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Isn't the physical addiction to cocaine one of increased tolerance to the drug's effects? That is, not a craving of the drug itself but rather a need to consume larger amounts every time in order to achieve the same result? Seems to me trying cocaine twice wouldn't play into that.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:The issue on the whole (besides a general equivalency argument between the potency of cocaine and chocolate) is that for all the intent and logic behind assuming that one is above being 'taken' by a drug's addiction (in your case, 'too self reflective'), biology can easily short-circuit people's assumed resilience to addiction and leave them as the world's latest casualty to a drug they were positive they had the mental fortitude to resist addiction to.
But all of that also applies to alcohol, and people make that calculated risk every day. Works out for some, not others, just like for cocaine I'd imagine. Alcohol is considerably more dangerous than many drugs that most people would never imagine trying because "it's too risky", but they drink anyway.
I don't believe alcohol is more harmful than cocaine, but I don't think the difference is an order of magnitude greater.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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Quote from an unpublished World Health Organization study from 1995:
quote:"Occasional cocaine use does not typically lead to severe or even minor physical or social problems … a minority of people … use casually for a short or long period, and suffer little or no negative consequences."
posted
Samp, again, if your interpretation of the risks associated with cocaine use are a factor in an unwillingness to try it(others could be a complete lack of interest, hesitancy to spend the money, disinterest in putting those chemicals in your body(as separate from the fear of addiction and one of my other personal reasons for disliking the drug)), then so be it. I'm sure the personal experiences of the people I witnessed around me influenced that decision as well. No one I knew ever overdosed or became addicted. Most did well in school and most eventually stopped using the drug. I know that some people I was acquainted with probably still use cocaine, but I was never as close with those people as my closest friends so I can't make any definitive statements about their cocaine use. I do know that these people are all currently college educated professionals, and in fact are some of the most successful(in a monetary sense) individuals that I went to school with. Obviously there are many factors that go into this, some being the fact that those with the money to do coke regularly in college probably came from wealthy families to start with and may have had an advantage in the job market through family connections, etc...I'm not currently friends with anyone that uses cocaine, and I don't want to give the impression that it was constantly surrounding me, but obviously my experience of the lack of measurable harmful effects of these people's cocaine use led me to be more willing to try it. Had I witnessed lots of horror stories, or even one, it may have changed my view on this matter.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Do you view the risk of physical addiction too great in relation to any perceived positive effects?
Yes. I have seen too many people who believed themselves too "reflective" to become addicted to a substance become easily addicted to something over time. The temporary positive effects of cocaine don't seem to me to be worth the very heavy potential downsides; for the same reason, I'm not remotely interested in skydiving.
quote:I don't think the difference is an order of magnitude greater.
I do. IIRC, cocaine is indeed an order of magnitude more addictive than alcohol, but still less addictive than heroin. I'm curious whether Danzig decided that heroin was too dangerous for him to dabble in.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Xavier: I don't believe alcohol is more harmful than cocaine, but I don't think the difference is an order of magnitude greater.
Pharmacologically, it is. If you had cocaine use as socially acceptable and prevalent as alcohol use, the number of people that blow would wreck through its use would be magnitudes higher than the people who are wrecked by alcoholism. Compare the degree of fallout between the two drugs based on the percentage of the population that imbibes these drugs, and it becomes readily apparent before you even analyze the nature of the drug's chemical interaction with our brain.
The two drugs are certainly not alike in terms of how readily repeated casual use can impair a user's control over the drug to the point of the user engaging in the compulsive and destructive behaviors of addiction. One might as well compare crystal meth to marijuana. And this is the most important thing to remember when talking about the comparisons between drugs.
quote:I'm sure the personal experiences of the people I witnessed around me influenced that decision as well. No one I knew ever overdosed or became addicted. Most did well in school and most eventually stopped using the drug.
Sure. I had the same anecdotal experience with some of my friends using heroin, complete with the 'doing well in school' part and the 'most eventually stopped' parts. But I don't let anecdote determine for me at all whether or not heroin seems like an acceptable risk or let it influence my decision to take or not take heroin. There's a good reason why.
