Like any other writer, I read reviews and feedback on my work. And among critics, I’ve noticed a trend. A lot of them fixate on three subject areas – sex, substance use and mortality (on that last one, more specifically, the suggestion many of us aren’t maximizing the limited time we have). For some, these subjects seem terribly complicated – infused with a good deal of neurotic angst. Addressing these subjects frankly, or lightly, in a comic, unapologetic fashion, seems to tweak a fair number of people.
I know, I know… You’re surprised by that?
Yes. Yes I am. Not in the sense that it’s unexpected, but in the sense that now, here – today – civilized man has been dealing with these things for what? Ten, twelve, fourteen-thousand years? You’d assume the species long ago reached a happy détente with the concepts of fucking, getting high and getting our ya yas out before we kick the bucket.
Apparently not. And this got me thinking, Why? Why do we carry so many neuroses about a biological function like sex? Why are drugs and alcohol postured as a moral issue by so many of us? And in a world where we obsess over avoiding our demise – in retaining or at least giving off the appearance of youth and vigor at all costs – why do we willingly engage in so many endeavors that waste the time we have and require, at least superficially, observation of the fiction we’re immortal?
Again, I know… These are impossible questions.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth asking. And luckily, I had just the person to bounce them off – the author of Shrinktalk and Rudius’ own in-house psychologist, Dr. Rob Dobrenski. Dr. Rob and I had a conversation about the “Trifecta of American Hangups,” sex, drugs and death, and all the myths, phobias and paranoia attached to them. We can’t promise concrete answers, but we touched on a few issues worth considering. Here’s the first part of it.
Drugs
PL: I think we have a good reason to get hung up on certain drugs like meth, coke or heroin. These can be exceedingly dangerous substances. But others, like marijuana, magic mushrooms or even acid… These are different stripes of drug, with far less adverse effects than our national beverage – alcohol. We’re hung up on these, I think, because when people use them, they start thinking, and considering the underlying logic of the way a lot of our society works. When people start doing that, they question some of the behaviors and willful suspensions of disbelief built into what are considered “productive” endeavors. I’m not sure psychedelic drugs have been made illegal solely to protect the user. I think in great part they’ve been made illegal to protect society from certain rational considerations they raise gaining traction. The hang up we have about them seems to derive more from spin than science – negative marketing by people insecure about having the systems these substances might cause one to reconsider scrutinized. Which of course speaks volumes to the veracity of the structures being safeguarded. (Yeah, I know this sounds like loopy dope shit on some levels, but I think it’s a valid point people recognize but have been browbeaten into dismissing as drug gibberish).
Dr. Rob: Your loopy dope shit is better than most arguments I hear and read against drugs and I agree with you. I know very little about ‘shrooms and LSD, but in my experience the people who are against the more benign drugs like marijuana base their position on self-righteous ignorance or obscure anecdotal evidence (e.g., “I know a guy who knew this guy who died after eating 31 weed brownies and running naked into traffic”). Attempts to empirically demonstrate that weed is addictive or a “gateway” drug have failed, yet the people in power who are in opposition simply fall back on “it’s just wrong, dangerous, ungodly, etc…” Perhaps this is code for the reasons that you describe. And yet we drink to our hearts’ content. Hell you can be a minor in Wisconsin and suck down beers at a bar as long as you have a parent there with you.
I’m yet to see someone lose their job, family or life to pot cookies and yet I’ve had multiple clients in A.A. at again given moment during my career.
The psychology of abstention could fill multiple textbooks but the long and short of it is that it is generally a product of conditioning. From Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” to the local priest to fretful parents, most people grow up with an across the board fear of drugs even without any research findings to support those fears. That’s not to say that drugs should be encouraged; rather that people need to educate themselves on what they rail against, rather than blindly accepting someone else’s moral stance.
Last year my doctor asked me if I had ever done drugs. When I told him that I had smoked marijuana in graduate school he said, “Not girlie drugs. Every idiot’s done pot in college. Just stay away from the hard stuff.” I’m not entirely sure if he’s a good doctor, but when medical professionals couldn’t care less if you do a little cannibis it makes me think our War on Drugs could stand a little tweaking of philosophy.
PL: “Conditioning” is an interesting concept. There seems a lot of shame attached to any libertine behavior, be it sex, drinking, drugs – anything that gives a person a quick, easy release. Do you think that’s entirely conditioned? A natural effect of religion? A society still emerging from its Puritan foundations? Perhaps a case of zero tolerance policies aimed at the lowest common denominator affecting the broader population? Or is there an innate sense of shame in us? Are we wired with an adverse Pavlovian reaction to hedonist behaviors? We worship material acquisition and consumption, all aimed (hopefully) at providing the means to indulge ourselves endlessly, yet we have hang ups about grass and sex? Could it be that one excess is okay because it’s somewhat abstract while the other creates an immediate physical or psychological sense of guilt because it’s tactile and immediate?
