Reincarnate said:

That's it!

CarrieMpls said:

Here's some help: smoking will prematurely age your skin.

I'm going to give up this year. (I'm going to try)

I live pretty clean. I eat very healthy (no sugar), drink lots of water (no soda), exercise, have regular doctor check ups and have my teeth cleaned every 3 months, but I have a few vices. After a year of being cigarette and pot free, I've been smoking for 5 months. But those days are numbered, I'm quiting (again) for New Years.

Won't be giving up the whisky or pills... I love me some Canadian Club and my prescriptions! I get Vicodin ES and Valium and covet them dearly. The best drugs around are the ones from the pharmacy! Everytown, USA has a doctor feel good.

Vicodin, a hydrocodone pain pill, gives me busy energy. I love to cook, clean, iron or wrap xmas presents - ya know anything but sit still- BUSY WORK! In my gay disco days I'd hit the clubs on 2 or 3 pills and dance all night long. I've experinced my last 3 Prince concerts on codeine. I also love to go shopping on codeine. Stop in at a resturant bar and have a Manhattan to kick it in, then go to Neiman Marcus and drool over the women's shoes.

Valium on the other hand is a tranquilizer. I take half a yellow and don't want to do anything but be cozy in front of the fire smoking cigarettes and pot and watching 1930s Hollywood glamour movies. I'll take it at work occasionally becasue it does help you deal but it makes me so sleepy that I really think twice before I decide to take it. I'd take a fist full of Vicodin to go to a Prince concert but never a Valium. It's heavy, but if you're really having a freak fit Valium will smooth you out. I like to drink champagne with Valium or grapefruit juice- which it says on the bottle not to because it intensifies the drugs effect. Hey thanks for the tip!

I know these are habit-forming but my doctor keeps me in check. He gives me 30 of each with one refill which lasts me about 4 months and then I'll have to see him before he'll refill it. And he knows me well and I hit him up before vacations, birthdays, and xmas! I have called before for refills and have been refused- he refilled my codeine cough syrup 3 times before cutting me off. We were drinking that in shot glasses on my birthday. I love Endal but you have to have a cough to get that.


I'll share this with my online friends but just as soon as your reality life friends find out you have pills your phone starts ringing off the hook. Besides Drew only one friend knows this and that's because we trade pills. She gets fiorinal with codeine, which I love, and Lorcet, which is the same as Vicodin, I just prefer the Vicodin brand.

CynthiasSocks said:

Scary.

I'm killing myself with all that sugar

charlottegelin said:

me too, girl ... we need a sugar-addicts support group

Reincarnate said:

there is a scientist in Australia (Sydney University) on the verge of identifying the enzyme/protein (? I'm no scientist!) that needs to be inhibited to prevent diabetes (amongst a whole range of mitochondrial disorders).

LleeLlee said:

Notice she didn't say this "coming" year.

Either way, I bet she's caved already.

charlottegelin said:

That would be a wonderful breakthrough. I hope it happens soon - it's going to save many lives.

Reincarnate said:

It will, but on the other hand maybe people will not change their ways cause there is a remedy in case they get diabetes?

CarrieMpls said:

Here's some help: smoking will prematurely age your skin.

CynthiasSocks said:

Scary.

VoicesCarry said:

hey, it works for liz taylor...she can't remember her own name and she regularly has long conversations with her salt shaker, but hey - she still looks fabulous!

VoicesCarry said:

hey, it works for liz taylor...she can't remember her own name and she regularly has long conversations with her salt shaker, but hey - she still looks fabulous!

I just wondered what the split is here - how many people are into smoking, drinking to excess and/or drugs and how many aren't?

I used to smoke, drink far more than is healthy and have been known to smoke a little weed. Over the past few years I've cut all of that out. I don't smoke, drink maybe one glass of wine a month and am very anti drugs. (A friend of mine suffered a drug-induced psychosis and killed himself by sitting in front of a train - it was a huge shock and affected the way I think of drugs now).

Do you think that people who do any of the above are hitting a self-destruct button in some way? I think I got into it to rebel against a strict childhood, but other people may have other reasons. I definately think I was into a self-destruct lifestyle in my youth, but perhaps you don't look at it that way. I'd like to know your views.

Reincarnate said:

Never smoked cigarettes. Never been drunk in my entire life. Did marijuana twice in my life (once with no effect; the second just made my Doritos taste good, but it wasn't worth the dizziness). So I can't say I quite understand the appeal of certain overindulgences in controlled substances. I CAN say, however, that all vices are essentially ways to self-medicate in a world that is sometimes grueling. My self-medication at one time was rampant sex. It's no less potentially destructive.

Thank God I came out of my whore phase mentally and physically unscathed. But, at a point, I realized that even if my bad habits didn't ultimately do me in, there were simply better things to do with my mind/body/short life (and, as I am a person of faith, my soul). Can life possibly be about nothing more purposeful than hedonism? And as self-medication goes, these are quick fixes, but hardly permanently corrective... and often aggregately destructive. So why repeatedly invite risk?

I commend you for kicking many of your old habits. It can be tough. But now that you've cleared that crap out of your life, I'd argue you're probably in a better clarity to find and seize your greater purpose.

Just my

Lammastide said:

Good post Lamma

Cynthia Ya make me laugh so much.... Ya have NO IDEA. I'm really into these Lycee Nut Martinis man and Hypnotique, Boujalais, and Champagne. If I was gonna take a pill would be a SEX pill like a Roofie or Qualude. Other than that NOTHING..... I just drink when I party... Not into POPPERS or WHIPPETS as Some Friends I Knew were...
[Edited 12/31/05 18:26pm]