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quote:Sure. I had the same anecdotal experience with some of my friends using heroin, complete with the 'doing well in school' part and the 'most eventually stopped' parts. But I don't let anecdote determine for me at all whether or not heroin seems like an acceptable risk or let it influence my decision to take or not take heroin. There's a good reason why.
I said it was one of the "influencing" factors of my decision, not the "determining" factor. In fact it was mostly an add on to the decision. As in, I had already decided it was mostly harmless and that I'd be willing to try it, and those experiences had they been different could have served as a warning regardless of the facts and caused me to nix that decision. As it was it made me feel more comfortable in my decision.
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quote:Compare the degree of fallout between the two drugs based on the percentage of the population that imbibes these drugs, and it becomes readily apparent before you even analyze the nature of the drug's chemical interaction with our brain.
Can I ask that you do my homework for me on this one? The only thing I could find with a few quick google search seems to contradict this. It wasn't from a site I'd consider to be reliable though. Am having a hard time finding a better site.
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Another thing is that human populations have had around 12,000 years to adapt to alcohol. In effect, those most susceptible to addiction have been weeded out of the gene pool due to the fact that they die young from accident or disease, and that their children have a lot fewer chances in life. They get a lot less good parenting, and they have fewer resources devoted to them, plus they suffer from neglect and abuse as well as poor parental decision making.
So, because of that, some populations are fairly far along the road to having alcohol tolerance. Others, like some Asians, Australian Aborigines, and Native Americans (as well as the Irish -- my particular family group) have very little tolerance and have much higher rates of alcoholism.
But even people with high tolerance, if they drink enough, can become addicted. Each time you use alcohol (and this is true of other mind-altering drugs to a greater or lesser extent) you are rewiring just a bit your brain's reward system to respond a little more favorably to alcohol and a little less favorably to the normal pleasures of life -- honor, family, sunsets, achievements, being tickled, whatever it may be. So that severe alcoholics will lie, cheat, steal, hurt anyone, in order to get access to their chosen drug. It slowly erodes people's character as their brain receives no good feelings from normal life experiences, like honor and honesty and love. The rewiring takes place little by little over time. How quickly it happens is determined by your genes, but eventually it will happen. It's only governed by how much and how often you do drink.
So people who drink responsibly all their lives just haven't traveled very far down the road. But my question is, why would you want to take even a few steps in that direction at all? Why even be on the road to begin with? When it's so easy just to say "none for me, thanks" or "make mine virgin" or just pass it along to the person beside you without saying a word. It's perfectly okay just to say no thanks. Your brain will thank you, I promise. Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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You can't promise me anything about my brain. You don't know me. Stop, please, acting like you know what is best for everyone. I am glad that you have found what is best for you, but deciding that you can apply that to everyone is incredibly arrogant. None of what you just wrote is true for everyone.
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Actually you are a perfect example, the difference being that your drug of choice is not alcohol but the artificial satisfaction of "choosing faith".
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Perfect example of what? How am I deciding that I know better than you what is right for you?
Do you think that I think you would be better off if you believed as I do? Why would you think that?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: Another thing is that human populations have had around 12,000 years to adapt to alcohol. In effect, those most susceptible to addiction have been weeded out of the gene pool due to the fact that they die young from accident or disease, and that their children have a lot fewer chances in life.
Have you seen a study confirming this? I can think of at least one example where feature X puts its bearer at a reproductive disadvantage and feature X has been shown to have a genetic component, yet feature X persists in the population. One explanation is that being epsilon away from feature X is reproductively advantageous.
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quote:Compare the degree of fallout between the two drugs based on the percentage of the population that imbibes these drugs, and it becomes readily apparent before you even analyze the nature of the drug's chemical interaction with our brain.