Dr. Rob: Unlike sex, I think the shame attached to substance use is mostly a product of outside forces driving it home. Sex carries with it an innate vulnerability – both physical and psychological – and can actually feel good in a tactile sense while still generating feelings of guilt, worthlessness and violation (in fact, some girls who are sexually abused report shame for the physical pleasure that can sometimes accompany the abuse. They need to be educated that while the body may feel positive sensations, the event is still abusive). Of course highly conservative people are going to remember their upbringings when they have one night stands. But I’ve spoken in my practice with sexually liberated women who comment on “bad” sex; not in the traditional sense, more so a constitutional feeling of vulnerability and shame when the partner, circumstances or both didn’t provide a mutually satisfying experience.
This isn’t the case with drugs. I don’t see a biologically driven reproach with smoking a joint. It’s being told that we’re not allowed to do it, whether it by a legal, societal or familial system, that generates those feelings. Unless you have an adverse reaction to weed you’re not going to experience a negative Pavlovian effect. I’m sure there’s lots of bad marijuana out there but you don’t hear a lot of people feeling remorse about it. They’re just pissed off they wasted their money.
To be continued…
For an insight to how weed has become illegal, I recommend watching the documentary “Grass.” It is exceptional. It’s on Youtube.
PL: Nice. Thanks. Will do.
I couldn’t agree more with your view on psycho-actives like mushrooms, LSD, etc. The change in perspective you feel when on those drugs makes you question some of the foundations of our society. It’s dangerous to the system; society needs people to stay docile…unquestioning.
Looking forward to the next piece in this series.
PL: They have a “blowing out the cobwebs” effect impossible to achieve elsewhere.
The argument against them is that the reality we live in is the reality we’re stuck with, so whether it’s not really reality, or whether it’s a comical joke, are irrelevant or counterproductive concerns. I’m not sure of that. I think one can happily assume every system he runs into is like a maze, to be gamed.
Funny thing is, as the internet keeps spitting the information about how the structures around us actually work, the narratives in which so many of us live is crumbling at a vicious rate.
The world can’t function without ignorance. It’s like a risk premium, or barrier to entry. The harder it gets for some people put one over on others with less information, the tighter the margins in a lot of the businesses that kept the upper tiers of the middle class fat and happy.
We’ve got Information Cancer in this country. It’s ultimately a just and good thing on balance, but as it works its way through the system, there’ll be a lot of pain for the people whose living depended on certain information remaining under wraps.
I like this conversation. Me and my friends have had something similar to it, but being that we’re in college and potheads, if was not QUITE as intelligent.
PL: It was, I’m sure. It probably just didn’t seem it in the moment.
I think the biggest objection to mushrooms and LSD is the type of behavior they provokes in people. People take a great deal of comfort in the belief that they can rationalize what the other guy is thinking and what he’s going to do. For that reason, the types of harmless but inexplicable actions such as talking to inanimate objects, dancing wildly with no music, speaking in non sequiturs, and generally ignoring our established social cues that you see people do while tripping are more unsettling to a lot of people than stealing or fighting or even murder or rape which are malicious actions whose motivation is understood.
PL: Some folks like control. I understand that desire, but it’s an ultimately illusory goal. You’ll never have enough, and if you make it a consuming desire you’ll lead a very frustrated life.
We surf. We can aim the board, but “control”? That’s a fundamentalist’s thing.
I compeltely misread this
From Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” to the local priest…
PL: Rob had it backward. He said no to her.
“I’m flattered, madam, but I have to get back to the orphanage. Make sure all the boys are tightly tucked in.”
Bad Marijuana? Say what? Let me try that shit first and I’ll be the judge! Who’s to say what’s bad and good marijuana, I mean if it gets you baked then how bad could it be? Now shitty dope, well yes, there is that but anyone beyond their first dimebag should be able to at least differentiate between weed and lawn clippings! Let it never be said that you can’t get high on bad dope, it just takes a little more effort, of course this does run counter to all things smokey, now don’t it? I have yet to visit any country on any of the of the continents(well at least the 4 I been to) and not score weed, and even if it sucked compared to the sweet, sweet Mendo from home, it was always welcome and always worked! What’s that old saw? “It’s easier to get through times of dope and no money, than money and no dope”! Every continent has dope ( even Antarctica, cause you just know somebody brought a sack along for the journey), but why is it that America in perticular has so demonized it? Cultural bias, certainly, economic scheme’s, psuedo-religious represion. Everybody wants it, but big business, why is that? There is certainly a profit in it.
