Posted by Destroyo on November 11, 2003, at 20:39:13
In reply to Please Choose An Addiction: Benzos, or Demon Rum?, posted by Destroyo on November 10, 2003, at 21:27:16
Octopus prime, I've tried about 20 different medications or medication combinations. Nothing works. It's a little ironic, that if one doesn't take the long term view into account, depression can be cured instantly with oxycontin or dexedrine. Eventually, the cure, of course, often turns out to be worse than the disease.
I believe that people are basically rational about drugs, when the situation enables them to be. Back in the 80's you could find people who thought that cocaine was harmless and not addictive. I don't think anyone believes that anymore. Crack, of course, is the most insidious drug of all, but if you live in the inner city and you feel the need for a more emphatic high than that provided by alcohol & nicotine, crack is it. It's what's available. On a related note, if you're a rural dweller, you'll buy crank (meth). In both case, people buy these drugs because that's what's for sale...what's available. In my exerience, people aren't particulary choosy about which drug elevates their mood, as long as it works. Anyway, if drugs were legal, I think that benzos, and to a lesser extent, opiates, would be very popular. Coke and speed, in the prescense of an effective mood-elevating alternative, would largely be shunned, because the word is out that they're extremely hazardous.
Porter, I love your turn of phrase about being more "sensitive to reality" than others. I know exactly what you mean. Objectively speaking, most people's individual lives, as well as the milieu of the world at large, ain't so hot. I think some people just have more favorable brain chemistry, but what can one do? There aren't any truly, reliably effective antidepressants yet. In the meantime, we just have to play the hand we're dealt.
poster:Destroyo
thread:278367
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20031031/msgs/278781.html