Can I ask that you do my homework for me on this one? The only thing I could find with a few quick google search seems to contradict this. It wasn't from a site I'd consider to be reliable though. Am having a hard time finding a better site.
number of coke users in america
quote:The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) estimates that in 2007 there were 2.1 million current (past month) cocaine users, of which approximately 610,000 were current crack users. Adults aged 18 to 25 years have a higher rate of current cocaine use than any other age group, with 1.7 percent of young adults reporting past month cocaine use.
number of coke users who, according to NSDUH data from 2007, meet DSM criteria for dependence or abuse of cocaine in any form:
quote:In 2007, according to the NSDUH, nearly 1.6 million Americans met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders criteria for dependence or abuse of cocaine (in any form) in the past 12 months. Further, data from the 2005 Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) report showed that cocaine was involved in 448,481 of the total 1,449,154 visits to emergency departments for drug misuse or abuse. This translates to almost one in three drug misuse or abuse emergency department visits (31 percent) that involved cocaine.
Out of 2.1 million current coke users, you have 1.6 million people who have reached the testable point of addiction and possibly abuse. That's over three quarters of the total population. Out of the fraction of the population that regularly uses coke, you have almost half a million ER visits for drug misuse and abuse. That translates to about one ER visit for every five people who takes up coke as a habit.
When you compare that versus the CDC's older calculations on the total cost of alcohol on the population's health (admittedly older data, but still relevant) you see that the same level of hazard is not present in alcohol use; you don't have three quarters of about 60% of the population going on to be alcoholics and causing hundreds of millions of ER visits.
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also, what about cultures who throughout history have used marijuana, coca plants, and hallucinogenics as a normal part of their daily lives or for religious enlightenment?
edit - in reference to Tatiana's statements about the adaptiveness of humans to alcohol.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: It slowly erodes people's character as their brain receives no good feelings from normal life experiences, like honor and honesty and love. The rewiring takes place little by little over time. How quickly it happens is determined by your genes, but eventually it will happen.
(italics mine)
Perhaps you wish to believe this is true, so you can feel superior to other people, but can you show the evidence proving that it is so?
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All my googling about Cocaine deaths and Alcohol deaths seems to indicate that even adjusted by number of users, Alcohol has a FAR higher death rate.
I'd love it if someone could find me something definitive.
Added after seeing Samp's: That is interesting, if I had more time I'd look further. Do you have access to death rate info though? Not that death is the only form of harm, but from my googling at random sites the death rate from alcohol (at 60% of adult americans using: 75,000 deaths per year) is at least 10 times as high as what little data I could find for Cocaine. This was a pretty big surprise to me, I had always assumed the death rate from Cocaine was higher or at least comparable.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Perfect example of what? How am I deciding that I know better than you what is right for you?
Do you think that I think you would be better off if you believed as I do? Why would you think that?
No, no, a perfect example of the brain rewiring itself to respond to whatever reward you're giving it. In your case, fake belief.
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quote:Originally posted by Strider: also, what about cultures who throughout history have used marijuana, coca plants, and hallucinogenics as a normal part of their daily lives or for religious enlightenment?
And, you know, wine.
I was including wine under the "alcohol" umbrella.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Xavier: All my googling about Cocaine deaths and Alcohol deaths seems to indicate that even adjusted by number of users, Alcohol has a FAR higher death rate.
I'd love it if someone could find me something definitive.
Added after seeing Samp's: That is interesting, if I had more time I'd look further. Do you have access to death rate info though? Not that death is the only form of harm, but from my googling at random sites the death rate from alcohol (at 60% of adult americans using: 75,000 deaths per year) is at least 10 times as high as what little data I could find for Cocaine. This was a pretty big surprise to me, I had always assumed the death rate from Cocaine was higher or at least comparable.
What do you mean death rate?
Some interesting stats would be: -Percentage of users who die of overdose, ever.
-Percentage of users who die from drug related maladies within 20 years of starting use.
If alcoholics are dying of cirrhosis and heart disease in their 60s it might be a strong warning against chronic heavy alcohol use but it might be quite difficult to compare that to whatever is killing cocaine users.
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You don't know anything about my brain either. And I am as little inclined to appreciate your decisions about what is right for other people as I am to appreciate Tatiana's.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Strider: also, what about cultures who throughout history have used marijuana, coca plants, and hallucinogenics as a normal part of their daily lives or for religious enlightenment?
And, you know, wine.
I was including wine under the "alcohol" umbrella.
Ah...I was mostly pointing it out as something used in religious ritual. But you are correct.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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My understanding is that many Native Americans are resistant to peyote because of their culture's long access to and use of the drug.
