Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts
Friday, September 06, 2013
Flashback
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Sheesh. Someone, or several someones, partook of Vitamin A way, way more than was good for them.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
No Truer Words.....
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This song always gives me pause and causes me to reflect.
But the last stanza - wow. A little part of it in everyone. Isn't that so true? Most of us have some sort of addictive or compulsive behavior, whether it's cigarettes, booze, gambling, or some other vice. I've sure had my share of vices and the last one - eating - I just cannot seem to control. Granted, it's not heroin addiction by any means, but it's a little part of it in me, and I do understand. After all my surgeries and procedures involving opioids for pain control I can tell you it's probably a damn good thing I never got into the *ahem* recreational use of said drugs. I know I've got addictive tendencies, and while the truckers' drug has it's charms (I'm being sarcastic here), and blow for your nose was almost a social requirement at one point - they can't hold a candle to the derivatives of the poppy.
But every junkie's like a settin' sun. That phrase right there is the coup de grace on several levels. Everybody has their own light - talents, skills, personalities - an individual beacon that drug addiction dims and eventually puts out. And they go out brightly as well - burning themselves out, fighting society with their denial and hiding their pain, refusing help. In a flaming nosedive, they extinguish themselves.
I've made my past no secret. I and several friends have managed to avoid that fiery crash. One of them and I have discussed this at length, and we feel like we made it through the fire. Plus, on the other side, we found each other and discovered why we were friends in the first place. Our relationship is the stronger for it. We are both in pain for those still on the other side of that fire - maybe they just toke up a little, or they're still methheads, or whatever. The divide exists because they are trapped in their delusions, and consider us some sort of traitor or similar. They are the ones who are living their lives the way they want, and are free because of it. We, on the other hand, are sellouts to the man, or something. Whatever it takes to continue consuming that drug without admitting to the logical disconnect that they aren't free, they are in thrall to the drug and all that goes with it - the societal dismissals by the so called upper crust plus the acceptance by the dregs - those who use and deal, the continual lack of money the associated problems with obtaining more to get their fix - theft or prostitution, their poor health and so much more.
There aren't as many of the heads left anymore. They keep dying off far faster than my clean and normal compadres.
And every time I hear Neil sing this song, all of these thoughts rush through my head. I remember.
This song always gives me pause and causes me to reflect.
I've seen the needleOf course, when Neil Young wrote and first performed Needle and the Damage Done the drug culture hadn't really been exposed to meth (or crank) or for that matter cocaine. Those iconic drugs would come later. He was writing about heroin, injected by needle, and mourning the loss of fellow musicians. The first part of the song sets the tone - how he'd seen the damage done, hit the city and how his fellow musicians kept dying, even after some success. Milk blood to keep from running out - the lengths junkies go to make sure they can get high again.
and the damage done
A little part of it in everyone
But every junkie's
like a settin' sun.
But the last stanza - wow. A little part of it in everyone. Isn't that so true? Most of us have some sort of addictive or compulsive behavior, whether it's cigarettes, booze, gambling, or some other vice. I've sure had my share of vices and the last one - eating - I just cannot seem to control. Granted, it's not heroin addiction by any means, but it's a little part of it in me, and I do understand. After all my surgeries and procedures involving opioids for pain control I can tell you it's probably a damn good thing I never got into the *ahem* recreational use of said drugs. I know I've got addictive tendencies, and while the truckers' drug has it's charms (I'm being sarcastic here), and blow for your nose was almost a social requirement at one point - they can't hold a candle to the derivatives of the poppy.
But every junkie's like a settin' sun. That phrase right there is the coup de grace on several levels. Everybody has their own light - talents, skills, personalities - an individual beacon that drug addiction dims and eventually puts out. And they go out brightly as well - burning themselves out, fighting society with their denial and hiding their pain, refusing help. In a flaming nosedive, they extinguish themselves.
I've made my past no secret. I and several friends have managed to avoid that fiery crash. One of them and I have discussed this at length, and we feel like we made it through the fire. Plus, on the other side, we found each other and discovered why we were friends in the first place. Our relationship is the stronger for it. We are both in pain for those still on the other side of that fire - maybe they just toke up a little, or they're still methheads, or whatever. The divide exists because they are trapped in their delusions, and consider us some sort of traitor or similar. They are the ones who are living their lives the way they want, and are free because of it. We, on the other hand, are sellouts to the man, or something. Whatever it takes to continue consuming that drug without admitting to the logical disconnect that they aren't free, they are in thrall to the drug and all that goes with it - the societal dismissals by the so called upper crust plus the acceptance by the dregs - those who use and deal, the continual lack of money the associated problems with obtaining more to get their fix - theft or prostitution, their poor health and so much more.
