Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: eskimo2 on April 02, 2005, 09:05:04 AM
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I was just reading the Hunter S. thread and it got me thinking:
Which of you can now say that you would have been better off had you never: smoked, drank or used particular (or all) drugs? Also state your age and how you believe that you would have answered this question in your younger years.
eskimo
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the question is strange. How do I know what I would have been had I not done certain things? I believe that all we have done and seen are what makes us what we are. All our experiances, good and bad.
I regret some things sure but nothing I can do about em now... I figure if I am a saint the rest of my life tho that I might get a little bit shadier spot in hell or a glass of luke warm ice tea every eternity or so.
lazs
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I used "recreational" drugs for many years. On reflection, I don't think it had any effect on. . .. er. . . . . ah . . . . . . What was the question?
GronK
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I tried acid 73 times. I do regret that last time... when I tried to fly off the roof of my house... was a rough landing
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Originally posted by lazs2
the question is strange. How do I know what I would have been had I not done certain things? I believe that all we have done and seen are what makes us what we are. All our experiances, good and bad.
I regret some things sure but nothing I can do about em now... I figure if I am a saint the rest of my life tho that I might get a little bit shadier spot in hell or a glass of luke warm ice tea every eternity or so.
lazs
Certainly you can only guess. You most likely would be a somewhat different person had you experienced less booze & drugs and more of whatever else you think that you may have done in its place.
It’s kind of like guessing if your life would have been better had you chosen a different career. Your career is part of who you are, but after awhile many folks realize that they didn’t choose a career that suited them very well. After gaining some life experience through age, they can only guess that a different career would have been better for them. Quite possibly they would have ended up living in a different town, married someone else or experience a major random tragedy. All of these possibilities are beside the point however.
It would be fair for some folks to say had they not relied on booze & drugs for thrills they probably would have sought adrenaline thrills through speed in cars, skies, etc.
Basically, did your experiences with booze & drugs do more harm than good? Without booze & drugs would you most likely have chosen other destructive thrills?
eskimo
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if by changing my past, my present would be different - I will live with the choices I made in the past as I am extremely happy with the present
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The way I drink I dont consider it destructive. Im a friendly drunk. The best way for me to drink is stick to beer and...
A.Start early..around noon
B.Eat all day...summer cookout type of thing.
C.Be on your feet doing something...horseshoes, volleyball
D.Drink with friends..who drink like you do(No fun having a sober guy around while yer wasted)
E.About 3 hours before you plan on going home(around 9pm lets say) switch over to water, or atleast alternate.
I can put away a case or better easy on a summer afternoon at a bud's house. And wake up feeling fine.
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Originally posted by Eagler
if by changing my past, my present would be different - I will live with the choices I made in the past as I am extremely happy with the present
My wife and I met by pure chance, minor changes in my life might have prevented that chance meeting. My daughters are exactly who they are because a particular one of my sperm met my wife’s egg at exactly a particular moment. Had we done our thing even seconds earlier, we could have ended up with completely different children. I certainly wouldn’t trade my wife or kids for anything.
This is, however, not the point! Set all of these possibilities aside and look at the question isolated from non-direct effects. Even if you met your wife while you were high at a party, ignore it and assume the same would have happened. Even if you were hospitalized after a drunken accident at which time they discovered and removed a tumor that ultimately saved you life, ignore it and assume the same would have happened.
Just consider the simpler question: is your life probably better from your experiences with drugs and or booze, or probably worse?
eskimo
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Originally posted by FiLtH
The way I drink I dont consider it destructive. Im a friendly drunk. The best way for me to drink is stick to beer and...
A.Start early..around noon
B.Eat all day...summer cookout type of thing.
C.Be on your feet doing something...horseshoes, volleyball
D.Drink with friends..who drink like you do(No fun having a sober guy around while yer wasted)
E.About 3 hours before you plan on going home(around 9pm lets say) switch over to water, or atleast alternate.
I can put away a case or better easy on a summer afternoon at a bud's house. And wake up feeling fine.
Good answer.
Your age?
eskimo
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My only regret are those things that I didn't do.
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I drink to make other people more interesting.
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"i don't drink to get drunk...i drink to stop the voices in my head"
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Originally posted by eskimo2
Just consider the simpler question: is your life probably better from your experiences with drugs and or booze, or probably worse?