The information about how drugs and alcohol gradually rewire the brain came from a Scientific American article about addiction within the last few years. Someone can probably find it from that much information. I'll look for it again.
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: All my googling about Cocaine deaths and Alcohol deaths seems to indicate that even adjusted by number of users, Alcohol has a FAR higher death rate.
"rate?" I'm not sure about that.
..
Tatiana:
quote:It slowly erodes people's character as their brain receives no good feelings from normal life experiences, like honor and honesty and love. The rewiring takes place little by little over time. How quickly it happens is determined by your genes, but eventually it will happen.
The phenomenon you are describing is called "anhedonia" (except for the 'erosion of character' part, which is an unsubstantiated and fully subjective assertion) and the notion that any use of a substance like alcohol is necessarily creating the phenomenon is false. As far as I know, it is possible to be a lifelong alcohol or marijuana user without any significant danger of anhedonia, nor is there any assurance that "eventually it will happen"
So, what you are asserting is false.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Is there any thread you won't abuse?
You don't know anything about my brain either. And I am as little inclined to appreciate your decisions about what is right for other people as I am to appreciate Tatiana's.
I have yet to find a way to derail the thread about Oreos. As for your brain, it appears in fact that I do know more about it than you. The phrase "Escher drawing" comes to mind.
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Again, KoM, you run into the obstacle of being unable to grasp that some things are the way they are whether you can get your mind around them or not.
Your ability to understand or believe something is not a universal condition of existance.
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Hey KoM, can I ask that you restrict your attempts to deprogram Kate to one thread?
I know your intentions are good, but your persistence is entering the realm of creepiness, at least to this poster.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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Tom, I have indeed tried heroin on three separate occasions, although I never injected it. It was fun, but no more fun than pharmaceutical opiates of similar potency, and with those the dose can be measured much more accurately. I still prefer opium, which is admittedly imprecise but less potent and more enjoyable. I already gave you the best answer I could about why I decided cocaine was worth the risk. I understand you are starting from a different set of values than I am, but for me, it was worth it.
No stimulant causes what I would call physical addiction. Alcohol and the various other GABAergic drugs do, all in much the same way, and opiates cause it in a different way. All stimulants do is cause cravings. When I stopped using cocaine regularly, I slept a lot for a few days. That was it. It was fun. There was absolutely no physical distress of any kind whatsoever. That being said, I did try my best to keep myself fed, which is very important if you plan to have any kind of long-term stimulant use pattern.
Tatiana, drugs do not erode morals. Now I may not have the same morals as you, but the ones I do possess have remained pretty much the same since long before I started using drugs, with no noticeable detriment. If anything, I am more consistent in upholding them. As far as my level of use is concerned, I never tried to cut back on it. It just happened. I had my time with high levels of use; I have since come to appreciate moderation. (Admittedly my definition of moderation is probably considerably different than yours...)
I don't really care where I get my drugs from, morally. If they were legal I would be getting them from the convenience store. I didn't cause that problem, and anyway I probably buy clothes from sweatshops and use products tested on animals. I probably support causes at least as evil as the mob just by paying taxes. I'm not taking on guilt for that type of stuff, especially not drugs where an obvious solution is staring anyone really concerned in the face.
You may have a lifetime of watching drug users, but I have a good quarter of mine much more fully immersed. I know the risks, and I've seen some of the tragic endings. That's life. I have indeed seen the sorrow eat into the faces of those I love, by the way. I'm sorry they're sorry, but it's my life, not theirs. I don't like every decision they make either. I've made some mistakes, I don't deny it. So has every person who has ever lived, drugs or not. You have your experiences, and I have mine, but in the end the choice is mine, and there is nothing morally wrong with the choices I have made regarding drugs, with the exception I have already noted. I'll take responsibility for my own happiness... and more often than you might think, that does entail a polite refusal of a drink, a bowl, or a pill.
Strider, that kid is awesome.
