"Alcohol Alternatives"

[gerbil]

hi gomaos, hi everyone

well i just read this entire thread, can't believe i missed this one, feel bad about it.

well, wow, there are so many things i wish to comment on, but i forgot alot of them, wrote a few down...

since it was such a long thread, not sure who the comments came from, but ill just wing it

keep in mind this is just me, and my opinions, so, yeah, will be quite different from all others

about different thoughts,

alchohol has its good feelings at the time, then rapidly declines, even the good feelings are bad and depressing feelins if that makes sense, i've attempted to quit alcohol at the age of 18, and have done so for a while, yet social things make me drink, i really cant have friends unless i drink, pot is frowned upon, and anything else, well...thats another story

but now, if i have 2 beers, i feel sick in the stomach, i can't handle it, which i am glad, it makes me stay away from it, kind of like an automatic repel

but pot, with the effects side of things, i can control myself, which with alcohol i generally could not,

and it makes me feel oh so much better, much better thoughts, alot of creativity, and a better outlook on life, but it has to be respected, and i view that with everything

but alcohol i cant seem to have respect, it just doenst work, thats why i hate it.

People who live in programmed conciousness are in the way of evolution of freedom, and we, the ones who want to develop ourselves and want the best for humanity, nature and the planet, have to suffer, i.e. anti-drug-laws, being denied work because you live in a hippie-commune etc etc etc.

thats always played with my mind, the people that want to make society better are the ones that are outlawed, and are the "freaks, weirdos, junkies", i gave up a few years back, i guess its part of the reason i found a community like SAB, and EB-A, etc

part keep in mind!

gomaos, how is the book coming along,

not that they will really recognise it, but have you considered sendning a copy of it to various government and political parties?

i know alcohol will NEVER! be outlawed , but maybe it could shed some light on other subtances?

well the last thing i wish to mention, as i've probably made a fool of myself already, is

"Funny, i never miss the actual effects of alcohol"

YES!, not for one second have i missed the feelings of alcohol, its always been something else, i dont know what it is exactly, maybe an escape? but in no way is it the feeling!

take care everyone

gerbil

[This message has been edited by gerbil (edited 07 January 2003).]

[gomaos]

Hmmm...okay...

I wouldn't have brought this back up by myself but since gerbil did I feel I owe this community an apology:

Since beginning of december i'm back on the stuff again.

Why?

It wasn't that anything real bad happened, something depressing or so, not at all.

I live with my kids, we're all pretty much happy as happy as one can be without a lot of money, living in the city, growing a few ethnobotanical plants in the backyard...it was just that I was terribly bored.

I was off the booze for 6 months and plan to do it again say after easter, when the price and availabilty of a certain herb that helps me stay off the booze become managable again.

And what the hell: the heat makes me crave beer!

Another reason was that I wanted to try my hand at homebrewing again like I did years ago and I have done so with success.

I made some fabulous ginger beer, and a new crop of stout is ripening up.

At the moment I got some normal beer brewing plus some datura and heimia and wormwood in it...wonder what will happen with that.

By no way am I saying that all the stuff I have written about alcohol was wrong...it was definitely right!

I just lacked the strenght to carry on with it and since everybody else was having fun I wanted some too.

The other thing is that I am single and still hope to meet my soulmate (hahahaha I know very funny) so put yourself into my situation and forgive me.

I still claim to feel much better without alcohol, but I can't cope with the monotony of everyday life.

Hopefully things will turn out the way I wish for, and I'll be fully heathy again soon.

BTW I'm not drinking straight whiskey into the head everyday...

I average a six-pack of stubbies or equivalent per day, more on weekend.

if you're better, throw the first stone...

[Happas]

I’m not a stone thrower.

Surely a little bit of home brew is not a huge contradiction of your ideal though? I mean, anything in moderation right?

Alcohol was a huge relief to me when I first started consuming it. Suddenly all my shyness and introversion, which had been choking me for many years, was annihilated! In fact I became the most irritating loud mouth braggart you could ever imagine. To begin with I only drank in binges with mates on the weekend. Unlike most, I love all aspects of the binge experience. My attitude used to be similar to that expressed in this Bukowski poem.

True

one of Lorca's best lines

is,

"agony, always

agony ..."

think of this when you

kill a

cockroach or

pick up a razor to

shave

or awaken in the morning

to

face the

sun.

Though I was never sullen mind you – a Dionosyian Pessimist to the core. I’ve progressed a lot since then. The point is I loved the day after as well as the night of wildness – maybe it was because I felt less alienated because I knew everyone else was having the same experience as me. I’ve got a host of embarrassing memories of things I’ve done while pissed though. But I’ve also got a lot of great ones. Anyway after a while I started to get drunk by myself a lot – usually when I was feeling either too happy or too sad to be sober and just sitting around with nothing to do with my thoughts. Well this went on for a while before I realised I was slowly but inexorably beginning to turn into a really, really dull person. So I stopped. Though sometimes I still might go to a bar by myself just for the clichéd down and out feeling of it all. And I still love binges with my mates.

