i’ve decided to quit it with the drugs (including alcohol) completely.
this is only until humanity has achieved the modest revolutionary goals of abolishing corporate advertising worldwide and establishing a global liberal media system of acceptable brilliance, so not too long at all really.
then i may, or may not, party like the biggest arsehole in the world for several months.
after roughly four or five months of no drugs and a two stubby limit on any one day (abstaining completely most of the days i think), i decided that i might as well quit completely and stopped drinking fully a month back (in solidarity with a contemporary who aims to quit for 6 months).
being sure that this is a good decision that i can and should adhere to, the publication of this resolution will mean that my huge readership can hold me accountable, my fear of the public humiliation associated with being a known shit-talker hardening my resolve.
the reasons for this decision are many and one.
i think ‘partying’ (or the more mild indulgence of drinking while feasting) is in extremely bad taste as the competitive-state-capitalist-economic-system that fills our glass is the same one that locks people down into poverty-death and steadily works to destroy our planet’s ecosystem and all life in it. (while most of the ‘partying’ i did was more just getting fucked-up as an escape, not positively enjoying myself, i did, disgustingly, manage to enjoy myself sometimes, but whichever it was, it was either bad taste or pathetic)
being a vegan for environmental/sustainability reasons (among others, namely not wanting to torture and murder things for no good reason like a psychopath) and drinking a shitload of booze (with all the manufacturing, packaging and shipping) is stupidly contradictory.
i shouldn’t damage/needlessly-endanger the physical and mental health i need to do something positive with my life — it seems so many young people of the ‘left’ fuck themselves with drug use under the excuse of emotional problems, it doesn’t help, and if i can escape that sort of self-abuse, then i should.
i thought that perhaps i could be less surly and summon slightly more enthusiasm for explaining myself (which could be done more articulately and with slightly less spitting and dribbling) if i wasn’t constantly hungover, drunk or somehow retarded by psychoactive shit.
etc. etc.
the evolution of my thinking about drugs (including alcohol) was something like this:
for a long time i found/thought drugs to be helpful relief from the troubles i was having coping with the responsibility of being a good-adult-global-citizen in a totally fucked world: the sooky-suicidal-privileged-westerner response i had to the demands of getting real.
i was also under a lot of pressure to change my understanding of the world — while i was experiencing difficulties accepting the life i saw as necessary i was also resisting outside challenges to that necessity — it was a frustrating and difficult time and drugs were an irresistible escape from the intense feelings.
as i matured emotionally and won taxing battles for self-sovereignty over other contenders (the state psycho-bullies, my parents, the judging ghost of adult society that existed inside my head, etc.), my drug habits continued because there was still the depressing future of repeated incarceration to be used as an excuse for use.
i thought i could cut myself some slack by thinking things like ‘i’m going to be locked up again soon, i might as well enjoy the time i have’ and ‘there is nothing else i want to do in this period of waiting, i might as well get fucked up and not feel so bad’ but awareness of the negatives stated previously were slowly rendering the experience of getting fucked-up unpleasant, i found myself to be disgusting and weak, but i tried to ignore that finding.
in attempts to rationalise my selfish habits, i even tried thinking that my continued drug use was a good way to make the point to straight-edgers that quitting drugs alone doesn’t change the world, it normally just means better record collections for idiots or more rubbish ‘revolutionary art’ that fits into capitalism with astounding comfort (of course no straight-edgers would know of me, much less care).
shooting heroin a few times for the first time and finding it to be barely pleasurable bullshit made me think about what i was trying to get out of drug use — as i came up with the reasons for why heroin was shit i was forced to begin to accept that they applied equally to all my established habits.
(i tried heroin out of curiosity and convenience mostly (my friend sorted out all the bullshit business of getting it and knew all the logistical shit you need to know from experience), but i also felt assured that i was too committed to what i wanted to do with my life to be at risk of disappearing into drug addiction — maybe that raised the question that if i was so committed, why did i jeopardise myself continuously through my other habits?)
it all came to a head one night when i had a few warm up drinks of cask red and carbonated cola, took a bunch of mushrooms and headed off with some contemporaries to one of the most horrible of hipster parties.
i sat there for a while, watching things, i guess i was trying to ‘party’, but i only managed to become thoroughly disgusted in myself.
i threw the rest of my sickly booze into a dark corner of the back yard, left the party and marched home thinking about what i should be doing instead of drugs-next-to-happily-privileged-arsehole-fuckwits (in between being impressed by some trees, disgusted by others and hating myself for being so judgemental about trees when all they were doing was trying to live).
i got home and wrote bullshit, the ink on paper looking a lot more interesting than usual, then i got up in the morning and set out the guidelines to my new life of non-pathetical, disgustingless strength-having.
i had planned a camping trip through the northern territory which would likely include a lot of drinking so i decided that after this trip i would quit getting drunk and doing drugs (it would be my last dance in the brewery, so to speak).
as it turned out, when i got back to melbourne two of my contemporaries were leaving the country soon, so my arm was twisted and i joined them on a amphetamine-fuelled bender for a couple of days, what did a few extra days matter really?
anyway, the point of this story is, then i quit recreational drugs and drunking (limiting my drinking to two drinks a day, which excluded the possibility of drunkenness).
i’m currently considering giving up interacting with others in a mode that glosses over my all-consuming disappointment and broken-heartedness with the way we are allowing humanity to go, basically misrepresenting myself in a way that makes it possible for others to enjoy my company, allowing my stupid ego the satisfaction of being liked, as this is surely akin to ‘partying’ and probably some kind of drug. (this sentence is only a half-joke)