I cannot find a reason why it would be any better without ever drinking. I don't think I've missed anything by drinking occasionally. I can think of many things I would have missed by not drinking, both positive and negative. I think all experince is good. IMO Lizking nailed it.
In case I would have been driving drunk or doing some other stupid things to hurt other people I'd think differently. I cannot think of a reason why I'd feel differently in the future.
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I wouldn't be the person I am today without some of the mistakes I made in the past. The only substance I would go back and never have used would be cigarettes. They are destructive, foul and have a nasty tendency to kill you.
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yep. cigarettes suck...one of those..."what in the hell was i thinking" drugs.
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Interestingly enough I've had to give a good deal of thought to the whole topic after reading "The Unbearable lightness of being"
If nothing else it spends a good bit of time dealing with essentially this question.
I agree wtih Lazs.
I try to learn from my mistakes, but live without regret. The past is static, why worry about what you can not change?
Now if only I could get it to where I'm making the right choices in the present lol.
-Sik
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good book.
an interesting take on it...hadnt quite looked at it that way.
hmm.
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Regrets? I have had a few, but then again, too few to mention.
Actually, like Lizking said, I have some regrets about things I didn't do, more than I have had regrets about things I did do.
About the only thing I regret regarding intake into my body is too much Pepsi. Love the stuff, though I rarely drink the hard stuff anymore. I drink about one Pepsi Edge a day now. Hate diet pop.
I don't drink much beer, probably no more than 2 a week on average.
Never smoked, very happy with that decision.
dago
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Originally posted by Dago
Love the stuff, though I rarely drink the hard stuff anymore.
Mountain Dew?
-Sik
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I didn't buy the good stuff sooner. Life is too short to drink cheap booze. Boone's Farm.... what was I thinking?
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Originally posted by rpm
I didn't buy the good stuff sooner. Life is too short to drink cheap booze. Boone's Farm.... what was I thinking?
They still sell that stuff. I remember it from oh, freshman year in high school.
dago
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Originally posted by Sikboy
Mountain Dew?
-Sik
Regular Pepsi, with all the sugar and caffeine.
Not much of a Dew drinker, but will drink a Sprite once in a while.
dago
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I've probably made every mistake that was afforded to me. But regretting those would mean that I don't like where I've ended up or who I've become.
No regrets here.
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I regret that I got drunk and spilled some beer.
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I regret that pot has gotten so expensive. $400/month is getting old.
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Hell is about to freeze, but I will agree to what Lasz initialy posted: What I did made me what I am... hence, no regrets!
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So it looks like it’s pretty much impossible to separate who you have become from your experiences with drugs and booze. (With the exception of one particular acid trip and one person’s cigarette habit…)
eskimo
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Originally posted by eskimo2
So it looks like it’s pretty much impossible to separate who you have become from your experiences with drugs and booze. (With the exception of one particular acid trip and one person’s cigarette habit…)
eskimo
Well, if forced to seperate it... I would guess that I'd have a lot more money, and uhm...
No, it's impossible.
If I have any regrets, it might be that drugs didn't bring me crashing down a lot sooner. And if it didn't happen at all, I'd probably be spending the rest of my life as a pretty messed up person and not even realize it. It might even be fair to say that drugs saved my life.
Having gone through it now, it's easy to look back and see that all of that stuff is a complete waste of time. But it needed to be done.
Hhm... I can't figure out how to explain this.
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Just thought of a quote by Winston Churchill. One day he was accused of being drunk by a female member of parliament in the UK. His answer was brilliant he said something like , 'In the morning I will be sober, you Madan, will still be ugly'
Comebacks dont get better than that.
Me, I drink occassionally and enjoy it.
I'm trying to give up the studmuffins. If there was one thing I would change, it's the day I went near a cigarette for the first time. But like someone said there's no point dwelling in the past.
Never touched harder drugs and never intend on doing so.
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Originally posted by Nash
Well, if forced to seperate it... I would guess that I'd have a lot more money, and uhm...
No, it's impossible.
If I have any regrets, it might be that drugs didn't bring me crashing down a lot sooner. And if it didn't happen at all, I'd probably be spending the rest of my life as a pretty messed up person and not even realize it. It might even be fair to say that drugs saved my life.
Having gone through it now, it's easy to look back and see that all of that stuff is a complete waste of time. But it needed to be done.