Hmmm i guess i can't be a stone thrower anyway cause i'm not any better.

Here is a great extract from a Jack London Book about alcoholism that I thought you might be interested in reading (I haven’t read the book but I ordered it with a voucher I had at Angus and Robertson so I will pretty soon)

John Barley Corn alcoholic Memoirs – Jack London

"And, as John Barleycorn heated his way into my brain, thawing my reticence, melting my modesty, talking through me and with me and as me, my adopted twin brother and alter ego, I, too, raised my voice to show myself a man and an adventurer and bragged in detail and at length of how I had crossed San Francisco Bay in my open skiff in a roaring southwesterner when even the schooner sailors doubted my exploit. Further, I–or John Barleycorn, for it was the same thing–told Scotty that he might be a deep sailor and know the last rope on the great deep sea ships, but that when it came to small-boat sailing I could beat him hands down and sail circles around him. The best of it was that my assertion and brag were true. With reticence and modesty present, I could have never have dared tell Scotty my small boat estimate of him. But it is ever the way of John Barleycorn to loosen the tongue and babble the secret thought.Scotty, or John Barleycorn, or the pair, was very naturally offended by my remarks. Nor was I loath. I could whip any runaway sailor seventeen years old. Scotty and I flared and raged like young cockerels, until the harpooner poured another round of drinks to enable us to forgive and make up. Which we did, arms around each other’s necks, protesting vows of eternal friendship–just like Black Matt and Tom Morrisey, I remembered, in the ranch kitchen in San Mateo. And remembering, I knew that I was at last a man–despite my meager fourteen years–a man as big and manly as those two strapping giants who had quarreled and made up on that memorable Sunday morning of long ago.By this time the singing stage was reached, and I joined Scotty and the harpooner in snatches of sea songs and chanties. It was here, in the cabin of the Idler, that I first heard "Blow the Man Down," "Flying Cloud," and " Whisky, Johnny,Whisky." Oh, it was brave. I was beginning to grasp the meaning of life. Here was no commonplace, no Oakland Estuary, no weary round of throwing newspapers at front doors, delivering ice, and setting up ninepins. All the world was mine, all its paths were under my feet, and John Barleycorn, tricking my fancy, enabled me to anticipate the life of adventure for which I yearned.We were not ordinary. We were three tipsy young gods, incredibly wise, gloriously genial, and without limits to our powers. Ah!- and I say it now, after the years-could John Barleycorn keep one at such a height, I should never draw a sober breath again. But this is not a world of free frights. One pays according to an iron schedule-for every strength a balanced weakness; for every high a corresponding low; for every fictitious god-like moment an equivalent time in reptilian slime. For every feat of telescoping long days of weeks of life into mad, magnificent instants, one must pay with shortened life, and, oft-times, with savage usury added.Intenseness and duration are as ancient enemies as fire and water. They are mutually destructive. They cannot co-exist. And John Barleycorn, might necromancer though he be, is as much a slave to organic chemistry as we mortals are. We pay for every nerve Marathon we run, nor can John Barleycorn intercede and fend off the just payment. He can lead us to the heights, but he cannot keep us there, else would we all be devotees. And there is no devotees but pays for the mad dances John Barleycorn pipes.Yet the foregoing is all in after-wisdom spoken. It was no part of the knowledge of the lad, fourteen years old, who sat in the Idler’s cabin between the harpooner and the sailor, the air rich in his nostrils with the musty smell of men’s seagear, roaring in chorus: "Yankee ship come down de ribber-Pull, my bully boys, pull!" We grew maudlin, and all talked and shouted at once. I had a splendid constitution, a stomach that would digest scrap-iron, and I was still running my Marathon in full vigor when Scotty began to fail and fade. His talk grew incoherent. He groped for words and could not find them, while the ones he found his lips were unable to form. His poisoned consciousness was leaving him. The brightness went out of his eyes, and he looked as stupid as were his efforts to talk. His face and body sagged as his consciousness sagged.(A man cannot sit upright save by an act of will). Scotty’s reeling brain could not control his muscles. All his correlations were breaking down. He strove to take another drink, and feebly dropped the tumbler on the floor. Then, to my amazement, weeping bitterly, he rolled into a bunk on his back and immediately snored off to sleep.The harpooner and I drank on, grinning in a superior way to each other over Scotty’s plight. The last flask was opened, and we drank it between us, to the accompaniment of Scotty’s stertorous breathing. Then the harpooner faded away into his bunk, and I was left alone, unthrown, on the field of battle.I was very proud, and John Barleycorn was proud with me. I could carry my drink. I was a man. I had drunk two men, drink for drink, into unconsciousness. And I was still on my own two feet, upright, making my way on deck to get air into my scorching lungs. It was in this bout on the Idler that I discovered what a good stomach and a strong head I had for drink-a bit of knowledge that was to be a source of pride in succeeding years, and that ultimately I was to come to consider a great affliction. I no longer feared John Barleycorn. Mine was that most dangerous stage when a man believes himself John Barleycorn’s master. I had proved it to my satisfaction in the long years of work and study. I could drink when I wanted, refrain when I wanted, drink without getting drunk, and to cap everything I was thoroughly conscious that I had no liking for the