There aren't as many of the heads left anymore. They keep dying off far faster than my clean and normal compadres.
And every time I hear Neil sing this song, all of these thoughts rush through my head. I remember.
Saturday, January 01, 2011
New Year's Resolution
It's pretty easy - I've found that resolving to do things like lose weight seem to be a losing proposition for me. I used to drink quite a bit of diet pop, mostly Diet Pepsi. It used to be no big deal, but in the past couple years it has apparently affected me more than I realized.
Furosemide - generic Lasix. I'm supposed to take it in the mornings. However, it and driving don't mix. When the drug hit's it's stride, I can go every five minutes. This does not work well while driving. OK, so why don't I take it in the evening?
It can last over five hours. Let's say my day is done at 6pm. I ingest my dose. It hits in an hour or so. I can't sleep until after eleven or twelve. I get up at four or five. This, too, does not work.
So, by the end of the week, my toes looked like sausages and my feet and ankles were swollen. Enough to feel uncomfortably tight in my shoes. Clothes didn't fit well. My hands were puffy. For some reason, more on my right side than the left. Can we say COPD? I'd feel pressure on my chest - big time. I'd double down on my doses on weekends - two in the morning and maybe even another during the afternoon. Which meant my weekends are spent doing just what it sounds like, and lots of it. Not much else got done. Sometimes two days wasn't enough and I'd have to take off some work to get drained down.
Perhaps it was the sodium in the pop causing me to retain water? I decided to switch to tea so I'd still get my fix of caffeine over the Christmas break. I was gonna be at Sis's place, where tea is the primary beverage.
I can now report that I've been able to see the large veins in my hands all week. My feet look bony as in the past - even the right one. Even my ankles are smaller. The pressure in my chest - greatly reduced.
And just as an aside - I always feel pressure in my chest, so don't be telling me to get help immediately if not before. I also have frequent chest pain. You wanna know why? Get your brisket chopped in two and pasted back together. Even after it all healed, it still hurts. My cardiologist admitted that would affect me for the rest of my life - it was normal. Especially if I do something strenuous. I drive a specialized flatbed rig. I deal with boomers, chains, strap ratchets and a cheater bar every day. Massaging my scar helps.
But there is no sense in retaining all that water. I feel better already. This resolution is gonna be easy.
Furosemide - generic Lasix. I'm supposed to take it in the mornings. However, it and driving don't mix. When the drug hit's it's stride, I can go every five minutes. This does not work well while driving. OK, so why don't I take it in the evening?
It can last over five hours. Let's say my day is done at 6pm. I ingest my dose. It hits in an hour or so. I can't sleep until after eleven or twelve. I get up at four or five. This, too, does not work.
So, by the end of the week, my toes looked like sausages and my feet and ankles were swollen. Enough to feel uncomfortably tight in my shoes. Clothes didn't fit well. My hands were puffy. For some reason, more on my right side than the left. Can we say COPD? I'd feel pressure on my chest - big time. I'd double down on my doses on weekends - two in the morning and maybe even another during the afternoon. Which meant my weekends are spent doing just what it sounds like, and lots of it. Not much else got done. Sometimes two days wasn't enough and I'd have to take off some work to get drained down.
Perhaps it was the sodium in the pop causing me to retain water? I decided to switch to tea so I'd still get my fix of caffeine over the Christmas break. I was gonna be at Sis's place, where tea is the primary beverage.
I can now report that I've been able to see the large veins in my hands all week. My feet look bony as in the past - even the right one. Even my ankles are smaller. The pressure in my chest - greatly reduced.
And just as an aside - I always feel pressure in my chest, so don't be telling me to get help immediately if not before. I also have frequent chest pain. You wanna know why? Get your brisket chopped in two and pasted back together. Even after it all healed, it still hurts. My cardiologist admitted that would affect me for the rest of my life - it was normal. Especially if I do something strenuous. I drive a specialized flatbed rig. I deal with boomers, chains, strap ratchets and a cheater bar every day. Massaging my scar helps.
But there is no sense in retaining all that water. I feel better already. This resolution is gonna be easy.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Wow, Lookit The Bales!
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Another news report showed the authorities burning the pile - and I couldn't help myself - there was a time when being downwind would have been a dream come true.
All joking aside - the War On Drugs is doomed to failure as long as there are people like I used to be consuming the products available. No amount of property seizures or major drug busts are gonna stop the flow. We can argue about border security with the attendant issues of illegal immigration, the increasing power and boldness of the drug cartels, and possible smuggling of terrorists all we want, but until we control our urge to consume what they are smuggling - we are destined to have this albatross around our collective necks forever.
