Can someone with experience explain why eventually you have to quit drugs/alcohol

INNASKILLZ2K18 · 2019-02-11T10:07:51+00:00

I was an addict and dealer for 12 years. I've been clean for 3 1/2 years.

Drugs are a fucking illusion. All that 'extension of yourself' and self exploration and bullshit people think they're doing, is just lies the drugs tell you. Get clean for over a year, and NONE of the shit you saw, realised, thought about, discovered while on drugs will stay with you, or serve a single bit of purpose.

It is normally a subconscious thing you're hiding from/covering. Be it fear of being yourself, fear of disapproval, fear of just sitting with you. There are normally a thousand self centered fears that the subconscious says 'oh, this is a nice escape from having to feel that'.

To me, constant or regular drug use is a weakness. Addicts are a little different, because there is physical things that get set off once an addict uses.

Weed is the devil in disguise. That shit will take all your motivation, cloud you and ultimately give you nothing positive.

MY experience has been, that experiencing everything clean has allowed me to grow in so many ways. I also am more in touch with myself. I think about using when something is tough, and I realise 'man, I'm gonna have to deal with whatever shit is going on, eventually'. Drugs repress emotions, and if you're a heavy heavy user, once you stop, all that repressed shit comes out.

If you are an addict, and use daily, or even a few times a week, you can emotionally stay stuck at the age you were when you started using. Go lift, or meditate, or something.

Msg to my younger self? 'This shit in your hand, is going to lead to the most fucked up shit you can't imagine right now. Get off it, and put yourself first'.

Party party lifestyle never stays with you. 'Maning up' and pursuing mission, is better than any drug in the world. Get out of the pleasure palace.

GetMeLaidAlot · 2019-02-11T10:14:21+00:00

Some people try to fill a void in themselves and a lack of hobbies/ personality with drugs and alcohol; don't be one of those people. For a lot of these people, it's just a way to socialize and fit it while having a common interest with people in order to build a relationship with them. If you can't keep up the habit of drugs forever then the relationships that you had built up around those drugs and alcohols will also fade and you'll be left wishing that you spent your time more wisely and cultivating actual meaningful relationships built.

iwishiwasgayandcute · 2019-02-11T12:40:01+00:00

Question 1:

You have to quit alcohol because you do cringey stuff that you will regret. The downside overweights the benefits by a mile. I did some stuff that I regret soo much (fingering a girl and being filmed = gone viral). There are some people who can handle alcohol and know their limits, but if we are honest to ourselves, a huge majority does things they wouldn't have done if they were sober. If recommend the video of JP where he explains how he became a serious person (he really liked alcohol and behaved the way he didn't want to, so he quit it)

Question 2:

I was/am the crazy adhd type of person, who is already impulsive and gets even more so with booze. My friends thought it was funny when I was drunk because I would do all kinds of crazy shit. What they didn't saw or ignored was, that I just was harming myself.

jerusalemcruiser · 2019-02-11T15:01:37+00:00

Drugs are bad, mmmmkay?

But seriously weed is great and all, but it can and will make you complacent with your current self. This subreddit is all about self improvement. This is coming from someone that has been smoking weed every day for five years and as of recently quit for 5 weeks.

I stopped smoking for a job opportunity but am probably not going to resume my old habitual use after my preliminary drug screen. The difference is night and day, my motivation to improve has finally arrived. I’m honestly thinking of quitting drinking too because I just don’t like losing control of myself.

