Drugs = insatisfaction with life?

[Farnaby]

Hi everyone!

I was just thinking about this today and asking myself if taking drugs is a symptom of being insatisfied with one's life. I'm not talking about addiction, which is of course a crutch and a way to escape from problems, but more about people who have a healthy life style and like to have a different experience now and then but don't make a habit out of it. 

Personally, I would say that when done in moderation some drugs can even be useful tools and give you a therapeutic experience. I used to smoke weed almost daily and that definitely wasn't good for me, but I wouldn't say the same about the few times I've tripped on mushrooms over the course of 7 years or so. The one time I took MDMA I found it quite therapeutic as well. However, I'd like to know what other people think about this  

[Forestluv]

4 minutes ago, Farnaby said:

people who have a healthy life style and like to have a different experience now and then but don't make a habit out of it. 

Is traveling to foreign countries dissatisfaction with life? In a sense, we could say that someone who travels from Canada to S. America to learn Spanish and experience Spanish culture was “dissatisfied” with their life. In this context, if they were “satisfied” with their life, they would have stayed n Canada to keep doing what they were doing?

Similarly, taking action for any new experience would be ‘dissatisfaction’ with one’s life. Training for a marathon, starting a new project, scuba diving, kayaking, reading about history would all be actions motivated by “dissatisfaction” with life.

Part of the fog here, is the conditioning. If someone said “I want to increase my wellness, so I am starting a 30 day yoga program”, society would see this as a “good” thing. Society is conditioned to see this as a good thing. Yet much of society is conditioned to negatively perceive substances. For example, notice how you used the term “drugs”. This has a negative connotation. What if we rephrased the question to “does engaging in amazing activities = dissatisfaction of life?”. . . If someone goes scuba diving, they need the equipment of scuba gear. The scuba gear will allow them to enter a new magnificent underwater realm and a new conscious state. How different is that from using psychedelic gear to enter a new magnificent realm and new conscious state?

To me, it’s about giving oneself a permission slip to explore. Yet of course, one can overdo it. Too much of anything isn’t a good thing. 

[Farnaby]

@Serotoninluv I completely agree with everything you said. 

Like you, I equate substance use in moderation to traveling and other exciting activities. I'm just worried that equating it this way could be a form of self-deception to justify substance use. 

Some people seem to think that if one is truly satisfied (whatever that means) with one's life, they wouldn't need any substance. Personally, I think giving oneself permission to explore is a healthier way of looking at life. 

[Forestluv]

16 minutes ago, Farnaby said:

@Serotoninluv 

Like you, I equate substance use in moderation to traveling and other exciting activities. I'm just worried that equating it this way could be a form of self-deception to justify substance use. 

I think that is a valid concern. Substance use can be very sneaky. And it can be difficult to differentiate between one’s own intuition for personal wellness and “shoulds” that have been imposed by others. For example, imagine someone who vapes cannabis 4x per week. They don’t feel right about it and are beating themself up. Yet is this feeling of ‘not right’ coming from internal intuition of one’s own compass that we are starting to overdo and it is holding us back? Or is this feeling of ‘not right’ coming from societal imposed “shoulds” like vaping cannabis 4x per week means dependency and that you are not being as productive as you should be? 

As a non-substance example: I was conditioned to highly value being productive and I had a very difficult time giving myself permission to just do nothing or have senseless fun. Like I would go to the beach and be self criticizing myself that I should be doing something and I was wasting time. Or if I slept until 11am on a Sunday, I would beat myself up. This was way off balance and didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right because these were unhealthy values conditioned into me. I was able to get beyond this to allow myself ‘do nothing time’ or simply non-productive fun. Yet I got so good at it that I started sleeping in every chance I got and developed a habit of doing nothing that started to become laziness and procrastination. Again, the feeling of ‘this isn’t right’ arose, yet this time it wasn’t from societal rules imposed upon me. Rather, it was my own internal compass of intuition. Kinda like getting lost in a forest and your internal compass just intuitively knows that we are off track and need to re-orient.

[Farnaby]

@Serotoninluv Yes, I think that distinction you make is really important and it's one that I've always struggled to make. What you said about self critizicing resonates a lot with me. I guess the "pendulation" you experienced is a necessary process until you find your personal balance. We usually grow up with too much rigidity or with too little so we have to explore the other polarity for a while to find our centre.

How do you know when it comes from your internal compass of intuition vs. societal conditioning? I find this really difficult, as well as knowing what I feel, what I want, etc. 

[Recursoinominado]

Well, nothing is so good that can't get better...

[Farnaby]

16 hours ago, Recursoinominado said:

Well, nothing is so good that can't get better...

Lol you're right, it's just that I'm often faced with an inner conflict. One part of me says: "you aren't an impulsive person and always try to live a more or less healthy life, nothing wrong with being flexible from time to time" and another part of me says: "that's how the people that end up bad think". 

[Nahm]

18 hours ago, Farnaby said:

 

How do you know when it comes from your internal compass of intuition (Feeling) vs. societal conditioning (Thoughts)? I find this really difficult, as well as knowing what I feel, what I want, (Dreamboard) etc.