PL: “Let it never be said that you can’t get high on bad dope, it just takes a little more effort…”
This is the kind of spirit that reminds me, no matter how bad this economy gets, we’re going to be alright.
The American Dream persists.
I read your book in in two days, using my commute time on the R5. It was great. It decribed everything I want to do to a “T”. I dare say it was nearly cathartic.
I think the book hit home so well with me because I have spent the last six months or so “chasing a dragon” – I want so badly to just walk away, but I can’t. I will admit that I sought (and continue to find) refuge in substances. Which brings me to my point here:
Dr. Rob hit the nail on the head when he said there is no innate biological predisposition to drug use. But I disagree that there is no negative “Pavlovian effect”. Maybe it’s me, but I’ve had at least two moments of such. Sitting in my buddies apartment downtown, staring at the city, I have felt intrinsicly guilty for being stoned. And I am far from a puritan. Maybe it ties into type-a personalities. Maybe it related to my position in life (to paraphrase PL “working a job to make money that you spend to forget about the job”). Or maybe it was just a bad trip.
PL: Thank you. That’s a hell of a nice compliment, and I dig the fact that you were getting the “multimedia” experience – taking in so many of the stimuli that created a lot of the observations in the thing.
You can always leave. But you have to have a plan when you do. Never believe you’re locked into anything completely.
I understand your last point. Put that out of your mind. There’s no guilt or shame in a cheap release, particularly working in a grind like yours, in a city that feels like it’s walking in ever-tightening circles around the perimeter of a sinkhole. I’ve found that my biggest successes were as random as they were self-maneuvered. So much of it seems to happen when you’re not trying, or in a manner totally unrelated to your strategy.
I can’t wait to read what you have to say about death. Have you by any chance read any Heidegger? If you haven’t, I would recommend it. His existentialism deals a lot with the importance of death.
PL: I may have, but I really can’t recall right now. If you have a suggested text, I’m all ears.
Nice conversation, I guess everyone who has friends he sits together with to smoke has these types of conversations. Though, as CaptainCanada said, probably not as in-depth as you are currently doing. Then again, you appear to have your experience with these kinds of substances.
Recently there was a big fuss over here (NL) about a whole slew of mayors (small and big city, all over the country) who are trying to legalize weed so that the Dutch government can, either through state-owned corporations or through giving out licences, controll the quality and the supply of the stuff (to cut back on criminality ensueing from the backdoor-policy that we now have).
Naturally, this did not go too well with one of our christian parties, but I think they can pull it off.
Mayors of Maastricht (big city on the border with Belgium) and Amsterdam saying that it’s not the drugs that they care about, that’s part of the culture, it’s the criminality they want to eliminate.
On the other hand, the national government has just started a ban on shrooms that is to start somewhere in december. But the mayor of Amsterdam already said, smirking on national tv, that they would still be for sale.
What are your thoughts on this?
Would you go as far as to legalize softdrugs?
Are we taking it too far?
Not far enough?
PL: As an initial observation, I find it curious the Christian party would take issue with something having so little to do with the tenets of Christianity. But I won’t go on at length about that because I fear I may be applying my simple, American definition of “Christian” to your country’s party. I suspect the term has a much more political definition when utilized to describe a party. If I’m wrong, let me know, and I’ll offer the rest of my thoughts on the absurdity of anyone taking on the cannabis trade in the name of Jesus.
My thoughts on the “legalization” in your country are that it will always work nicely as a technically prohibited or heavily regulated substance that will be broadly, socially, or “de facto” accepted. The contradiction allows a queer detente where prohibitionists can feel vindicated in being able to say “The official policy is that drugs are illegal” while the people who use them, and exist in a much different society than the prohibitionists, can enjoy what they enjoy. My guess is that adjustment will also go a long way toward encouraging investment and dissuading obnoxious drug tourists from visiting a country with much more to offer than that. Drugs are fine for sensible adults to enjoy, but let’s face it – nobody wants the ludicrous people who view them as a way of life roaming their towns acting as far too many of them tend to.
My views on softdrugs are what you’d expect. Everything is enjoyable when used sensibly, educated about what one is doing.
If I had my druthers, I would throw research money into psychedelic drugs, which have shown considerable benefits in dealing with addiction. I would also re-examine the wisdom of long term treatment with the plethora of psychoactive drugs the physicians in this country seem to dole out like candy to anyone claiming he’s depressed. Of course we’re depressed. We’re stressed, we don’t believe in anything and we’re disconnected from any of the forms of community that once tethered us together, at least in America. We run to fundamentalism or political movements seeking some point above the treadmill we run on and when we don’t find one, CAZART! We run to the doc and he loads us up on something to cut the edge.