shinywhitedarkness · 2019-02-11T12:51:02+00:00

The constant use of drugs (sugar, porn,drugs, social media etc. I don't even make a difference anymore) supress certain thought and hinders the development of yourself, not you as a whole but your ego which is crucial for life. (Look up Loevingers ego development really interesting stuff).
Also some people use drugs after a heavy work day. But this forms into an habit any you don't know anymore what it feels like being alone after a such a day and to simply go to sleep instead of going out and drinking as an example.
In theory the rule is (I'm not there yet, but I broke the rule, trying to achieve that) you should only use drugs (in moderation) when you are where you want yourself to be, in a stable life position (being fit, having a good income etc). The problem is that you're going to have a constant fight positioning yourself on a spectrum between addiction and discipline. For some it's easy to slide to the bad extreme. So simply make sure to not fighting that fight at all.
I stopped drinking alcohol for a whole year with 19 (completely sober, no other drugs) because I drank a lot. I hated the hangovers, I hated the brainfog and I hated the depressing mood afterwards. The alcohol "high" is not worth it. I learned partying sober, having fun and talking to people. After nearly 3 years, I only drank a handful of times, sometimes I sip a little bit of beer for the taste but not more.Yet weed has a "High" that I thought was worth it the year after being complete sober. But I was wrong. Struggling on the discipline/addiciton spectrum. But hopefully going to stop it finally.

Do you love yourself in those influenced state? Can you be in that state sober? Do you want to be in that state sober?Learn to be funny when you're sober, learn to be loved by people when being sober not drunk. Learn to be yourself. Not a distorted version.

CalvinRichland · 2019-02-11T09:20:44+00:00

How is doing drugs improving anyone's life? If you are boring without drugs the truth is you are boring in them but you and your loser friens are too stoned to notice.

Climb a mountain, save a kitten, become someone interesting.

maljo24 · 2019-02-11T12:25:16+00:00

For most people they eventually impact their lives in a negative way: DUI, bankruptcy, fired from a job, health problems, relationship problems. There are some that manage to use in moderation for long periods without apparent detriment.

Uberfeedus · 2019-02-11T13:36:14+00:00

I've gone on an interesting journey with drugs, and I'll tell you they are a way to search for something to enchance life externally, when all you have to do is retreat into yourself to get what you are looking for. We feel incomplete smoetimes, like we NEED something to make us a "better" version of ourselves. Guess what? You have everything you'll ever need to be successful right now, and something external will not make it better. I do condone drug use in moderation and safely though. As I do more yoga, and meditate more, I am getting farther and farther away from drugs, and even have this sense of "why did I do that" even from drinking coffee.

Mr-Ed209 · 2019-02-11T16:12:14+00:00

I think as you get older, drugs and alcohol just cease to be cool like they were when you were younger because better alternatives exist. Having good money, worthwhile responsibilities and the ability to navigate through society with status aren't really options to people under say 30.

When i think back to my late teens early 20s, i was going out drinking often 3 times per week and dabbling with other stuff. I was also living with parents and working shit unchallenging jobs. Drinking and 'going out' became part of my life then because everything else was sub standard. And also everyone else my age was doing it and there to enable it.

For most people, once they get their first own decent place and a tolerable LTR they're off from that life because better alternatives now exist. It sounds lame and cliche to just enjoy a night in of netflix with the girlfriend. While staying up until 6am doing lines and drinking is fun, there's a whole lot of shit times that come with it. Hangovers, comedowns, meeting dealers in dodgy alleys on freezing cold nights etc. And even then that shits only fun if there's other people on the same level there with you.

Going into a job and being challenged, having authority/autonomy, respect from colleagues and getting paid a wage that affords you the comfort to own a home and live independently, outweighs the discomforts of living to each pay check and wittling away what little cash you have on hedonistic pursuits.

mabden · 2019-02-11T16:48:42+00:00

> what is your message

Bottom line - drugs/alcohol consumption to excess is a fucking waste of valuable time and money that you will never get back.

> What do I really look like to men and women?

Do not give a fuck.

.> what do I really look like?

The real question is what do you look like to yourself? Ridding yourself of outside influences (drugs/alcohol) will allow you to find your true self. However, micro-dosing LSD and/or psilocybin may open pathways (read Center of the Cyclone and Simulations of God by Dr John C Lilly) to self realization. Haha, that is what I thought I was doing whenever I got high, (back in the day, we called weed weed because it weeded out all the bullshit.)

