Re: addictive drugs

Josh Hill <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 04:37:50 -0600, boots <no@xxxxx> wrote:

Josh Hill <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

While I agree with most of what you've said, I think that if we're
honest, we'll admit that artificial stimulation of the pleasure
centers by hard drugs like crack and Heroin can produce euphoria that
isn't achievable by natural means,

I don't know that to be a fact because I've never used crack or heroin
thus your references to their stimulation of the pleasure centers are
not meaningful to me other than as abstractions.

The testimony of others should do here. It's not something you ever
want to discover yourself!

As mentioned earlier, some things are too dangerous to mess with.

As for "the testimony of others", it's just that.

I do know for a fact that mental states of euphoria generally believed
to be impossible can be achieved by means other than chemical
stimulation.

Sure. Nirvana/trance state. Not that difficult to do if you're into
that kind of masturbation.

Masturbation is an activity with exactly one participant.

Which being said, I think there's more to life than that sort of
pleasure. Seriously. It's sort of a cheap supermarket food pleasure,
lots of hydrogenated vegetable oil and salt and corn sweetener and
MSG.

any more than they can produce the
lethal convulsions of tetanus or the electric chair.

Convulsions and death can occur as natural processes; not all
epileptics live a "normal" span of years, and tetanus can be
considered quite "natural".

Serious brain damage and neurotoxins are natural, yes, but then so are
opium and cocaine. I think you get my point: you aren't going to get
to this stage on willpower alone,

Willpower has little to do with it.

because any prospective ancestors of
yours that had the genetic ability to do that weren't.

Sorry, that chunk'o'sentence doesn't compute.

But, of course,
the addict's life is a hard and not infrequently short one. The
miseries eventually come to outweigh both the pleasures, however
intense, and the fear of withdrawal, or the experiment is cut short by
prison or death. One needn't think very hard to avoid that.

Everybody's life is hard and short, though not everybody realizes it;
is it necessarily better to lengthen the timespan and reduce the heat,
when in the end your goose is cooked either way?

Nothing is necessary.

That depends on what path you wish to take.

The rest is instinct, fear of death and joy in
life. If you aren't experiencing that joy -- well, reminds me of
something a friend said when I tried to convince her to get off
Heroin: It's the first time in my life that I've been happy. ***. I
couldn't argue with that. She caught AIDS, her boyfriend died of it. I
don't know if she's still alive.

It's not that you live or die that matters, it's how.

--
The sane answer to insanity is madness.
.