Experiencing Psychoactive Chemicals, and Responsible Drug Use

Drugs are not inherently the creation of fraudulent realities into which we escape as most anti-drug people would have you think. I’ll explain…

I appreciated the experience of Psilocybe Cubensis. A lot of problems often attributed to drug use that are often mentioned I don’t think apply to responsible users. I also think people are quick to generalize and exaggerate the harm they want to perceive from drug use. Different drugs do different things, and affect you in different ways.

I don’t use them with the delusion that I’m going to create a shortcut to gaining knowledge through divine revelation, and I don’t think any reality oriented individual could. I’ve never defended their use appealing to revelation because it’s actually just an emotional indulgence, a form of recreation. I don’t use it as an evasive form of flight from reality, or to run from my problems. It’s a -tickle your fancy- form of leisurely activity that I think must be handled responsibly without question.

I’ll preface my explanation of the value I find in them by explaining something similar.

In intellectual pursuits when one finally makes a kind of breakthrough in a field of study or overcomes a hurdle and finally grasps something one’s been attempting to grasp for a while, one experiences a very inspiring form of eureka. “I’ve found it!” This provides psychological reinforcement for an individual and builds confidence in one’s belief that one’s own mind is capable of grasping and understanding the facts of reality. I’ll not go into attempting to describe the feeling because I know you’ve all experienced it. The act and pleasure of understanding. I find that the very actions of thinking, pondering, studying are a wonderful feeling because of the positive reinforcement I’ve received when I do experience intellectual breakthroughs (I call it the experience of eureka) and the impact implementing that knowledge has on my life. The object of fixation is the emotion itself, eureka, euphoria… etc… because this represents psychological accomplishment metaphorically, an increase in self-esteem etc… the achievement of a infinitely valuable piece of knowledge, or “teaching the man to fish” because the knowledge will benefit you for a lifetime. It gives you a picture of the end result of your striving for you to experience immediately in the present, that provides incentive for you to continue in whatever successes you’re after.

Because using the drug is a form of leisurely activity, approached as such under no false pretenses, the time available for doing it is limited to leisure (which takes a level of responsibility an individual ought to have before getting involved with substances)… We all either schedule time for leisure… or end up coming to it through exhaustion. If you find yourself making leisure time because you know that’s your gateway to accessing any drug, you’ve obviously got an addiction problem. However one often schedules certain leisurely activities months in advance, vacations, cruse ships, road trips… or whatever… so planning leisure is not necessarily bad if the action in leisure is the consumption of a drug just because you planned ahead for it. So the point is that leisurely activity is not wrong because it is leisure, nor is it wrong if the activity is the consumption of a drug.

Tying the two together, I don’t believe a person can experience eureka “too much” in their lifetime to ever become “tired of it” because intellectual pursuits and the rewards they yield are continuous throughout one’s life. The motivation is always going to be there and the results will always be the object of value. The achievement itself, not the illusion of the achievement. This assumes that the individual explicitly acknowledges that the pursuit of knowledge is to achieve the benefit it brings in reality, and recognizes that the consumption of drugs bring no immediate concrete benefits in reality – thus differentiating the intentions between drug use and intellectual pursuits.

So, I use cubensis sometimes when planning vacations because I enjoy the feeling and the meaning of eureka. On a trip the most mundane of ideas seem like epiphanies to the person experiencing them… it FEELS like you’ve just had one of those intellectual breakthroughs and everything seems so clear, the sense that another piece of human existence makes sense, even though such is not the case in reality… the feeling of eureka remains as well as it’s meaning… and as fast as your mind can race, by the millisecond wave after wave of the most intense eureka sweeps over you.

I describe it as achieving the rewards of rigorous intellectual pursuits (eureka), without having to go through the discipline of working toward gaining actual knowledge (study, pondering, research, learning etc…). And, as justice has it, you don’t achieve any new actual knowledge with the consumption of cubensis or a heavy dose of marijuana, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I find it one excellent alternative, among millions of other excellent alternatives, in planning leisurely activity because this (to me) allows a veneration for my respect for my intellectual pursuits when I’m not intellectually pursuing them. It allows me to celebrate in explicit terms, how much I enjoy the [u]feeling of thinking[/u] by exalting it’s object (eureka) to the forefront of my consciousness, and relishing it. If I had to hypothetically theorize a real-world benefit for this, it would be providing myself with motivation for intellectual pursuits by bringing the sense of accomplishment into my immediate grasp… reinforcing how much I enjoy achieving it.