I was a frequent user/abuser of drugs/alcohol in my younger days. More drugs than booze as getting drunk almost always got me in trouble. I.E. totaled car, fights, missing out on pussy, etc. Never considered myself addicted to either, so stopping was not an issue. Although, quiting cigarettes was the hardest fucking thing I ever went through. I have done all types of drugs; coke, weed, hash, heroin, mdma, speed, barbs, mushrooms, peyote, lsd. My booze of choice was beer, then tequila and finally scotch. I stopped tequila after a wild 22nd birthday where I ended up hanging out my bedroom window puking and passing out on the floor with my dog, instead of the bed with my gf. I still have an occasional scotch, for the taste. Once I started working out, beer left my life and my abs returned. The non-weed drugs were mostly experimental and easy to leave behind.

Drugs are fucking expensive, so I dealt on the side to keep me in free weed/hash. I quickly discovered that selling drugs led to temporary wealth and unless you are sitting on the top, not a smart career choice. I reduced my weed use incrementally/situationally. As an example, I roomed with I guy I worked with who smoked constantly. Bowl upon waking, breakfast and a bowl, joint on the ride to work, bowls at lunch, then nonstop for the rest of the night. Next day; wash, rinse, repeat. I got sucked into it until one day after a lunch of really good hash, my foreman gave me a job requiring me to climb a ladder, perched on a scaffold, leaning on a beam about 6 inches lower then the ceiling. In all I was 40' in the air, but my state of mind was higher than the ceiling. I did have a safety harness on, but was literally shaking while trying to work that high up (pun intended.) That ended the daily ritual of getting high before/during work.

Weirdly, the company I worked for went out of business, so I went back to school. Weed and college were not compatible (high school seemed different though) so I became a weekend warrior which lasted until I finished and started working R&D for a fortune 500 company. Drugs by then were a distant past. Oh, the weird part is I had connection delivering bales from some unnamed South American company, as my weed use went down, my dealing went up to help offset not working while in college. That dried up when their stash house got busted. By that time, I was tired of the constant paranoia, so ending my drug cartel days :).

In the end I felt I wasted at least 10 years of my life pursuing an artificial existence/state of mind and worse, put myself at risk for losing another 5 - 15 years.

Not sure if any of this is relevant to your situation, (it was cathartic for me) but maybe there is a message somewhere in this ramble from a guy who has been through a lot of the drug culture (watch 'drugstore cowboys' for a glimpse.) Peace.

vivid_mind · 2019-02-11T09:43:25+00:00

Alcohol gives you the feel of being confident but doesn't make you confident. In fact it ruins how you should process emotions. Once you see that and decide to quit, you'll have to spend time (probably with therapist) to learn how to feel and what to do with it again. After a while you realise that people who drink just look stupid and it will make you cringe you were one of them. I can see how easily I was influenced by alcohol propaganda as if you cannot have good time without a glass of drink. Think. As for weed, I think that's beneficial for health when using sparingly. Don't make a habit out of it unless for medical reasons.

[deleted] · 2019-02-11T17:15:40+00:00

As Louis CK so perfectly put it:

“You should never do drugs... EVER. So that when you do do them, it’s amazing. You don’t want drugs to become another pain in the ass”

Anything you depend on to be yourself, is something to avoid really... with that said... I can’t quit coffee, and with that knowledge I’ve never tried a upper beyond a few lines of cocaine at stagdo’s. And a few MDMA pills at house party’s.

I have an 18mo son now though, so I’ve basically quit so I can be as mentally present as a father as possible... I get my pleasures elsewhere.... it’s all relative

[deleted] · 2019-02-11T16:08:47+00:00

I quit drinking because it naturally didn’t fit my lifestyle anymore. I love working out and Jiu Jitsu. If I drink even one day it messes up my workout schedule. Not to mention I no longer had fun going out once I got like 23. Idk what happened it was just like a switch in me that it wasn’t for me anymore. All your “friends” all of a sudden will never talk to you again when you stop as well.

