Addiction

Tomorrow’s post is a recommendation for a podcast episode I’ve been listening to.

(I still have about half an hour left, and I’m not going to post about it until I’ve heard the whole thing, even though you could listen to half of what I’ve completed so far and it would be worthwhile.)

They’re talking about drug addiction, how we have the “solution” wrong, root causes, biological causes, and on and on. It’s interesting, and if Nancy Reagan was the last person you got information from about drugs, you’ll learn a lot.

I have never liked the taste of alcohol, so social drinking was never my thing. (Drinking something that tastes bad until it doesn’t taste bad any more was never a strategy that made any sense to me.)

I had straight-laced friends in high school and was either completely oblivious (which is 100% possible) or wasn’t around drugs in college (just ample liquor). The only time I recall being with someone smoking weed, I asked very hesitantly for some (because “good kid” was my badge and breaking that always involved hesitation) and was denied (because I was hesitant? saving me from myself? or saving it all for himself?).

I have often been grateful for that combination of traits, because I’m sure I’d be an alcoholic or a drug addict or both. Textbook case of addiction.

I’m super-curious about being high. But honestly, I’m afraid of liking it. Managing a food addiction is enough; I don’t need more.

(I tried getting drunk once, just to see what it was like, and didn’t enjoy it at all. I have way too much need to be in control of myself. At this point, in addition to that, loosening or removing filters would definitely not be a good thing. Especially in the contexts that friends have recommended drinking-as-survival.)

So either I’d get high and like it, which would not be good (see: addict), or I wouldn’t like it, which would scratch the itch but otherwise, meh.  (And, at this point, it’s a potential career-ender.)

So, at least for the foreseeable future, I’m out. What’s your experience?