stuff. During this period I drank precisely for the same reason I had drunk with Scotty and the harpooner and with the oyster pirates-because it was an act performed by men with whom I wanted to behave as a man. These brilliant ones, these adventurers of the mind, drank. Very well. There was no reason I should not drink with them, —I who knew so confidently that I had nothing to fear from John Barleycorn.And the foregoing was my attitude of mind for years. Occasionally I got well jingled, but such occasions were rare. It interfered with my work, and I permitted nothing to interfere with my work. I remember, when spending several months in the East End of London, during which time I wrote a book and adventured much amongst the worst of the slum classes, that I got drunk several times and was mightily wroth with myself because it interfered with my writing. Yet these very times were because I was out on the adventure-path, where John Barleycorn is always to be found.Then, too, with the certitude of long training and unholy intimacy, there was occasions when I engaged in drinking-bouts with men. Of course, this was on the adventure-path in various parts of the world, and it was a matter of pride. It is a queer man-pride that leads one to drink with men in order to show a strong a head as they. But this queer man-pride is no theory. It is a fact.For instance, a wild band of young revolutionists invited me as the guest of honor to be a beer bust. It is the only technical beer bust I ever attended. I did not know the true inwardness of the affair when I accepted. I imaged that the talk would be wild and high, that some of them might drink more than they ought, and that I would drink discreetly. But it seemed these beer busts were a diversion of these high-spirited young fellows whereby they whiled away the tedium of existence by making fools of their betters. As I learned afterward, they had got their previous guest of honor, a brilliant young radical, unskilled in drinking quite pipped.When I found myself with them, and the situation dawned upon me, up rose my queer man-pride. I’d show them, the young rascals. I’d show them who was husky and chesty, who had the vitality and the constitution, the stomach and the head, who could make most of a swine of himself and show it the least. These unlicked cubs who thought they could out-drink me!At last, now, I was thoroughly conscious that I desired alcohol. But what of it? I wasn’t afraid of John Barleycorn. I had associated with him for too long. I was wise in the matter of drink. I was discreet. Never again would I drink to excess. I knew the dangers and the pitfalls of John Barleycorn, the various ways by which he had tried to kill me in the past. But all that was past, long past. Never again would I drink myself to stupefaction. Never again would I get drunk. All I wanted, and all I would take, was just enough to glow and warm me, to kick geniality alive in me and put laughter in my throat and stir the maggots of imagination slightly in my brain. Oh, I was thoroughly a master of myself, and of John Barleycorn.Let me repeat the question I have repeated to myself ten thousand times. Why did I drink? What need was there for it? I was happy. Was it because I was too happy? I was strong. Was it because I was too strong? Did I possess too much vitality? I don’t know why I drank. I cannot answer, though I can voice the suspicion that ever grows in me. I have been in too familiar contact with John Barleycorn through too many years. A left-handed man, by long practice, can become a right-handed man. Had I, a non-alcoholic, by long-practice, become an alcoholic?I was so happy! I had won through my long sickness to satisfying love of a woman. I earned more money with less endeavor. I glowed with health. I slept like a babe. I continued to write successful books, and in a sociological controversy I saw my opponents confuted with the fact of the times that daily reared new buttresses to my intellectual position. From day’s end to day’s end I never knew sorrow, disappointment, nor regret. I was happy all the time. Life was one unending song. I begrudged the very hours of blessed sleep because by that much was I robbed of the joy that would have been mine had I remained awake. And yet I drank. And John Barleycorn, all unguessed by me, was setting the stage for a sickness all his own. One result of this regular heavy drinking was to jade me. My mind grew so accustomed to spring and liven by artificial means, that without artificial means it refused to spring and liven. Alcohol became more and more imperative in order to meet people, in order to become socially fit. I had to get the kick and the hit of the stuff, the crawl of the maggots, the genial brain glow, the laughter tickle, the touch of devilishness and sting, the smile over the faces of things, ere I could join my fellows and make one with them. Another result was that John Barleycorn was beginning to trip me up. He was thrusting my long sickness back upon me, inveigling me into again pursuing Truth and snatching her veils away from her, tricking me into looking reality stark in the face. But thus came on gradually. My thoughts were growing harsh again, though they grew harsh slowly.Sometimes warnings crossed my mind. Where was this steady drinking leading? But trust John Barleycorn to silence such questions. "Come on and have a drink and I’ll tell you all about it," is his way. And it works. For instance, the following is a case in point, the one which John Barleycorn never wearied of reminding me:I had suffered an accident which required a ticklish operation. One morning, a week after I had come off the table, I lay on my hospital bed, weak and weary. The sunburn of my face, what little of it could be seen through a scraggly growth of beard, had faded to a sickly yellow. My doctor stood at my bedside on the verge of departure. He glared disapprovingly at the cigarette I was smoking. "That’s what you ought to quit," he lectured. "It will get you in the end. Look at