. I couldn't be addicted to cigarettes or any other substance because I don't want to, and I would never want to. To be addicted, I would have to throw myself into it, to lose myself, and that would not happen because I don't want that, it would be the worst thing in the world. I know who I am and I'll never lose that.

    What I believe happens for many people, is for whatever reason; they aren't in this mind state. They don't have the control - they don't realize they have the control. They don't believe, they don't know they do. They don't know the reality of it, that they can control their actions and mind. It's a truth, you always control yourself; you are never under the control of something else. Even if you are physically addicted to cigarettes, because you chose to choke down the harsh, unpleasant buggers enough hundreds of times so your body developed a dependency, your body still reacts to your brain's signals, and your brain follows your mind's wishes.

    I've gone off on a tangent - but I believe the basic thing is that people have any doubt at all in themselves. If don't have any doubt in yourself, if you truly know yourself, then nothing can weaken you. If at some point you conquer yourself, then nothing can conquer you, your mind.

    If you attain peace - non-duality - then you'll know a state of consciousness that is higher than anything in the realm of duality. It is higher than any drug can take you, than cocaine or alcohol even. Realizing non-duality is like waking up from a dream, it is like turning everything inside out; it is like being released from an immeasurable time of believing you are a limited, individual, cut off and separate from the universe, to knowing that you are an unlimited existence, at one with the entire universe.

    This I experienced and yet years went by before I still realized that alcohol is not a good thing, not helpful in anyway way. The universe is complex, and part of who I am is my past experiences; but where I am now, when I taste it, I realize it is poison, and unhealthy for my body. I've grown more sensitive to things like foods and drinks and anything which goes into my body. And when I drink it, my body immediately tells me it's poison, and to stop.

    Ultimately - I am not saying don't drink alcohol. I am, and I am not. I know that it is negative, and that it is a poison and a hard drug, but I know that everyone has to learn this for themselves. There is nothing learned but what is self-discovered. Things have to take their natural course. But as for the evils of alcohol, spend some time with alcoholics. I think the more time you spend with alcoholics the less you will drink alcohol. And I mean those who have really suffered because of their alcoholism. Spend time with an outfit like Uplift, that drives a truck around to feed the homeless. Get to know them - most of them are good people, though a maority have different mental illnesses and alcohol and other drug problems.

    But honestly - and I mean this - do what you will. As I said, things must take their natural course, for they will anyway. I'm just posting, writing thoughts, just because I feel sort of the impulse to share what I've experienced, and what I know about human happiness and suffering, and the mind and body - not with an expectation that anyone will read all of this, or understand. I know it is doubtful. But still, it is my hope that someone will consider, and benefit from my thoughts. It is my hope that someone will examine the world and themselves more carefully. Will question what is true - what is real. Where did my opinions come from? Etc. As Descartes did. Why is our society so off-rail on some things? Why is it that it's painted as a legal and safe substance, when in scientific terms it is a hard drug? And why is the reaction so strong, is it not overly so?

    But in the end, I don't have any attachment to the results of my effort one way or the other. I hope people will think about what they do and why they do it. And why it is so normal to drink, and why it sounds as such a surprise that it is a hard drug, we never hear it, why we never think of it that way.

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    This could be a really interesting thread if people would speak honestly.

    You say you're not going to call it evil - oh boy, you didn't see me last Sunday night. I've been jesting about about alcohol on the "bath" thread the last couple of days, but in truth, just the idea, the thought of the smell of it, ug, I can't think of it without feeling really sick.


    Quote Originally Posted by NikolaiI View Post
    Why let anything make you unhappy? Nothing should, if you realize you create your life, your world, you are the maker of it. It's all your doing.
    I agree with you here. When I think of this, I see the logic in it.