So what is the solution? I fear that like so many divisive issues there is no actual single solution. There is no black or white - only shades of gray. Clearly the path we are on isn't working. Prison sentences for minor drug offenses higher than violent crime? Something wrong there. Confiscating property right and left? Yeah, the LEOs like that - they get all sorts of tacticool urban warrior goodies just in case they need to go to war with the populace they are sworn to protect and serve. Yeah, that's not quite working so well either. Severe punitive measures sound good for a political sound bite (Vote for Me! I'm NOT soft on crime!).
Well, how about decriminalization? Or making certain drugs legal? After all, we allow alcohol - and pot isn't as "bad" as booze, right?
The moral equivalence argument really doesn't work because after all, booze is based on just one drug - alcohol. You can get the same effect from drinking just about any booze - it just might take more or less to achieve the same level of drunkenness. Drugs are decidedly different. Beer equals pot, but Everclear doesn't equal heroin or meth. Marijuana is a gateway drug - more often than not leading to harder abuses. Another argument I've heard is that natural selection would eventually win out - the drug abusers would kill themselves off and help clean up the gene pool. Yeah, like that's gonna happen in these days of entitlement programs run amok? "Free" health care? Who do you think the health care bureaucracy is gonna want to save - your grandma, who has lived a full life (not going be able to vote for much longer anyways, except in Chicago), or this poor, misunderstood self abusing youngster over here (who, when not stoned, votes)? Plus, this poor unfortunate can't afford their drugs. We'll have to make sure they get a "free" supply. It's a right, right? That's what America is all about, right? Compassion for our fellow citizens who are downtrodden? That's in the Constitution somewhere I'm sure (/snark). Cuz that's what America is all about. No, decriminalization or legalization of drugs would just shift our problems to other areas, not solving anything.
No, the problem is cultural. We will always have drug addicts and alcoholics. There will always be a percentage of people susceptible to addictions. But that doesn't mean our culture should glorify drug abuse - but it does. We can argue and obfuscate all we want, but our cultural problem is a lack of morals problem. The Christian in me cries out that everyone should get back to God - but that is something the government cannot do for us. However, the government does not need to attack Christian ideas, either. We do a lot of wondering what the Founding Fathers wanted. It's pretty clear they were quite the religious bunch. It was the idea that government might support one religion over another that had them fired up - not that government had to actively discourage the whole Christian religion. Christianity does happen to have several moral guidelines that help societies survive.
Does morality require a religion? I don't think so. Anecdotes don't equal evidence, but some of the most moral people I know are atheists. Can we force people to be moral? I think we all know the answer to that. It's voluntary, period. All we can do is try to fight immorality in whatever guise it is in and try to be good examples ourselves.
Until society as a whole sees it that way, we're screwed when it comes to any issue related to morality - which includes using drugs.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
OMG!!! What Does It Meeeeeeeeeaaaaaan!
Sunday, December 06, 2009
A Tune for the "Herbed"
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This is one song that I've always liked (of course) but I knew bupkis about. It's been on XM49 and the local classic rock station lately, so it's on someone's approved playlist. So, I looked it up.
Luckily, Wikipedia comes through again. It's Children of the Sun by Billy Thorpe, released in 1979. Turns out he was Australian. As in, he passed away in 2007 from a massive heart attack. Well, crap - late to the party again. Seems he also scored Star Trek: The Next Generation, Columbo, Eight is Enough and other television shows through his recording and production studio. He even collaborated with Mick Fleetwood on a side project.
He had me at STNG.
It's a cool song - the quirky effects in the opening make it sound like something is wrong with the Mighty Binder - those pops, cracks and sizzles just make the cab feel wrong. Then, we've got the spacey lyrics:
What else do ya need for a spaced out rock song, man? Like, wow!
People of the earth can you hear me
Came a voice from the sky on that magical night
And in the colors of a thousand sunsets
They traveled to the world on a silvery light
The people of the earth stood waiting
Watching as the ships came one by one
Setting fire to the sky as they landed
Carrying to the world children of the sun
Children of the sun
All at once came a sound from the inside
Then a beam made of light hit the ground
Everyone felt the sound of their heartbeat
Every man, every woman, every child
They passed the limits of imagination
Through the door to the world of another time
And on the journey of a thousand lifetimes
With the children of the sun, they started their climb
Children of the sun, children of the sun
No more gravity, nothing holding them down
Floating endlessly, as their ship leaves the ground
Through the walls of time, at the speed of light
Fly the crystal ships on their celestial flight (on their celestial flight)
Children of the sun
Thank you Algore's intertubes for enlightening my brain once again!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The Jeremy Mayfield Controversy
I'm a NASCAR fan. There, I said it. I like the cars turning left mindlessly and endlessly in cars that are a throwback with not much futuristic technology in them.
