Alcohol & other drugs

Is there a place for the hopeful non-drinker, who has hurt all mankind, just to save, his own believin'?

Yeah, I remixed a lyric in One Love by Bob Marley to make a very important point.

There are very few things in the world that I'm consciously aware of that sicken me to the point where I use the word "sicken" to describe the feeling - but alcohol is one of them.

I feel I've experimented enough with ethanol to know how it affects me, and what pleasure I can derive from it. If I had to pick a spirit, I guess I'd have to say vodka is my drink of choice.

Most beer has gluten in it, and I avoid that crap as much as possible, but I have nothing against beer connoisseurs.

But you know what really grinds my gears?

When people are all like "oh man, we should totally get smashed together one more time before ____", as if alcohol is essential for human interaction.

It can be useful, but I get the feeling that SO many people rely on it to meet people/get comfortable with friends. It's really, really depressing (pun intended).

In my experience, alcohol almost always does more harm than good. So why is it even legal?

As most readers are aware, I smoke weed. Not habitually anymore, but I can easily say I've been psychologically addicted to weed in the past, and it took a lot of work to not crave a high. It's now my current theory that you learn more about coming off drugs (I consider modern weed to be a drug, but the 70s stuff, not so much...) than you do while on them, although you can learn a ton of things while high.

What am I getting at?

Well, I guess personally, I feel like people are WAY too judgmental about my choices in life. I've had plenty of people assume, straight up, that the only reason I land myself in mental hospitals is because I smoke weed. I won't deny that it may be a factor, but how on EARTH can you assume such things? How can you assume that weed is causing psychotic behaviour? Even if you try to look at it from a scientific perspective, the studies that link psychosis with weed intake never go as far as to imply a causal relationship. There's only a statistical correlation, which is almost meaningless as an argument.

And you know what I think?

If weed were completely legal (perhaps regulated similarly to alcohol), I think you'd find that the statistical correlation between psychotic tendencies and weed in the general population would completely disappear.

Always having to watch your back because you make a choice of what you wish to put into your body (remember, MY BODY; MY RULES) is not conducive to good health. In other words, the laws currently in place in Canada are landing people in mental hospitals/jails unnecessarily.

And the "Right Honourable" (rofl) Stephen Harper wants to toughen the laws? What. The. Fuck.

Food for thought.

Karma Aspiration Langune Entité Iodinement Dérive Oisellerie Ulysse Guimauve Hurlement Salutaire Citronelle Ophilia Perspicace Ettore

Ketchup, life

So I figured today is a good day for all of you to ketchup with my life.

I got accepted to UofT a few weeks ago - I'm starting in January with something called the Academic Bridging Program. I'm going to be a part-time student from January till around mid-June, when my final exam happens. Then, to paraphrase a dear friend, I'm probably going to fuck off to BC for the summer.

Then in September 2012, if all goes well with the transition program, I'll be majoring in Philosophy, still deciding on a minor. I might even decide to do a double-major if I think I can handle the workload.

Right now, I'm employed with Katimavik, doing recruitment at various schools and career fairs for min. wage, but it's a sweet job and I've done it before. It really gives me a sense of doing something positive for the world instead of working at say, Mc.Dic's (making the world a shittier place for just about everyone since 1940!).

Today, I'm hopefully going to go play badminton. I'm not practicing nearly as much as I want to, but I don't have a reliable partner available right now, and that really sucks.

Card of the day:

Karma Aspiration Langune Entité Iodinement Dérive Oisellerie Ulysse Guimauve Hurlement Salutaire Citronelle Ophilia Perspicace Ettore

Fruity noms

So after a lot of reflection, I'm rediscovering my childhood.
I think it's a great thing, especially with all the heavy shit I've been dealing with lately.

Today I went to a games hobby centre (where the nerdiest of the nerds congregate) and challenged a couple people to a duel in Yu-Gi-Oh. SO MUCH FUN!

I brought my deck which I hadn't touched in... oh, EIGHT years, and promptly got my ass kicked.