    My worst problem, which has led to my other excesses, and desire to escape reality in different ways, is my sleep disorder, which I refer to as nightmares, but is something else... a form of "sleep terror." I feel terror every single time I wake up. Often I can't recall a dream, if there was one. Amnesia surrounds the dream. When I wake up, I don't recognize anyone or know where I am for a couple of minutes. As a child I screamed in my sleep, but I don't do that anymore. Maybe it's my karma, I don't know, but it's reached a point that I can't live with the nightly fear anymore. So I'm now trying out different psych meds to find one that works. And alcohol does not mix with them! I almost killed myself drinking last weekend!!

    A very insightful post Nikolai.

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    madman kevinthediltz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vonny View Post
    This could be a really interesting thread if people would speak honestly.

    You say you're not going to call it evil - oh boy, you didn't see me last Sunday night. I've been jesting about about alcohol on the "bath" thread the last couple of days, but in truth, just the idea, the thought of the smell of it, ug, I can't think of it without feeling really sick.




    I agree with you here. When I think of this, I see the logic in it.

    My worst problem, which has led to my other excesses, and desire to escape reality in different ways, is my sleep disorder, which I refer to as nightmares, but is something else... a form of "sleep terror." I feel terror every single time I wake up. Often I can't recall a dream, if there was one. Amnesia surrounds the dream. When I wake up, I don't recognize anyone or know where I am for a couple of minutes. As a child I screamed in my sleep, but I don't do that anymore. Maybe it's my karma, I don't know, but it's reached a point that I can't live with the nightly fear anymore. So I'm now trying out different psych meds to find one that works. And alcohol does not mix with them! I almost killed myself drinking last weekend!!

    A very insightful post Nikolai.

    First of all, that had almost nothing to do with alcohol. Just another depressing and self centering post that you seem to like to do...

    Second of all, refer to my last posted poem, "Ode to alcohol," it may shed light on why some people drink.
    I do not drink because it is normal. In fact, it is a rare occasion that I even drink with other people (except maybe Skib). I go through phases of liking and disliking what whiskey does to me. Honestly, I typically wake up with a headache, but feeling better about this life that I have chosen to live. That may or may not make sense.

    Thirdly, in the words of Kilgore Trout, Kurt Vonnegut's alter ego, "All four of the American winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature were alcoholics."
    Steinbeck, Hemmingway, Faulkner, and O'Neil.
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    Quote Originally Posted by kevinthediltz View Post
    refer to my last posted poem, "Ode to alcohol," it may shed light
    No thanks. I'll read Nik.

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    Registered User NikolaiI's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kevinthediltz View Post
    First of all, that had almost nothing to do with alcohol. Just another depressing and self centering post that you seem to like to do...
    That's harsh and unkind dude. Seriously, no need to be harsh an unkind.

    For the record, I don't with what you said at all there.

    Quote Originally Posted by kevinthediltz
    Second of all, refer to my last posted poem, "Ode to alcohol," it may shed light on why some people drink.
    I do not drink because it is normal. In fact, it is a rare occasion that I even drink with other people (except maybe Skib). I go through phases of liking and disliking what whiskey does to me. Honestly, I typically wake up with a headache, but feeling better about this life that I have chosen to live. That may or may not make sense.

    Thirdly, in the words of Kilgore Trout, Kurt Vonnegut's alter ego, "All four of the American winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature were alcoholics."
    Steinbeck, Hemmingway, Faulkner, and O'Neil.

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    Quote Originally Posted by NikolaiI View Post
    That's harsh and unkind dude. Seriously, no need to be harsh an unkind.

    I'm giving up alcohol, he helped convince me a little more.

    There has to be a contrast in life of nice people and mean people, of summer and winter, of suffering and joy, of being sick from too much alcohol and experiencing blessed soberness, or we can't fully appreciate the best there is. We have to be able to compare.
    Last edited by Vonny; 10-22-2011 at 02:24 AM.

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    madman kevinthediltz's Avatar
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    For the record, I am not drunk, or in fact had a drink in many days.
    That was not meant to be harsh or unkind, just observant. I call them like I see them, as they say. If I offended, I apologize. It was not my intent.

    Kurt Vonnegut made the point, that the four American winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, were drunks. Vonnegut believed that a drunk had something to give to the world. I am still not sure if I agree, but he has a point. 5 of my personal favorite authors were alcoholics.
    Everyone knows what's in room 101.