Therapy’s a good thing if you need it. Pharmaceutical maintenance scares me. I’d rather die of cirrhosis self-curing with Scotch than take the edges off the peaks and valleys of life. The ups and downs can drive a person mad, but I think they’re what make the whole thing the rich experience it can be.
I don’t think your country’s taking anything too far here. The tradition is what it is and just like every other country, you will continue to have, on the surface, laws aimed at the lowest common denominator – the people who’d kill themselves if allowed all the available vices. Separate from those technicalities will be the rest of society who sometimes, perhaps often, use those vices responsibly. I mean, pot’s illegal in the states, and yet it’s everywhere, used by such a huge swath of society, but never discussed. That’s kind of how I think it will always be.
I remember skipping school on 4/20 with my best friend and my girlfriend. We went to this house that my friend suggested where everyone was smoking. I planned on smoking. Once we got there, I changed my mind. They smoke there all the time, and that’s fine, but… The house was dirty as hell. Everyone was sitting in the living room watching a 12 inch tv, or at least looking at it. The mom of the house came through to get a couple hits before she went to work, looking all dirty and messed up. There was dog shit on the floor. It was just a horrible image, not what I wanted in my mind while smoking. That’s what I think about when I feel guilty – these losers, wasting away.
But right now, with no one but my parents on this long car trip, I’d give anything to be secretly fucked up. The environment is what makes it or breaks it I guess, for me.
PL: Some people use things too much. If it wasn’t that, it’d be something else. But that shouldn’t be the image you develop of the substance. That’s the person, and the person’s shortcomings. We just like to blame it on the substance because that;s the quickest, easiest deflection.
I’d have probably done a bit more with my life if not for alcohol. Is that alcohol’s fault? No. It’s my fault. I’ve always had a weak spot for libertine excesses. I like socializing and cutting loose. That’s a fault in my personality, not the the social elixir I enjoyed indulging my personality.
As far as the government is concerned in regard to weed, it kills no one, no overdose, no physical dependicies. it is a billion dollar industry. tens of millions of productive americans (myself included, obviously) smoke it on a daily basis. to make it, no additional procedures are needed; just throw a fucking seed in the ground. none of the reasons for its illegality were based on empirical fact. our economy today is in a desperate need of an infusion of new capital, and legalizing marijuana would be a fantastic way to “spread some wealth around”. it is not a gateway drug, alcohol is. the fact that weed is illegal and alcohol is not is a complete fucking joke. i shouldn’t even mention the two in the same sentence, alcohol is a million times worse than weed.
PL: Well, I know Bill Maher thinks it would be a huge cash crowd, but I kind of look at dope’s economic possibilities with the same skepticism I apply to green technologies. It’s a good thing, but it’s part of a broader group of revenue producing activities we ought to look into, rather than a silver bullet.
Being and Time is Heidegger’s book on existentialism. I just finished reading it for the 2nd time and wrote a few papers about it. If you don’t have the time to read the whole thing, or if you can’t stand the man’s writing, a companion piece of some sort is probably the way to go.
PL: Will do. I need to read somebody other than Camus on that front. Awfully dark, he was.
Great discussion. The stigma attached to psychedelics and MDMA is incredibly destructive, considering the incredible potential these substances have for legitimate medical use. The current line dividing legal and illegal is riddled with outdated misconceptions, and how will it ever be addressed? It’s political suicide to even converse about it.
http://www.maps.org/ is a great source of information. The research they are doing could lead to some truly great medical advances.
PL: Once the baby boomers are gone, I think people will be a bit more open. Technology and information are destroying so many of the myths organizations foist on us.
You might want to rethink the cirrhosis ending. I contracted C Hep in Cameroon in 1977. It took 25 summers and a thousand years to develop stage 4 liver disease. I did get a new liver out of the deal. If you are anti drugs, don’t get an organ transplant.
I made a point of indulging my libertine impulses. For the 15 years I worked in Africa, it was booze and pot. My 4 year India stint was pretty much constrained to booze. By the time I got to S.E. Asia, I had a promotion to protect. Singapore was the worst. The whole country is a mirthless fish bowl.
I stayed on an extra year in Thailand. I discovered opium. Opium is the true balm for human suffering. I don’t care if your day consist of eating shit and running naked; the pipe makes it all worth while.
In the 3rd world, the government cuts out the middle man. One can purchase anything the Chemist has to sell. The average American would expect to find most of the natives strung-out; but they are not. Menial jobs require some degree of concentration. Xanax does not lend itself to tedium. Besides, the extended family unit has little patience with dopers.
The US will be slow to recognize pot. What would the cops do with all of those tasers?
PL: Watch underwear models shoot themselves with the things?