NASCAR is pretty ruthless when it comes to controlling it's image, marketing, and just about everything else. So, Jeremy Mayfield got caught up in their new drug testing program. Jeremy claimed it was a combination of over the counter and prescription drugs that causes a false positive. The doctor - Dr. David Black of Aegis Sciences Corp., entrusted with the program released a statement claiming that explanation was impossible.
As a result, Jeremy is banned from competition as a driver and as a car owner - since he owns his own team. His wife Shana has taken over his ownership position at the track, and J.J. Yeley is his interim driver. NASCAR has not released any information about what the detected drug was, citing Jeremy's privacy as the reason, rather than HIPAA concerns. Someone did leak that it wasn't steroids.
Here is where it gets hinky for me. There is a comprehensive list of banned substances for crew members, but not for drivers. Jeremy now claims he has not been informed of the substance, either. NASCAR disputes this, claiming they have informed Jeremy of the offensive substance.
NASCAR's secretive ways are not a surprise - they have a tendency to obfuscate when the simple truth would have been far more productive. They claim if Jeremy wants the world to know what the banned substance was, he should report it. He claims he doesn't know. The NASCAR online and talk communities are pretty much aligned against Jeremy - he has been declared guilty. He has been an abrasive personality in the past, and has few friends in the garage. He wasn't happy while he drove for Penske, and was vocal about it. More famously were his allegations of a distracted Ray Evernham, involved in an affair with his young female driver Erin Crocker. Evernham switched Mayfield's successful team with the failing team of Kasey Kahne, and it didn't work, particularly with the owner away and playing. Jeremy alleged Evernham was having an affair with a female driver he had employed. Since Crocker was the only female Evernham driver at the time, that sort of narrowed it down. So, Jeremy has burned some bridges.
It's been a few days since college chemistry, but I do understand chemical receptors and gas chromotography and mass spectroscopy - which are what a lab uses to detect drugs. But, Diandra of Stock Car Science has a post up explaining it all, and why she supports the idea that NASCAR should make the driver's list of banned substances at least available to the drivers, and that they should release the information about the drug Jeremy is accused of taking. Go and read if you are interested at all, she does a fine job of explaining everything.
NASCAR is pretty ruthless when it comes to controlling it's image, marketing, and just about everything else. So, Jeremy Mayfield got caught up in their new drug testing program. Jeremy claimed it was a combination of over the counter and prescription drugs that causes a false positive. The doctor - Dr. David Black of Aegis Sciences Corp., entrusted with the program released a statement claiming that explanation was impossible.
As a result, Jeremy is banned from competition as a driver and as a car owner - since he owns his own team. His wife Shana has taken over his ownership position at the track, and J.J. Yeley is his interim driver. NASCAR has not released any information about what the detected drug was, citing Jeremy's privacy as the reason, rather than HIPAA concerns. Someone did leak that it wasn't steroids.
Here is where it gets hinky for me. There is a comprehensive list of banned substances for crew members, but not for drivers. Jeremy now claims he has not been informed of the substance, either. NASCAR disputes this, claiming they have informed Jeremy of the offensive substance.
NASCAR's secretive ways are not a surprise - they have a tendency to obfuscate when the simple truth would have been far more productive. They claim if Jeremy wants the world to know what the banned substance was, he should report it. He claims he doesn't know. The NASCAR online and talk communities are pretty much aligned against Jeremy - he has been declared guilty. He has been an abrasive personality in the past, and has few friends in the garage. He wasn't happy while he drove for Penske, and was vocal about it. More famously were his allegations of a distracted Ray Evernham, involved in an affair with his young female driver Erin Crocker. Evernham switched Mayfield's successful team with the failing team of Kasey Kahne, and it didn't work, particularly with the owner away and playing. Jeremy alleged Evernham was having an affair with a female driver he had employed. Since Crocker was the only female Evernham driver at the time, that sort of narrowed it down. So, Jeremy has burned some bridges.
It's been a few days since college chemistry, but I do understand chemical receptors and gas chromotography and mass spectroscopy - which are what a lab uses to detect drugs. But, Diandra of Stock Car Science has a post up explaining it all, and why she supports the idea that NASCAR should make the driver's list of banned substances at least available to the drivers, and that they should release the information about the drug Jeremy is accused of taking. Go and read if you are interested at all, she does a fine job of explaining everything.
Friday, August 29, 2008
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