Consider it the same as an inspiring painting that you are attempting to relate to. You pull from the painting an piece of inspiration and apply it to your life, it becomes reality for you in the moment and you place yourself imaginatively in the settings and surroundings of the painting to experience [u]what it would be like[/u] if your life was in similar conditions. Now consider the painting as a depiction of where you would like to take your life in the future long term. You are staring at the end result you covet, and are working toward. This intensifies your ability to relate, and validates for you in the present moment by reaffirming your decision to pursue the goal you’re working toward. For me, Drugs are no different.

To qualify my advocacy, I don’t think anyone should experiment with these substances without first educating yourself about their consequences and effects even though I find no fault with the people who choose to be spontaneous and just go for it. I personally studied cubensis (not exclusively) for five solid months before I decided to go for it.

One should not confuse the feeling of enlightened insights through the distortion of your frame of reference, with the value of actually intellectual pursuits. You couldn’t really call that responsible use if you’re irrationally equating an emotional experience with the tangible fruits of labor, because they are far from the same thing. The benefit of productive work goes beyond the emotional experience of eureka, which is why one must not confuse a simulated emotional experience with actual benefits. It’s an emotional reward only, it will not fill your wallet or your stomach and it will rarely if ever lead you to any real world knowledge. Just like when daydreaming, when you envision the long term plans you’ve made for your future having been accomplished… you experience a simulated feeling of accomplishment in envisioning the attainment of a goal, the feeling of, “MAN! this is going to be fantastic when this project is complete!” this doesn’t discourage you from continuing to pursue the end… it encourages you by reinforcing your belief that the payoff will be worth it. The moment that responsible use turns into irresponsible use is when that lines becomes blurred and one fools oneself into thinking this is the immediate emotion is the actual payoff. Daydreams are not payoffs, but daydreams are immensely valuable, as well as the inspiration one can draw from psychoactive drug use.

Some ask, “How much is too much?” Defining responsible use in terms of quantity won’t get you a universal amount that you can sweep across the board for all drugs, and defining it per drug won’t give you an amount which you can apply consistently from one individual to the next because too many variables exist. So the question “How Much?” is inapplicable to the question of responsible use. Responsible use has very little to do with quantity and much more to do with the [u]expectations the individual has of the drugs function.[/u] Insofar as quantity is concerned, Obviously if you’re consuming so much of the drug that you put your health at severe risk, you’ve gone too far. If you become physically addicted you’ve got a big problem. Marijuana and Cubensis are not physically addictive, and you cannot overdose on either. I think this is what separates a good drug from a bad drug, it’s ability to be physically addicting. Psychological addictions also exist however, and in all aspects of life. If you’re the kind of person that becomes psychologically addicted to things (tv shows! – gambling – online forums) it might not be a good idea for you to branch into something that could seriously put your life at risk if abused. Point is that the potential for a psychological addiction (which marijuana and cubensis probably can become) is an invalid index because that potential exists all across the spectrum of experience… it’s the individuals choice to confront that kind of addiction not the fault of the drug.

Insofar as the expectations of the individual go, if you’re using the drug as an evasive flight from reality or to run away from your problems you’ve got a problem, and denying it only prolongs your suffering. If you expect the drug to create a shortcut to knowledge, all you’ve really done is short circuit your efforts at gaining knowledge (it’s as destructive as faith). If you believe that the drugs make you more creative, I can think of no problem with that unless one believes his creative potential is entirely dependent upon the influence of the drug. All human beings have a creative potential, some of them just become psychologically accustomed to tapping into it different ways.

The biggest problem in defining proper use exists in asking for a definition that is heavily dependent on the individual in question, and thus inherently subjective or interpretive.

Ex: How many Boat Rides should an individual take per year? How many vacations, percentage wise, should a person dedicated to riding his boat around a lake? Some people are boating enthusiasts, some people hate the water. Are the people who hate the water prepared to ask the boating enthusiasts for a “definition of responsible recreational boating.” I think you get the picture…

What we can say, is that responsible recreational boating does not include skipping school or work in order to go boating (sacrificing a higher value for a lesser value). It does not include skipping marriage counseling in order to go boating (running from your problems). It does not include forfeiting priorities for leisure. Essentially, it does not involve sacrificing reality to imaginative non-existence. Only the correct orientation to reality, philosophically, can ensure one’s ability to manage responsible recreational boating to make it an enjoyable, relaxing, and beneficial experience.

~ by spaghettim0nst3r on April 11, 2008.