Apparently, 8 years worth of new booster packs, new rules and a new set of forbidden cards is enough to destroy my beautiful "Legendary Ocean" water deck.

The game got SO much more complicated.

If you don't know about the game, it's similar to pokemon trading cards. You're trying to defeat your opponent by bringing their life points down to zero, using cards that inflict "damage". It's so sweet. It's similar to Magic: The Gathering, as well.

In another news, here are some fruity noms for you:

Karma Aspiration Langune Entité Iodinement Dérive Oisellerie Ulysse Guimauve Hurlement Salutaire Citronelle Ophilia Perspicace Ettore

Moving forward

So apparently, my blog audience has grown substantially since my last few posts. I'm really happy about this!
And thank you to all those who sent me heartfelt compliments on my writing, I really, really appreciate your support.

However, it seems a few people seem to think they know what's "best" for me. Some of them close friends, others mere acquaintances. To those people, please don't try to tell me what's best for me and my body. You're definitely not helping. I appreciate your concern, and I know you're trying to help, but please read on.

It's true, I don't really trust psychiatrists. I'm not saying they're all evil, but after going what I've been through, I feel I'm in a good position to relate my story from a patient's point of view.

Drugs aren't inherently good for the human body. Especially not pharmaceutical drugs. That's why there are side effects. The body doesn't recognize the foreign substance, and tries to repel it. The human body is smart.

I'm not saying drugs are bad. Some drugs have saved plenty of lives, and that's fine.

HOWEVER.

Trying to treat things like "psychosis" with pills and denying all other forms of therapy as potentially equal or better, in my opinion, is a terrible, terrible mistake.
Psychiatrists everywhere try to control the mentally sick with their fucked up "medicine" that they themselves have no idea of their origin. When I asked my assigned doctor in the hospital what they were injecting in me, the only answer they could really provide was "don't worry, it'll help you".

To that I say, and pardon the crudeness, FUCK YOU. You have NO idea what's good for my body. You have an idea of what's good for the general population, but NOT my body. Especially if I refuse your blood tests. You gave me a fucking panic attack, you didn't help me at all.

MY BODY; MY RULES.

And then, when you really need help, and they try to show you that mental illness is "just like" a physical illness like diabetes or a broken leg, they're using RHETORIC to convince you to take their bloody expensive pills.
In logic terms, we call this a FAULTY analogy.

Here's an example of a discussion about pill-taking I had with a psychiatrist once:


P: Don't you see? There's nothing to be ashamed of by taking a pill to help cure you. It's just like diabetes. If you had diabetes, you wouldn't deny the taking of insulin, would you?


G: I see what you did there. First of all, by definition, diabetes is a physical illness, not a mental one. Someone who is diabetic is deficient in insulin. I am NOT deficient in your drug. My body doesn't need your drug to function. Never has, probably never will. My body is probably deficient in nutrients, somewhere, but your drug doesn't help that. You might say it does, but really, it just cuts off the symptoms, and even then, it doesn't even do it that well. What my body needs is proper nutrition, proper vitamins and minerals, and if need be, I can boost it with supplements. But the human body always strives to be in homeostasis, otherwise we'd all be sick, all the time.


See, but trying to get psychiatrists to see this is like talking to a brick wall. They don't give a fuck about the truth, they just want to keep their jobs and the money associated with it.

Money should not control health. EVER.

I take herbal remedies, and they work. And no, they're not all "homeopathic" (they sure do love to pick on this word, though). I don't need your fucked up animal studies to show me that your pills are better, because they're not. What you're doing to me, the animals, and the plants you've immorally harvested to "cure" me is EVIL.

That is all for today, friends.

Oh, if you're into trance, I've kinda loved this song for a long, long time now.

Try to listen to all of it, if you can.

Karma Aspiration Langune Entité Iodinement Dérive Oisellerie Ulysse Guimauve Hurlement Salutaire Citronelle Ophilia Perspicace Ettore