me." I looked. He was about my own age, broad shouldered, deep-chested, eyes sparkling, and ruddy-cheeked with health. A finer specimen of manhood one would not ask."I used to smoke," he went on. "Cigars. But I gave even them up. At look at me."The man was arrogant, and rightly arrogant, with conscious well-being. And within a month he was dead. It was no accident. Half-a —dozen different bugs of long scientific names had attacked and destroyed him. The complications were astonishing and painful, and for days before he died the screams of agony of that splendid manhood could be heard for a block around. He died screaming."You see," said John Barleycorn. "He took care of himself. He even stopped smoking cigars. And that’s what he got for it. Pretty rotten, eh? But the bugs will jump. There’s no forefending them. Your magnificent doctor took every precaution, yet they got him. When the bug jumps you can’t tell where it will land. It may be you. Look what he missed. Will you miss all I can give you, only to have a bug jump on you and drag you down? There is no equity in life. It’s all a lottery. But I put the lying smile on the face of life and laugh at the facts. Smile with me and laugh. You’ll get yours in the end, but in the meantime laugh. It’s a pretty farce world. I illuminate it for you. It’s a rotten world, when things can happen such as happened to your doctor. There’s only one thing to do; take another drink and forget it."And of course I took another drink for the inhibition that accompanied it. I took another drink everytime John Barleycorn reminded me of what had happened. Yet I drank rationally, intelligently. I saw to it that the quality of the stuff was of the best. I sought the kick and the inhibition, and avoided the penalties of poor quality and of drunkenness. It is to be remarked, in passing, that when a man begins to drink rationally and intelligently he betrays a grave symptom of how far along the road he has traveled.But I continued to observe my rule of never taking my first drink of the day until the last word of my thousand words was written. On occasion, however, I took a day’s vacation from my writing. At such times, since it was no violation of my rule, I didn’t mind how early in the day I took that first drink. And persons who have never been through the drinking game wonder how the drinking habit grows!I would sit at my desk and dally with pad and pen, but words refused to flow. My brain could not think the proper thoughts because continually it was obsessed with the one thought that across the room in the liquor cabinet stood John Barleycorn. When, in despair, I took my drink, at once my brain loosened up and began to roll off the thousand words.In my town house, in Oakland, I finished the stock of liquor and wilfully refused to purchase more. It was no use, because, unfortunately, there remained in the bottom of the liquor cabinet a case of beer. In vain I tried to write. Now beer is a poor substitute for strong waters; besides, I didn’t like beer; yet all I could think of was that beer was singularly accessible in the bottom of the cabinet. Not until I had drunk a pint of it did the words begin to reel off, and the thousand were reeled off to the tune of numerous pints. The worse of it was that the beer caused me severe heart-burn; but despite the discomfort I soon finished the case.The liquor cabinet was now bare. I did not replenish it. By truly heroic perservance, I finally forced myself to write the daily thousand words without the spur of John Barleycorn. But all the time I wrote I was keenly aware of the craving for a drink. And as soon as the morning’s work was done, I was out of the house and away down-town to get my first drink. Merciful goodness!-if John Barleycorn could get such sway over me, a non-alcoholic, what must be the sufferings of the true alcoholic, battling against the organic demands of his chemistry while those closest to him sympathize little, understand less, and despise and deride him!But, the freight had to be paid. John Barleycorn began to collect, and he collected not so much from the body as from the mind. The old long sickness, which had been purely an intellectual sickness, recrudesced. The old ghosts, long laid, lifted their heads again. But they were different and more deadly ghosts. The old ghosts, intellectual in their inception, had been laid by a sane and normal logic. But now they were raised by the White Logic of John Barleycorn, and John Barleycorn never lays the ghosts of his raising. For this sickness of pessimism, caused by drink, one must drink further into quest of the anodyne that John Barelycorn promises but never delivers.At once, O untravelled reader, you see how lunatic and blasphemous is the realm I am trying to describe to you in the language of John Barleycorn’s tribe. It is not the language of your tribe, all of whose members resolutely shun the roads that lead to death and tread only the roads that lead to life. For there are roads and roads, and of truth there are orders and orders. But have patience. At least, through what seems no more than verbal yammerings, you may, perchance, glimpse faint far vistas of other lands and tribes.Alcohol tells the truth, but its truth is not normal. What is normal is healthful. What is healthful tends toward life. Normal truth is a different order, and a lesser order, of truth. Take a dray horse. Through all the vicissitudes of its futilities, nor be appalled by his lusts and rapacities.And man does this, Countless men have glimpsed that order and truer order of truth and recoiled from it. Countless men have passed through the long sickness and lived to tell of it and deliberately to forget it to the end of their days. They lived. They realized life, for life is what they were. They did right.And now comes John Barleycorn with the curse he lays upon the imaginative man who is lusty with life and desire to live. John Barleycorn sends his White Logic, the argent messenger of truth beyond truth, the antithesis of life, cruel and bleak