    Everything becomes irrelevant, when the sky tears open.

    "Hey Kevin." "What?" "Theres a ditch there." "Sh*t!"

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    Registered User NikolaiI's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kevinthediltz
    Second of all, refer to my last posted poem, "Ode to alcohol," it may shed light on why some people drink.
    I do not drink because it is normal. In fact, it is a rare occasion that I even drink with other people (except maybe Skib). I go through phases of liking and disliking what whiskey does to me. Honestly, I typically wake up with a headache, but feeling better about this life that I have chosen to live. That may or may not make sense.

    Thirdly, in the words of Kilgore Trout, Kurt Vonnegut's alter ego, "All four of the American winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature were alcoholics."
    Steinbeck, Hemmingway, Faulkner, and O'Neil.
    Your thirdly somewhat contradicts your secondly. So you don't do it to be normal, but by your implication, you do it partly because they do; or at least, you wouldn't have mentioned them for no reason. In any case, things are either true or not - in and of themselves.

    Also, Thich Nhat Hanh would never touch a drop of alcohol. So actually I use a similar argument (only in a small part). Thay (Hanh), the zen masters Bassui Tokusho; Bankei Yotaku; Hakuun Yasutani, all followed very strictly the Buddhist injunction against alcohol. You say you don't drink because it's "normal," but I can't say that I can easily take that on face value. You seem obviously influenced by the fact that, as you say, the four American winners for the Nobel Prize in literature were alcoholics. Some of them or all of them were probably smokers too, that doesn't mean that smoking makes you happy or healthier in any way, does it?

    Quote Originally Posted by kevinthediltz View Post
    For the record, I am not drunk, or in fact had a drink in many days.
    That was not meant to be harsh or unkind, just observant. I call them like I see them, as they say. If I offended, I apologize. It was not my intent.

    Kurt Vonnegut made the point, that the four American winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, were drunks. Vonnegut believed that a drunk had something to give to the world. I am still not sure if I agree, but he has a point. 5 of my personal favorite authors were alcoholics.
    So? Good gracious man, several of my favorite musicians - whom I dearly love - died of drugs and alcohol. That doesn't keep me from knowing that it's a way I don't want to die!

    Quote Originally Posted by Vonny View Post
    This could be a really interesting thread if people would speak honestly.

    You say you're not going to call it evil - oh boy, you didn't see me last Sunday night. I've been jesting about about alcohol on the "bath" thread the last couple of days, but in truth, just the idea, the thought of the smell of it, ug, I can't think of it without feeling really sick.

    I agree with you here. When I think of this, I see the logic in it.
    : P

    Yeah - that concept, that we create our universe, is one that I have come back to hundreds of times, and examined many, many times. . . It's one of the most helpful I've ever found for figuring life out.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vonny
    My worst problem, which has led to my other excesses, and desire to escape reality in different ways, is my sleep disorder, which I refer to as nightmares, but is something else... a form of "sleep terror." I feel terror every single time I wake up. Often I can't recall a dream, if there was one. Amnesia surrounds the dream. When I wake up, I don't recognize anyone or know where I am for a couple of minutes. As a child I screamed in my sleep, but I don't do that anymore. Maybe it's my karma, I don't know, but it's reached a point that I can't live with the nightly fear anymore. So I'm now trying out different psych meds to find one that works. And alcohol does not mix with them! I almost killed myself drinking last weekend!!

    A very insightful post Nikolai.
    This is very significant to me. It's a very personal thing to share and obviously said in trust of the honesty and goodness to those who receive it. I can only sympathize and say that I very, very much wish that one day this will be nothing more than a very distant memory. I am confident and sure that in time none of those will happen anymore. I really don't know what to say except I very much wish this. I can only imagine what it's like, my friend. I have had a night terror only once or twice in my life. . to be truthful, well, you read my blog about my dreams. But I had one night terror before, so I know what one is like, but I wouldn't be able to guess what having them always is like.