I was considering starting a wine hobby so I at least have a good date idea lol

[deleted] · 2019-02-11T09:20:56+00:00

Imo thats only for hard drugs. An occasional legal weed or drink is acceptable.

If you wanna stop all drugs thats good for you tho. Great. Nothing wrong with that.

leftajar · 2019-02-11T19:00:23+00:00

This happened to me, maybe it's true for others:

As you age, drugs literally don't feel as good as they used to. Yet, at the same time, the hangover/comedown/whatever actually hurts worse.

So, eventually, you hit a tipping point (usually a nuclear-shitshow-level hangover), when you realize, "this fucking blows and it isn't worth it anymore."

Additionally, HOPEFULLY, at some point in your adult maturation, you figure out what you're supposed to be doing with your life. For me, it was realizing I'm actually very good at starting businesses. Suddenly, all that potsmoking made it a lot harder to get things done.

So, at some point, I started to perceive it as a sacrifice: how much do I care about succeeding in my business? Enough to reduce/quit pot? Again, somewhere along the line I hit a tipping point, where the answer became, "yes."

So, it's a process. If I had known all of this ten years ago, I could've gotten a lot more done. No question. But it takes the time it takes.

BuzzLightGear321 · 2019-02-11T13:44:23+00:00

Are you addicted? Could you go clean for 2-4 weeks right now to prove it, or would you cave in after 5 days? I smoke cigars, weed, take mushrooms, drink alcohol, and a few other drugs. Right now it's been at least a month since I've done either (but only a week since I drank). Nothing wrong with it since I use it responsibly, and I don't use them to feed an addiction. I plan to never stop because they are not a problem. Can you say the same?

SoloQueueXL · 2019-02-11T16:09:56+00:00

I only smoke weed when I'm about to fuck. I quit alcohol and cigs because they give me erection problems

Popeman79 · 2019-02-11T13:31:08+00:00

I'm in my late thirties. I'm still a regular drug user. I smoke weed almost every day (although very little), and I do a variety of hard drugs regularly.

I'm also in better shape than I've been in the last 10 years, have just been promoted at work, and am in a happy ltr.

I think it's different for everyone. The key is to not lie to yourself. I could tell myself that drugs are doing me good, but it can only be true if my improvement is concrete and measurable. I hold myself to that standard. If my life isn't improving, I just cut all drugs cold turkey until things are good again.

I guess I want an excuse to use drugs, so I always make sure I'm doing well in all areas. It's a negotiation with myself.

linsanity2016 · 2019-02-11T18:43:21+00:00

I think drugs/alc is fine as long as you get your shit done FIRST. Get your work done first and then in your free time you can engage in such behavior. I have the work hard, play hard mindset. If you get your shit done who cares what you do in your free time. However, if the drugs/alc is effecting your work thats when it becomes a problem and should be decreased or eliminated. Life's short so I think you should be able to engage in anything you want as long as you still achieve your long term goals.

dmi_3 · 2019-02-11T18:44:43+00:00

Because to be a good performer, someone who knows his shit at work, you must have your brain together 95% of the time.

Alcohol and drugs prevent you from being so. Weed Kills motivation and melts brain. Alcohol.. well, I've never been an alcoholic, but you've can't really work when you are always hangover.

It's a matter of being a grown up person. At 25, I didn't understand it. Now at 28, I do. So it's good you're asking this question.

[deleted] · 2019-02-11T19:28:21+00:00

Because you waste your money, isolate from others and die an early death

Idiot

7and7UntilHomeless · 2019-02-11T20:22:22+00:00

One of the simplest explanations I was given about why you shouldn't drink or do drugs is that it makes you "ok" with being bored. Instead of sitting around getting high and doing something mindless you should be taking that time to improve something about yourself, learn something or hone a skill.-

Some of the other comments have mentioned about how there are some enlightenment aspects to certain drugs. I can tell you from experience that they are important in that moment but overall fleeting. Plus generally they are nihilistic in take away which doesn't help you become a better person.