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If you say "X is beyond our ability to understand", that is a fact about your mind, not a fact about X; and it is completely irrelevant to the issue of whether X exists. I very much doubt that I really understand what the Sun is; it's way too big and complicated. But I do not doubt its existence on these grounds, because there is good evidence orthogonal to my inability to really grok it. If your huge transcendental life-changing X actually existed, it would have evidence; to 'believe' in it without such evidence is a lie. It doesn't matter whether you can understand it or not, to believe in it you must have evidence, or you are just lying, to yourself and others. I do not know why this is so hard for you to grasp.
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It's as hard for her to grasp, apparently, as it is for you to grasp tact, timing, and manners. You're not winning any medals here for conversion, KoM.
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Some can. Use of cocaine can, but it's much easier with crystal meth, which has an excellent capacity to damage portions of the brain relevant to 'morals' by cutting pathways related to impulse control, creating an acquired antisocial personality disorder.
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Honestly, we have evidence that this conversation is just boring. If you must continue it, you could move it to email so at least I will be the only one annoyed.
I think that link got overlooked in all the hoopla that's followed, but it really was an amazing story.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: My understanding is that many Native Americans are resistant to peyote because of their culture's long access to and use of the drug.
I'm fairly skeptical of that claim. My understanding is that until the 19th century, peyote use among native populations was pretty limited. It was common in populations native to what is now the American Southwest and Mexico, but until the Native American Church really took off that was about it. It's possible that it was traded prior to that--humans like things that change their mental state, after all--but it wasn't a common enough substance to be incorporated into Native American cultures much outside of the region where it grew.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Honestly, we have evidence that this conversation is just boring. If you must continue it, you could move it to email so at least I will be the only one annoyed.
Again, this is a fine example of a technique of doublethink: The ability to be bored or annoyed by any argument which contradicts orthodoxy. There is ultimately no answer to consistent doublethink except the Genickschuss. To borrow a cliche, the sufferer has to want to be helped. To move your refusal to be helped into a private space is in nobody's interest.
Let me put an analogy to you, which perhaps might have some interest at least as a narrative. Consider a policeman investigating a murder. Alas, he has no suspects, and there are a million people who might plausibly have done the deed, by virtue of living in the same city - this is very weak, but it's all he has to go on. "Well," says our intrepid investigator, "clues or not, the mayor wants the chief to produce a result, the chief wants me to produce a result, and I want to keep my job. So... suppose, purely for the sake of argument, that we consider" (he takes a moment to leaf through the phonebook at random) "ah yes, Martin Vrijmand as our chief suspect? Let's see. Martin Vrijmand has black hair, and a black hair was found at the scene of the murder. He has no alibi for the time of the murder. The killer is very likely to be male." And so on. Now in fact, the policeman is in some sense genuinely building evidence for a case against comrade Vrijmand; these are points that could legitimately be made in court. Nonetheless, I think you would agree that, if the policeman comes to believe his case against Vrijmand, if he asserts its truth (even if he admits that his belief is based on what's convenient for him, to wit, keeping his job) then the policeman is lying.
The decisive act here is to select a hypothesis at random, and then reinforce it by whatever evidence can be found: To create a signal out of plain noise is a lie. In your case, the equivalent act is not on your part, but on the part of the culture you were raised in, which brought your attention to the Christ story as opposed to the Odin story or the Buddha story; in the policeman analogy, this is the chief calling the inspector in and saying "Hey, how about that Martin Vrijmand? Does he have an alibi?" Even if by some astronomical chance the chief's finger happens to have hit the right spot in the phone book, and Vrijmand genuinely did commit the murder; even if this is true, to attest to it in court based on the flimsy evidence the policeman actually finds, is a lie.
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If he had immigrated in the nineteenth century, the Ellis Island officials would have put him down as 'Freeman', which is close enough for parochial monolinguals.
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Again, different ways for thinking about different things. Rules of evidence for a court of law are not applicable to matters of faith.
We have been over this. Many times. You disagree. Oh well. Stop going back to it. Tell you what, you can start a thread for just us instead of mucking up lots of other threads. Or you can have my permission to "publish" our email conversation.
I am no longer going to participate in messing up everyone else's conversations. It is rude and boring.