as interstellar space, pulseless and frozen as absolute zero, dazzling with the frost of irrefragable logic and unforgettable fact. John Barleycorn will not let the dreamer dream, the liver live. He destroys birth and death, and dissipates to mist the paradox of being, until his victim cries out, as in "The City of Dreadful Night": "Our life’s a cheat, our death a black abyss." And the feet of the victim of such dreadful intimacy take hold of the way of death.I am aware that within the disintegrating body which has been dying since I was born I carry a skeleton; that under the rind of the flesh which is called my face is a bony, noseless death’s head. All of which does not shutter me. To be afraid is to be healthy. Fear of death makes for life. But the curse of the White Logic is that it does not make one afraid. The world-sickness of the White Logic makes one grin jocosely into the face of the Noseless One and to sneer at all the phantasmagoria of living.I look about me as I ride, and on every hand I see the merciless and infinite waste of natural selection. The White Logic insists upon opening the long-closed books, and by paragraph and chapter states the beauty and wonder I behold in terms of futility and dust. About me is murmur and hum, and I know it for the gnat-swarm of the living, piping for a little space its thin plaint of troubled air.I return across the ranch. Twilight is on, and hunting-animals are out. I watch the piteous tragic play of life feeding on life. Here is no morality. Only in a man is mortality, and man created it- a code of action that makes toward living and that is of the lesser order of truth. Yet all this I knew before, in the weary days of my long sickness. These were the greater truths that I so successfully schooled myself to forget; the truths that were so serious that I refused to take them seriously, and played with gently, O a drink. We know, we illuminated, you and I, all the folly and the farce.And in my book-walled den, the mausoleum of the thoughts of men, I take my drink, and other drinks, and roust out the sleeping dogs from the recesses of my brain and halloo them on over the walls of prejudice and law through all the cunning labyrinths and superstition and belief."Drink," says the White Logic. "The Greeks believed that the gods gave them wine so that they might forget the miserableness of existence. And remember what Heine said."Well do I remember the flaming Jew’s "With the last breathe all is done: joy, love, sorrow, macaroni, the theatre, lime-trees, raspberry drops, the power of human relations, gossip, the barking of dogs, champagne.""Your clear white light is sickness," I tell the White Logic. "You lie.""By telling too strong a truth," he quips back."Alas, yes, so topsyturvy is existence," I acknowledge sadly."Ah, well, Liu Ling was wiser than you," the White Logic girds. "You remember him?’I nod my head—Liu Ling, a hard drinker, one of the groups of bibulous poets who called themselves the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove and lived in China many an ancient century ago. "It was Liu Ling." prompts the White Logic, "who declared that to a drunken man the affairs of this world appear but as so much duckweed on a river. Very well. Have another Scotch, and let semblance and deception become duckweed on a river."And while I pour and sip my Scotch, I remember another Chinese philosopher, Chuang Tzu, who, four centuries before Christ, challenged this dreamland of the world, saying: "How then do I know but that the dead repent of having previously clung to life? Those who dream of the banquet, wake to lamentation and sorrow. Those who dream of lamentation and sorrow, wake to join the hunt. While they dream, they do not know that they dream. Some will even interpret the very dream they are dreaming; and only when they awake do they know it was a dream…Fools think they are awake now, and flatter themselves they know if they are really princes or peasants. Confucius and you are both dreams; and I who say you are dreams—I am but a dream myself."Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither or thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly, I awaked, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man."It is nothing new, these vital lies men tell themselves, muttering and mumbling them like charms and incantations against the powers of Night. The voodoos and medicine men and the devil-devil doctors were the fathers of metaphysics. Night and the Noseless One were ogres that beset the way of light and life. And the metaphysicians would win by if they had to tell lies to do it. They were vexed by the brazen law of the Ecclesiast that men die like the beasts of the field and their end is the same. Their creeds were their schemes, their religions their nostrums, their philosophies their devices, by which they half-believed they would outwit the Noseless One and the Night."Bog-lights, vapors of mysticism, psychic overtones, soul orgies wailing among the shadows, weird gnosticisms, veils and tissues of words, gibbering subjectivisms, gropings and maunderings, ontological fantasies, pan-psychic hallucinations–this is the stuff, the phantasms of hope, that fills your book shelves. Look at them, all the sad wraiths of sad mad men and passionate —rebels—your Schopenhauers, your Strindbergs, your Tolstois and Nietzsches."Come. Your glass is empty. Fill and forget."I obey, for my brain is now well a-crawl with the maggots of alcohol, and I drink to the sad thinkers on my shelves I quote Richard Hovy:"Abstain not! Life and Love, like night and day, offer themselves to us on their own terms, Not ours. Accept their bounty while ye may, Before we be accepted by the worms.""I will cap you," cries the White Logic."No," I answer, while the maggots madden me. "I know you for what you are, and I am unafraid. Under your mask of hedonism you are yourself the Noseless One and your way leads to the Night. Hedonism has no meaning. It, too, is a lie, at best the coward’s smug comprise—."

