A lot of the advice here is generally fairly supportive of having a frank discussion with your son, which I also support. I should also mention that my take on drugs is that they’re a wonderful servant, terrible ruler. That said, I’ve had at least some very positive life changing and pleasurable experiences (primarily with psycho-actives) that lead me to having a general support for controlled and intentional usage.
Note: This is primarily meant to be read by your son, not sure how helpful for you to read it is. If you’d like to talk more, dm me.
There’s another side of this that I feel differently about / haven’t seen as much emphasis on and it comes from the quote, “Why not try heroin if the purpose of life is to optimize happiness assuming heroin provides proportionally more even if for a shorter amount of time?”
Sorry for speaking this frankly, but this is fucking stupid. I’m assuming that you have the privilege of not having buried any close friends/loved ones who have OD’d, because if “maximizing happiness” is the end here, who’s hurt when someone dies? If the deceased is dying from heroine then it’s possible (no promise) that it’s a pleasurable experience, but what about everyone around them? How many highs would outweigh the loss of a friend or the pain of being reminded that a person you once knew and loved dearly will never be there again? Is that optimum happiness?
Further, if you haven’t experienced this (I’ll say the death of any close relation) then you have no baseline for being able to measure the relative cost this could have. If you can now recognize this uncertainty, then hopefully you realize that your equation to determining whether this is a wise action is lacking very critical data that could inform you that this is an unwise decision.
I believe that the reason this stings for me so much and is the main point that I’m getting at here, is that if this is the line of thinking to justify doing one drug, what’s the proof that the next drug will be better? I want to point out the fact that “substance abuse counselor” is an occupation; as in, there is a systematic response to combat this feature of what people can unfortunately fall into, and unfortunately may never come back from. I’m making another assumption that, fortunately, you’re likely not hearing a whole lot of experiences of current addicts.
Gwern was mentioned, someone I have a lot of respect for (in part because of how well researched he is.) An article that might’ve been encountered is this one, and a quote from that; “But a low rate of adverse events is still a rate.” To re-emphasize, I’m generally supportive of responsible drug use; but this reasoning does not strike me as responsible.
At the very least, if this is a decision that can alter the rest of your life (let’s assume 70 years), is taking a slow on-ramp (10 years?) to experimenting with substances that much of a loss? Taking a chance of losing these 10 years of enjoyment in exchange for not becoming helplessly addicted for the rest of your life.
Again, if you think you can easily kick the habit, please update your beliefs by talking to an addiction counselor, a current addict, past addict, etc.; because though you may be feeling confidence that it won’t be a big problem, imagine the change in your confidence when you have a problem that never leaves you. How inspired will you be when every day you wake up and realize that tomorrow you’ll still have this obstacle in front of you? I’d invite you to look at the Alcoholics Anonymous coin design and that you’d get a badge for 24 hours of sobriety; to emphasize, that is something worth celebrating. Another bet I’d ask you to make, what would you think is the distribution of the ordering of those (and the consequent x year) coins? I’d imagine there’s a many more 24 hour coins than 1 year being sold.
Related to this, you may be reading reports of people who are having relatively good interactions with drugs, but how many of the bad or terrible experiences are being written about? Enough people I’ve met who’s struggled with addiction have had one thing to say about it, “don’t.” That’s enough evidence for me to be hesitant to try any substance I’m not familiar with.
I’m incredibly surprised that your dad has handled this the way he has. It’s very difficult for me to imagine having a conversation this accepting of a view of that would violate my parent’s (or many of my friends) normal worldview so much, I hope you appreciate him for that.
Finally, I want to point out again that I’m acting on one piece of evidence (which is limited in itself) but I think the potential downsides are absolutely worth stressing over. I also hope that you do find your way and are able to develop a working relationship with any substance you experiment with (sugar is something I particularly need to be careful with, for example.) Best of luck to you, sincerely.
A lot of the advice here is generally fairly supportive of having a frank discussion with your son, which I also support. I should also mention that my take on drugs is that they’re a wonderful servant, terrible ruler. That said, I’ve had at least some very positive life changing and pleasurable experiences (primarily with psycho-actives) that lead me to having a general support for controlled and intentional usage.
Note: This is primarily meant to be read by your son, not sure how helpful for you to read it is. If you’d like to talk more, dm me.
There’s another side of this that I feel differently about / haven’t seen as much emphasis on and it comes from the quote, “Why not try heroin if the purpose of life is to optimize happiness assuming heroin provides proportionally more even if for a shorter amount of time?”
Sorry for speaking this frankly, but this is fucking stupid. I’m assuming that you have the privilege of not having buried any close friends/loved ones who have OD’d, because if “maximizing happiness” is the end here, who’s hurt when someone dies? If the deceased is dying from heroine then it’s possible (no promise) that it’s a pleasurable experience, but what about everyone around them? How many highs would outweigh the loss of a friend or the pain of being reminded that a person you once knew and loved dearly will never be there again? Is that optimum happiness?
Further, if you haven’t experienced this (I’ll say the death of any close relation) then you have no baseline for being able to measure the relative cost this could have. If you can now recognize this uncertainty, then hopefully you realize that your equation to determining whether this is a wise action is lacking very critical data that could inform you that this is an unwise decision.
I believe that the reason this stings for me so much and is the main point that I’m getting at here, is that if this is the line of thinking to justify doing one drug, what’s the proof that the next drug will be better? I want to point out the fact that “substance abuse counselor” is an occupation; as in, there is a systematic response to combat this feature of what people can unfortunately fall into, and unfortunately may never come back from. I’m making another assumption that, fortunately, you’re likely not hearing a whole lot of experiences of current addicts.
Gwern was mentioned, someone I have a lot of respect for (in part because of how well researched he is.) An article that might’ve been encountered is this one, and a quote from that; “But a low rate of adverse events is still a rate.” To re-emphasize, I’m generally supportive of responsible drug use; but this reasoning does not strike me as responsible.
At the very least, if this is a decision that can alter the rest of your life (let’s assume 70 years), is taking a slow on-ramp (10 years?) to experimenting with substances that much of a loss? Taking a chance of losing these 10 years of enjoyment in exchange for not becoming helplessly addicted for the rest of your life.
Again, if you think you can easily kick the habit, please update your beliefs by talking to an addiction counselor, a current addict, past addict, etc.; because though you may be feeling confidence that it won’t be a big problem, imagine the change in your confidence when you have a problem that never leaves you. How inspired will you be when every day you wake up and realize that tomorrow you’ll still have this obstacle in front of you? I’d invite you to look at the Alcoholics Anonymous coin design and that you’d get a badge for 24 hours of sobriety; to emphasize, that is something worth celebrating. Another bet I’d ask you to make, what would you think is the distribution of the ordering of those (and the consequent x year) coins? I’d imagine there’s a many more 24 hour coins than 1 year being sold.
Related to this, you may be reading reports of people who are having relatively good interactions with drugs, but how many of the bad or terrible experiences are being written about? Enough people I’ve met who’s struggled with addiction have had one thing to say about it, “don’t.” That’s enough evidence for me to be hesitant to try any substance I’m not familiar with.
I’m incredibly surprised that your dad has handled this the way he has. It’s very difficult for me to imagine having a conversation this accepting of a view of that would violate my parent’s (or many of my friends) normal worldview so much, I hope you appreciate him for that.
Finally, I want to point out again that I’m acting on one piece of evidence (which is limited in itself) but I think the potential downsides are absolutely worth stressing over. I also hope that you do find your way and are able to develop a working relationship with any substance you experiment with (sugar is something I particularly need to be careful with, for example.) Best of luck to you, sincerely.