    And thanks, I'm glad you thought so :]

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    madman kevinthediltz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by NikolaiI View Post
    So? Good gracious man, several of my favorite musicians - whom I dearly love - died of drugs and alcohol. That doesn't keep me from knowing that it's a way I don't want to die!
    Just replying to Vonny's post.

    I do not wish to die of drugs or alcohol. I do, however, believe that Vonnegut had a point. That an alcoholic has something to give to the world that most do not. A drunk sees the world in a different way. Darker, perhaps. I think that we need both sides to keep a level view of the world.

    I am not trying to argue that alcohol is in fact a hard drug. In fact, I agree that it is.
    Everyone knows what's in room 101.


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    Thank you so much Nikolai.

    Someday it will be a distant memory.

    It's wonderful people like you that makes life wonderful.

    Reading about all of your great dreams was really inspiring. I'm going to have those someday - without psych meds, and certainly without alcohol!

    Thanks so much for all of your writings!

    (I'll just add - night terror is the closest diagnosis I can get. They usually happen occasionally in other people, but I have some degree of it every time I wake up. Anyway, I will beat it! )
    Last edited by Vonny; 10-22-2011 at 02:46 AM.

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    Registered User NikolaiI's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vonny View Post
    Thank you so much Nikolai.

    Someday it will be a distant memory.

    It's wonderful people like you that makes life wonderful.

    Reading about all of your great dreams was really inspiring. I'm going to have those someday - without psych meds, and certainly without alcohol!

    Thanks so much for all of your writings!

    (I'll just add - night terror is the closest diagnosis I can get. They usually happen occasionally in other people, but I have some degree of it every time I wake up. Anyway, I will beat it! )
    You're welcome, Vonny. I'm glad you were able to take comfort in what I said. . and it really means a lot to me that you think highly of my writings. And thank you very much for the compliment; you are great too!

    I definitely think you are right on target - believing you can is one of the most important things, in my view.

    Thank you so very much for all the kind things you said, they really mean a lot!

    Quote Originally Posted by kevinthediltz View Post
    For the record, I am not drunk, or in fact had a drink in many days.
    That was not meant to be harsh or unkind, just observant. I call them like I see them, as they say. If I offended, I apologize. It was not my intent.

    Kurt Vonnegut made the point, that the four American winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, were drunks. Vonnegut believed that a drunk had something to give to the world. I am still not sure if I agree, but he has a point. 5 of my personal favorite authors were alcoholics.
    Yes. I think you've said this before, and maybe even we've had this conversation before in brief; I am not sure I know what Vonnegut's point is, exactly.

    I could say the Buddha taught not to drink any alcohol, and it would be relevent, but only to me.

    Quote Originally Posted by kevinthediltz
    I do not wish to die of drugs or alcohol. I do, however, believe that Vonnegut had a point. That an alcoholic has something to give to the world that most do not. A drunk sees the world in a different way. Darker, perhaps. I think that we need both sides to keep a level view of the world.
    Yes, sure. . when you said before that the drunk has something to give the world, I wanted to reply yeah, and everyone does. I agree in a sense that we need both sides in life; but only in the world as it is now, I would think.

    I also wouldn't take it to mean that we need those things. . just because good can come from tragedy doesn't mean we should go find or make tragedy just to get the good from it.
    Last edited by NikolaiI; 10-22-2011 at 03:40 AM.

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    Before I commit to engaging in this one, can I be clear about our terms?

    If alcohol is a hard drug, what substances fall into the category of soft - or not-hard - drugs?

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    3 bottles of wine at a time is

    un-be-liev-able

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    Before anyone commits to engaging in this debate:

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    Please do not personalise your comments.

    Off-topic and/or personal posts will be removed without further notice

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkBastable View Post
    Before I commit to engaging in this one, can I be clear about our terms?

    If alcohol is a hard drug, what substances fall into the category of soft - or not-hard - drugs?
    A soft drug is high-fructose cornsyrup. It's addicting and you become nice and squishy on it.

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