[gerbil]

gomaos i'm sorry about bringing the topic up again, i feel bad about it, sorry mate.

i dont feel you have anything to apologise for though, boredom is more powerful than people realise.

but also, you're homebrewing, which is great in a way, at least its thought out and constructive

once again, sorry about bringing up the topic gomaos

take care man

gerbil

[This message has been edited by gerbil (edited 09 January 2003).]

[gomaos]

"The greeks believed that the gods had given them wine to forget their miserable existence..."

There is truth in this, yet by the same token it makes your existence even more miserable...

During the six months I was off alc I slept sort "like a baby"

I'd go to bed approx 11 pm and sleep easily and wake up in the morning refreshed.

Now being on alcohol again, even on "moderate doses" sleep does not come easy at. Now it's either "californian poppy extract" or temaze so I can sleep.

Plus I'm putting on weight-again. That is the thing that bothers me most about alcohol.

It is made from sugar and therefore fattening.

I know there's skinny alcoholics who just drink and never eat.

Well, the more I drink the less I can control my habit of overeating.

What did Jack London die of?

Alcohol?

[Auxin]

"I know there's skinny alcoholics who just drink and never eat."

There are also skinny alcoholics who drink and eat alot, metabolism is a major factor.

I was dissapointed that I drank for a few years and never gained an ounce. I might not have quit drinking 5 years ago if it made me gain weight. I eat steak, fried eggs, corned beef and cabbage, pasta, pizza, oversmoked bacon jerky, and other assorted fatty/starchy foods and I'm like 30 pounds underweight! I envy you folks who have to try to keep from gaining weight.

[Happas]

Jack London died of a gastro-intestinal uremia so i guess he never managed to kick his alcohol habit

[Dubius]

Liebes Gomaos von Deutschland,

DonÂ't I kennen in alcoholÂ.... aus. Ich denke, daß Sie es

gerade zurücksendeten, weil es zugelassen ist und Sie Anti- Pro sind.

Wenn es zugelassen war, würden Sie für es und umgekehrt sein; Ich

weiß, daß Sie donÂ't mit mir einverstandenSIND!

Es gibt keine Ausgabe; alle Drogen haben Konsequenzen; es ist der

publicÂs, die recht sind, zu entscheiden, wenn sie jene Konsequenzen

annehmen und die passende Steuersteuer zahlen können, um besagte

Konsequenzen zu handhaben.

Dubius von Holland.

* Please exuse the crappy German, I have been using a second rate English - German translation dictionary in order to simulate the pure gramatial qualities of Dutch. Not quite english, not quite German and definatly moderate.

[gomaos]

Hmmmmmm......I'm not quite getting your point here.

Perhaps:

"I'd rather a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy" (this line is borrowed, I know)would sum it up.

Thanks for the trip to the coast last week and all the booze, Dubius....

Still, I'm off it again and hope to stay so.

Cheers!

[planthelper]

hi,all!

maybe i havent read all of this topic up to max/today, but i purchased this super book:

practical traditional chinese medicine& pharmacology

MEDICINAL HERBS first edition 1991

by geng junying et al.

isbn 7-80005-119-6 (hardcover)

isbn 7-80005-120-x (paperback)

but i think its a rare book, try e-bay.

so for loosing weight say, without going into

warm/cold, fast/slow, things...

a) herbs that purge:

herbs that purge cause diarrhea. they are bitter and cold in property....

67. rhubarb botanical, rheum palmatum.

68. glaubers salt mineral, sodium sulfate.

69. senna leaf botanical, cassia angusifolia.

70. aloe botanical, aloe vera.

herbs that lubricate the intestines:

71. hemp seed botanical, cannabis spp.

72. bush-cherry seed botanical, prunus japonica.

c) herbs that transform water.

these herbs purge water. they cause the discharge of water, together with feces, from the body.

73. genkwa flower botanical, daphne genkwa

74. kansui root botanical, euphorbia kansui

watch out dosage only 0,5 g-1g.dry powder.

75.peking spurge root bot, euphorbia pekinesis.

1.5g-3g

76. croton seed botanical, croton tiglium

BADOU

methode:the ripe seeds are gathered in autumn, dried in the sun and ground into powder.

propertties:punget and very TOXIC.

dosage: 0.1g-0.3g.