You also never see someone who is struggling to do more drugs. Activities, behaviors and people who ruin lives should be, as a rule of thumb, avoided.

msaintx · 2019-02-11T20:56:39+00:00

Is coffee a drug ?

HurricaneHugues · 2019-02-12T04:54:27+00:00

Used to be a huge pothead. I'd say drugs are like taking a vacation. You just can't take a vacation all year

Chadster113 · 2019-02-11T09:12:07+00:00

Sounds like you’re really concerned with how people see you

[deleted] · 2019-02-11T13:52:47+00:00

Turning 30, love drugs, take them occasionally.

Don't see myself ever quitting, they are super fun when in the right place and time.

liberty1127 · 2019-02-11T19:09:04+00:00

Put it this way...I stop making excuses...quit smoking weed and now I'm making 100-150k more a year doing literally the same job with a little more driving and responsibility.

Don't let any drugs hold you back from advancing at your age. I'm 25 as well.

[deleted] · 2019-02-11T23:00:57+00:00

A lot of trps 'rules' (ie no video games, quit gaming, no porn, no weed or booze etc) are in place as they tend to be tripping stones for newbies.

All the above is fine - in moderation. Thing is, a lot of guys here are working to undo a life times worth of mental conditioning, and it's easier to do this by removing crutches.

Personally, I'm TRP 'End game' (ie mid 30s, highly successful upwardly mobile career and lifestyle, plenty of girls available to me etc). I smoke weed several times a week, enjoy gaming when I have time and like a few drinks a couple times a month.

[deleted] · 2019-02-11T17:18:05+00:00

being an adult is realizing that everyone is on something....

Whoever told you this, I don’t believe this is an adult realization.

PurpleSweetz · 2019-02-11T14:52:18+00:00

Recovering addict here, so I can give more experience and reasoning than may apply to the average person. But simply put, it’s a method of getting “outside of yourself”, falsifying true feeling and emotion, a quick way to surpass negative emotion (e.g. ‘liquid courage’ in the case of alcohol), and a form of instant gratification. You cannot benefit physically, mentally, nor emotionally from drug/alcohol use. Put them aside.

throwawaybpdnpd · 2019-02-11T16:16:30+00:00

I used to smoke/ingest weed every day then at some point I took a tolerance break and all the motivation in the world started coming back.

Now I smoke once a week, usually on the weekend; it's a choice I made so that I can live a better life

I also take shrooms twice a week DURING workdays, those are the best thing I've ever taken and actually help very much with concentration and social behavior

garebear19959 · 2019-02-11T16:25:29+00:00

I smoke weed almost everyday.not really because I’m bored or anything,I do boxing and play guitar so boredom isn’t an issue.

It’s just my poison.never liked alcohol or any of the other shit people do.

That said,drug aren’t cool.

BlueIowa · 2019-02-11T16:44:20+00:00

I am past my twenties. I quit everything for 1.5 years and experienced tremendous growth. Psychedelics are a catalyst for growth as well, so I now use them once quarterly. I still see no benefit from drinking other than fitting in socially, but this can be achieved by simply holding any drink in your hand.

A_Wizard1717 · 2019-02-11T17:41:37+00:00

Ironically I stopped doing drugs but im addicted to reddit lol

[deleted] · 2019-02-11T20:55:18+00:00

You dont need to quit smoking weed, I know people who are 80 and smoke.

Title	Can someone with experience explain why eventually you have to quit drugs/alcohol
Author	Emerald__Faith
Upvotes	79
Comments	116
Date	February 11, 2019 9:07 AM UTC (7 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askTRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/asktrp/comments/apefsa/can_someone_with_experience_explain_why/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askTRP/can-someone-with-experience-explain-why-eventually.215432 https://theredarchive.com/post/215432

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