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:shrug: Nu, ultimately, there's a limit to how much I'll invest in helping you. It'll have to be the revolution and the biodiesel vats, then. That said, you keep coming back to the "different rules" argument and ignoring my response, namely that you are applying much less stringent rules to your faith than you do to checking whether the millk has gone bad. And further, if you are going to accept lies - and I notice that you do not deny that the policeman is lying - as the basis of your faith, what does that make you? There's a limit to what can be fit under "Different rules of evidence"; there's no honest set of rules that allows plain lies.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:I'm sorry they're sorry, but it's my life, not theirs.
Are you sure about this particular point?
I ask that because I don't think my life is all that independent from those around me. Legally I am free to do what I want. But morally, many decisions I make also end up affecting other people, so in that respect I think my life is also a part of the lives of others.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: ... you see that the same level of hazard is not present in alcohol use; you don't have three quarters of about 60% of the population going on to be alcoholics and causing hundreds of millions of ER visits.
There is a bit of clarification due here; most alcohol-related ER visits are not associated with alcohol dependence, but rather alcohol abuse (i.e., "binge drinking"), which is often not associated with alcohol dependence (typically what is meant by "alcoholism.")
[That is, a lot of binge drinkers don't fit the criteria for dependence. For example, a lot of college binge drinking isn't associated with longterm problem drinking, although it can cause plenty of shortterm, serious problems.]
This is my husband's area of research, both in the US and Canada. If it would help, I can find citations from him. However, that doesn't seem to be a turning point in the disagreement at hand, so for now I'll leave it at that.
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Getting back to the subject of the dangers of cocaine, it seems to me that there is an obvious problem with comparing statistics of users of an illegal drug with users of a legal one. How many people are going to admit to cocaine use if they don't have to, in other words, if they aren't in the ER already? So there's a very strong selection bias: You only see the cocaine users who got into trouble. That said, this is so obvious that I would tend to assume any half-competent scientist would take steps to deal with it; do the quoted studies mention what they did to get realistic estimates of the population of cocaine users?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: My understanding is that many Native Americans are resistant to peyote because of their culture's long access to and use of the drug.
I'm fairly skeptical of that claim. My understanding is that until the 19th century, peyote use among native populations was pretty limited. It was common in populations native to what is now the American Southwest and Mexico, but until the Native American Church really took off that was about it. It's possible that it was traded prior to that--humans like things that change their mental state, after all--but it wasn't a common enough substance to be incorporated into Native American cultures much outside of the region where it grew.
I'm also curious about what is meant by 'resistant'. Tatiana's original claim concerned susceptibility to addiction to alcohol. Is this what is meant by being 'resistant' to alcohol? My impression was that being 'resistant to alcohol' really meant having a high tolerance for alcohol e.g. having to consume more before becoming tipsy. While an alcoholic's liver is still functioning don't alcoholic's often have pretty high tolerance? Anyway, is my impression of what it means to be resistant to a drug wrong?; if not, in which sense are Native Americans resistant to peyote (I could not find a viewable article not requiring enrollment)?
Posts: 644 | Registered: Sep 2008
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The major problem I see with drugs is how the people in my age group use them. For the most part the type of person my age (High school senior) who use either alcohol, pot, or pills are extremely irresponsible beforehand. The "pot-heads" already slacked in school, and were going to skip school no matter what. The more popular kids think it is there responsibility to see how drunk they can get, which leads to drunk driving and more cases of herpes than you can shake a stick at.
Seriously, like 20% of my school has herpes.
On the otherhand there are plenty of positive expereinces I have had. Having a few drinks at a rave is no horrible sin in my mind, and when it comes down to it the reason I am not on E or anything is because I do not personally like it's effects, not because I think it will have some drastic effect on my future.
About once a month a few freinds and I will drive to Canada, about a 40 minute drive, and drink (semi)legally. We stay at a cheap hotel and have yet to have a less than great trip. I will probably continue doing this for the three years untill the USA thinks it's okay for me to drink, and I thnk I will be better off because of it.
Avoiding the Bro-culture is my main reason for avoiding most parties and situations with alcohol and drugs in my area, not the alcohol and drugs.
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I was including wine under the "alcohol" umbrella.
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