FUNCTION:1;to drain accumulated cold downwards,2;

to transform water and reduce edema,3; to resolve phlegm and benefit throat.

meridians ; stomach and large intestine.

no hot food or drinks mixed with this one, naturaly contraindicated during pregnancy!

its toxic-must be carefull- means it works?

bla, bla, this book is great reading,i

just came back from the "out back" of

queenslands botteltree country!

keep on driving those bulls...

w

[gomaos]

Thanks for the hints, planthelper.

I am well aware that hemp seed oil cleans out your bowels, just like hemp itself.

Anmd what the hell is BADOU?

Have to research that.

On the topic of alcohol being fattening:

That seems to be genetical. Like Auxin mentioned further up: He could drink all he wanted and didn't put on 1 gram.

But me: A few years ago I put it to the test:

Stayed off alc for 2-3 weeks, then one night got depressed and downed 5 tallies of homebrew stout.

I put my self on the scales before and after.

Result: The next morning I had put on 5 KILOS.

(Normally you weigh LESS in the morning than at night.)

But not to worry: I'm in my third week off it again and will stay this way.

I'm getting more and more convinced that it is ice-cold calculation by governments to allow booze and prohibit other drugs.

Since booze makes (most)people fat and stupid, that is just what they want for their factories and economy: Willing robots that go to work and get drunk at home so they can't think about their miserable lives. Keep them in their mind cages forever so they are easily manipulated.

It works well too. Who in their free minds would ever vote for Howard and Bush? Only idiots.

[woof woof woof]

Dubius:

Liebes Gomaos von Deutschland,

DonÂ't I kennen in alcoholÂ.... aus. Ich denke, daß Sie es

gerade zurücksendeten, weil es zugelassen ist und Sie Anti- Pro sind.

Wenn es zugelassen war, würden Sie für es und umgekehrt sein; Ich

weiß, daß Sie donÂ't mit mir einverstandenSIND!

Es gibt keine Ausgabe; alle Drogen haben Konsequenzen; es ist der

publicÂs, die recht sind, zu entscheiden, wenn sie jene Konsequenzen

annehmen und die passende Steuersteuer zahlen können, um besagte

Konsequenzen zu handhaben.

Dubius von Holland.

* Please exuse the crappy German, I have been using a second rate English - German translation dictionary in order to simulate the pure gramatial qualities of Dutch. Not quite english, not quite German and definatly moderate.

's not dutch dood! more like Germanish..., might even be Austrian for all I know... but definatly not Dutch

[Slarty Fart Blaster]

Unfortunately i know all about addiction or did do, so i know what a dodgy subject it is to comment on, so ill just add this :

www.maps.org/research/ketamine/kptjpd.html

I'm pretty sure some of you will have seen it but i guess it confirms the "blow of the cobwebs" theory.

[Thelema]

as yet no-ones mentioned ACAMPROSATE (campral) I am a well seasoned (preserved) drinker, and thinking of going on the stuff.

hi gomaos, long time... i have managed to quit alc recently with the help of valium and doses of nurofen plus.

suprisingly, most doctors will prescribe valium for the acute stages of withdrawal, alongside with a tricyclic antidepressant.

[gomaos]

hi thelema good to see you bck i was wondering what happened to you...

What's nurofen plus some narcotic?

Doctors can be helpful at some stages...

what keeps me of alc is mainly the fear of being continuously depressed....which I am when I'm drinking...

but I'm all right at the moment...

I'm still hiding 30 tallies of homebrew somewhere in the house...for that special occasion...which will be...whenever...but not soon....

oh, and, slarty fart blaster, of course I'd love to try "ketamine therapy" I just do believe it's a bit hard to come by these days...well if your best friend was a vet it would be easy I guess...

[ 17. February 2003, 19:28: Message edited by: gomaos ]

[Tryptameanie]

Nurofen is the brand name for ibuprofen. It's an OTC analgesic, much like asprin or paracetamol. It's often marketed as a "period-pain" drug, which is funny cause it was shown to work much better in men than women - turns out the company never tested it on women cause their hormonal fluctuations fuck up their neat graphs! So no, not a narcotic.

Keep in mind that the benzodiazapienes (e.g. valium) are just as addictive and socially debilitating as alcohol (when abused). But they're both pretty nasty - they're among the only commonly used drugs that can kill you in withdrawal - not even heroin can, it can just make you feel like shit.

However, the benzo's do much less damage to the body and are virtually impossible to overdose on alone so they are preferable to alcohol if large quantities are being consumed.

Alcohol does taste nicer though.....Flurazepam is the most foul substance I have ever consumed!

[ 28. February 2003, 14:35: Message edited by: Tryptameanie ]

[MrBumpy]

I might be joining the convo after it has been over for a while...but neurofen plus is ibuprofen and codiene.

Also, I've been taking some painkillers recently that I never heard of for some dental surgery, they are called Panalgesic and contain Paracetmol. codiene and a third drug...I think they might just be a generic brand of Mersyndol...any know?