Hhm... I can't figure out how to explain this.
No, I think that was pretty good.
eskimo
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I drank like a cossack every Friday and Saturday night, from 15 to 20 yrs. old. Then I just stopped, guess I just wasn't going out so much anymore. I neither regret nor miss it... i'm 30 now and just drink while dining outside with the wife and friends, in fact, at home or alone I sorta dislike alcohol, even wine or beer. Tastes better in company.
Smoking legal or illegal stuff just never appealed to me... or maybe I just was spending it all in booze :)
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Smoked from 19 to 29... then I quit for two years! Started smoking again a year ago ...
I wish I had never started smoking!! I don't care if it changes who I am now, I would almost sell my soul to go back to that day I became a regular smoker and change it.
Don't do any illegal drugs and rarely drink nowadays. No regrets there.
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I'm a cocaine addict, I haven't used it in 14 years but I do believe that it is only 1 small step away from me again if I ever tried it again. I started with pot, moved to speed, then on to herion and cocaine. I am 40 years old now and I missed out on my prime years through high school, I was too wasted to remember much and the only sober times I had between 1978 and 1990 was when I went to jail for drug related charges. To say I regret my drug use now is an understatement but it's impossible to know what may have become if they hadn't played such a large part of my life. I was the first in my family not to go to college...hell I was expelled from high school for dealing when I was a sophomore... but you play the hand you're dealt and I try to not look back at the old times and concentrate on my future, I'm married (10 years) with 2 great kids, run my own business and have a group of friends that stuck with me through all the crap, letdowns, lies and broken promises that I made to them over the years. For that I'm a very lucky soul.
DaPup
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sig material:D
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i'll let you know after i'm finished with them.
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All my regrets come from ****ing my life up without booze and drugs, lol.
Having a druggy alcaholic dad, made me a tad antidrug/booze as a kid.
I dont blame the drugs and booze now, I know it was him and his apathy for life that gave him his problem.
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even if booz had wrecked my life, the effect it has on woman would make it worth it.
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Tell you what I had about a 9 year run of partying during the mid 80's to the mid 90's. During that time I smoked like a train, drank like a fish and tried to bone everything in sight. There were many regrets. But the thing that everyone is missing is the "God" factor. Do things really happen by chance or is there a plan that was laid out and we are just following along. Alot of us would agree that we did some stupid watermelon way back then but would we really want to change the person that we have become. Sure maybe some of us would say "yes I would change everything" take for example the stories that Da Pup and skernsk have told us. Sounds like they would like to change a few things but maybe all of what they were talking about was just leading up to this moment when they related their story. Who knows maybe someone read it and it helped them with there lives.
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The only regret I have is for those who were affected by my behaviour. We are the sum total of our experience and it took what it took to get me where I am today. Wondering if I would be richer, smarter or saner had I comported myself differently is a wasted effort.
I have no moral problem at all with booze or drugs or those that choose to use them and am, in fact, a proponent of decriminalization of all drugs.
Since the last Saturday of October, 1985 I have not wound up in the booking room, the emergency room or naked in Tijuana. I'm not endangering the public at large by being among them in an impaired state.
I have been able to achieve things in sobriety that would not have been even remotely possible for the individual I was for the twenty years prior. I'd kind of like to keep it that way.
Also state your age and how you believe that you would have answered this question in your younger years.
A. Old enough to have been at the Haight for the Summer of Love.
B. Rock On.
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Clean for 15 years now.
I'd have to say life is better in some ways. For example; I have experiences that I could use to catch my kids when they strayed.
Worse in other ways. I think I got kindof a late start at responsible adulthood.
It's all good though. Life is what you call it at the moment.
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17 years here. time spent loaded was mostly lost. I didn't spend it sober tho so have no point of reference. Like before I had a heart valve put in.. my doc asked me how my heart felt... How the hell would I know? compared to what? I don't know what anyone elses heart feels like.
It's fair to say that I am a risk taker and thrillseeker.. that wouldn't have been any different. My relations with women are about the same in that I am no more willing to comprimise or change behavior to suit them.
I understand what nash is saying but think that all of us addicts find some harmful outlet.
My point is that my risk taking behavior is what I am. The drugs didn't affect that. Age has slowed me slightly but I never seriously ever thought I would have reached this age.
I would not have led a quiet life devoted to a wife and family tho no matter what.
lazs