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Booze makes me stupid

13:53 / 21.01.03

Reading Cat Jerome's comments in the Weird Is The New Cool thread I've been thinking about how different drugs make me feel different. For example, alcohol makes me feel more stupid, in the 'white-hat-wearing, Abercrombie-buying, football-playing, beer-chugging frat boy' sense. Dope on the other hand make me feel, if anything, smarter. I'm wondering aloud, since I've had a few drinks, does anyone else feel like this?

14:07 / 21.01.03

A few drinks and I don't feel stupid, I feel witty and clever, and frankly I'm not sure that I am stupider - I'm often more energised, sociable and willing to think about things than before. But that's a few. As opposed to the beers I had last night, which were too many, and caused me to do things like assemble a humidifier upside down and wonder why the control panel looked funny.

14:27 / 21.01.03

Anything that makes you feel smarter is probably having the opposite effect as far as those around you are concerned. There are still people about who say that they drive better after they've 'had a few'.

The Natural Way

14:35 / 21.01.03

Not a cliche, then, Unencumbered. I used to write my best essays when I was stoned - all my 1sts emerged out of a haze of pot smoke.

14:40 / 21.01.03

Me too Runce! Both of them!

14:44 / 21.01.03

Well, I did say 'probably'. Although I have to wonder whether your work would have been better, worse or just different if you hadn't been taking anything.

We could play 'what if' forever, though.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:42 / 21.01.03

Strangely enough, I think it's stupidity that makes me drink.

Whisky Priestess

15:58 / 21.01.03

I play better pool when I'm drunk: I'm less stiff in the elbow and more willing to take risks. Booze (the right amount) gives you dash and flair ... too much is more like flash and dare.

16:22 / 21.01.03

I dunno, being a heavy smoker for five years and then givin up feels like a new drug at the mo. I can think coherently again, structure sentances and dont forget words in mid flow. At the moment i'm seein drugs to be like a hand of cards, u just gotta know when to fold.

Pot.

18:25 / 21.01.03

I agree with you about dope. Giving up after years of daily smoking totally gets you wired. Personally, I want to start smoking again because my winter blues seem to have passed (cheers to all who gave me advice about vitamins and stuff - it worked) and I feel a bit too hyper.
Drink tends to get me pissed, it does make me feel stupider but that ain't always a bad thing. After tripping I usually feel saner and more settled for weeks afterwards - I'm probably an exception. I only do it maybe once or twice a year. E's make me feel retarded and the after effects are more than it's worth to me. Charlie does nothing to me. I don't see the point of something that allegedly boosts confidence and self-opinion. Fuck this the list goes on and on.
I like substances but at this stage in my life I'm aware of the ups and downs of all of them. Different people have different reactions to stuff. What's good for me could put someone else in a mental ward or the grave.

19:55 / 21.01.03

I think dope's pretty fucking malign, and enjoys far too much of a reputation as a benign substance in my opinion - it makes people into insufferable bores - a horrible, curtain-closing apathetic drug that is far too friendly to passive, consumerist state of mind for me to feel comfortable using it.

Alcohol, however - I drink to make me feel stupid, to render a nervous disposition indistinct. Which is idiocy in itself, I admit. Pretty malign in it's erosive effect on self-control (especially over the desire to drink) and the fantasies of violence it engenders in me, which has got me into trouble on more than one occasion. Alcohol brings me closer to my working class roots - my grandfather drank a bottle of whiskey a day in retirement until his liver collapsed flooding his body with piss. Christ knows how he afforded it.

My experience with psychedelics has been pretty much negative (see above w/r/t a supposedly nervous disposition) apart from E, which seemed OK but not particularly valuable.

I am increasingly aware that all drugs are pretty much malign and don't offer a great deal in terms of short or long term well-being, but probably have multiple unsung negative effects

Won't stop me drinking tho

06:51 / 22.01.03

E does get off surpising lightly in the social peer group eye in my opinion. No other drug gets you so depressed in the come down and then convinces you its not the drug but something inherently wrong with your life. At the moment i'm telling all my friends to meditate, You can get such a bigger buzz if its the buzz your'e chasing and why go for the effect that comes and goes rather than the one that stays with you perminantly??!?

As for thegiving up pot making you wired drz im right there with you at the moment. For someone who normally gets up at one to be regularly gettin up at half seven without alarm, bright eyed and bushy tailed is a dramatic change.

Play the game by all means just know when to fold.

Pot.

The Natural Way

10:06 / 22.01.03

Unencumbered sounds like my Mum. And true to little boy form, I think I'm going to have to insist on the last word:

I'm not sure the straight bloke's opinion is any kind of objective measure of how much shit's being talked, anyway. He's in a different space, and this is the thing:

maybe dope doesn't make people think more *stupidly* - maybe it just makes them think *differently*.

10:24 / 22.01.03

Shit, the last thing I want is to sound like anybody's mum. I've done my fair share of all manner of drugs and on the whole my experiences have been good. I enjoy a drink as much as (or more than) most. I'm just not convinced that any substance has ever made me significantly better at anything or more interesting.

14:21 / 22.01.03

I think a lot of it's a question of countering negatives. If you're shy and never say anything, and a drink makes you loosen up and start talking, then you have become more interesting. Booze has made you more interesting. There may be other ways to get there but it's still worked.

Or if you're knackered and dozy and not making sense, and you have coffee or speed or whatever to wake you up, then you're effectively becoming cleverer.

23:14 / 22.01.03

Can't say I've ever met a drug I didn't like. For a while there, I tried to settle the more creative vs more stupid question scientifically: by videotaping drug episodes and conversations that seemed profound while they were happening. The results were inconclusive. I was too intrigued by how young I looked then and got too sentimental over my old apartment to pay attention to the conversation.

I will say that the opening effect of drugs wears off after chronic or heavy use. No high quite so peachy as the first one.

23:59 / 22.01.03

If you ever get a job as a daytime television presenter, Fred, wipe those tapes...

07:31 / 23.01.03

I forget words for simple things like scissors and kiwi fruit, without any chemicals on which to lay blame. I don't touch booze or dope or any other 'drug' drug. Dope makes me nervous - mouth moving quicker than brain, but brain retrospectively over-analysing every single word and stressing about it (instead of over-analysing *before* I speak, which is the normal way). And booze makes me sick, immediately.

As for conditions, I'll take that quite literally - I've got bipolar 2 disorder. Upswings make me feel fucking great - make me happier in my body, far more gregarious, make my brain find connections quickly and smoothly, leaping about like a monkey. It's a lot of fun until you start feeling like you're Spud, in the interview scene in Trainspotting.

Downswings make me terse, barely/not able to work up the will to even speak. I have no need to take drugs. I have my own private rollercoaster anyway...