-bumpy

[Thelema]

youre right..nurofen plus is currently the highest OTC drug with Max Codiene....12.8mg

The other substance you may be experiencing is doxysuccinate hydrochloride which is a muscle relaxant and available as a sleep aid as a common OTC anti-insomniac at 25mg per tablet.

[gomaos]

Hmmm...

this topic was started July2 last year.

I stayed off the booze until December, had started sometime february, stayed on it 4 weeks until I stopped again thanks to kratom,

since I've had a couple of attempts to finish off my homebrew, but I think I'll rather give it away now, since the side effects of alc are just too evil, i.e.feeling really crappy and aggressive the day after having just a few drinks, so I guess this stuff really isn't with me.

I guess I'll leave the possibility open to have it occasionally, i.e. having a re-union or an important meeting, or something really good happened(or something so evil I'll have to numb myself), or, ultimately, I may meet "the right woman" and we'll have a few drinks to get into bed together easier.

Other than that I'll better stay off it, since it just makes me feel bad.

Re overweight, no I haven't lost much, hardly any, but hopefully that will change now as I don't have a car and have to walk more.

I'd like to try all those things planthelper recommended but it seems rather difficult.

I asked my doc if there was something other than duromine available to slim down, and he said yes there is "an appetite supressant"(could it be made from that african cactus torsten once wrote about?), didn't mention a name but said it costs $120 a month.

I wanted a script anyway but he couldn't prescribe it since I hahd ahd angina before.

Well I know that my angina used to be totally smoking-related, and since I gave up tobacco, the angina is gone too.

Still, I'm not gonna push for that stuff(the appetite suppressant)since for that sort of money there are better drugs available....

hopefully I'm not deluding myself when I say I may have "mastered" this addiction, but it certainly looks that way.

I can have some for a day or 2, and then stop again.

But I need another year to confirm this....

[Gilbert Nolander]

Hum...

This reminds me of a poem I wrote,

Drunk

I sit, restless from a long night of drinks and dreams.

Wondering...

What are the blue streaks of chaos running rapid three times as strong as a shadows dreams?

Is that another beer, or perhaps an injured spine.

I see you, lurking: underneith the tall tree of despair.

Is that a beer in your eye? No, I mean tear. Or perhaps a smile on your frown?

Was I dancing yesterday, no wait, that was tommorow, boy am I drunk.

Does anything remind me of what you think of? Doubtful.........

Does my clock actually say 3:00. Is that in the morning. No, can't be....

Good Night, my sloppy self.

[Thelema]

I wrote a poem too, about 5 years ago:

THE NORMAL GLASS BESIDE HIM

he momentarily wakes with the sun on his neck

his usual scotch in a scotch glass lay on the dresser

dust overlayed on its oily tears like

the nuisance of rain in the concrete jungle,

or a blemish upon inventions thought

gotten away with.

now and then he stirs in his primitive slumber

from the birds outside..like the so-so twitch

of a cat's ear.

lucky to have saved humility last night,

she gets up and dresses before he wakes-

and leaves him to stretch guiltily and

suck the warmth from his pink sheets.

Iced memories thaw and dribble on their trays;

the sun-of-waking-up groans at its fruitless garden

and blinks incredulously into the eyes of the

side of the wooden dresser.

"are you shot?" they ask each other in the trench.

"Indeed" says his hand, and in reaching for its weapon,

obscures gold with desperate caramel rainclouds

and, slowly, a rain that feebly decorates his brothers-in-arms

with splashes of drying concrete.

"a toast to the consistency of grey" he touts-

and the clouds erupt, gathering in each teared mirror

the sounds of the birds and the strange blues that murmur

from beyond his vertical blinds.

And in spilling languishingly over the sides of his autistic bed

they strip him of all sediment and flesh-

leaving him thirsty, but free:

to peer through his sheets at the desolate world

and at the days ahead of long-shadowed glasses

that glitter tediously in the light of the dying Sun.

[Tripster]

hey G just get some benzo's just like booze these

are cns depressants + if ya have a health care card its like $3.70 for a bottle of 30! you know just tell the doc about your problem he should give you a script if thats what you need.

[gerbil]

taking them to cure alcohol addiction i feel is quite wrong, it's basically going from one substance to another, yet being in the same situation. Both can be addictive, and the reason people use alcohol, will be just the reason that the same people will use these tablets

thats just my opinion though

[Thelema]

actually, I think benzo's can help break the psychological cycle of raising the glass to your mouth, much in the same way as nicotine patches work.

[gerbil]

You said break the cycle as nicotine patches do, i don't know alot about those patches.

Although, going from hard alcohol addiction to strong medication can't be too good for anyone in my opinion. It may work in the long run, but substituting one feeling for another, is just forming another addiction in the long run isn't it?

I know many people who have crossed this path with the same thing as i describe, that's why i ask no offence intended

[ 05. April 2003, 00:09: Message edited by: gerbil ]