drugs

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May 19, 2013

The Skepchick 12 Steps

Posted by franc under cranks, cults, drugs, education, new new atheism, pseudo-science | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
[11] Comments 
serenity_prayer

The Skepchick Serenity Prayer – click to embiggen

A twelve-step program is a set of guiding principles (accepted by members as ‘spiritual principles,’ based on the approved literature) outlining a course of action for recovery from addiction, compulsion, or other behavioral problems. Originally proposed by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) as a method of recovery from alcoholism, the Twelve Steps were first published in the book Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism in 1939. The method was then adapted and became the foundation of other twelve-step programs. — the cesspit of lies

Powerlessness, Twelve-Stepism, and the Siege Mentality

    “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol–that our lives had become unmanageable.”

The idea that he is powerless over alcohol lets the user off the hook by absolving him from personal responsibility for his addiction while simultaneously granting ultimate power to the addiction itself, power so great as to be invincible by human standards. (more…)

 

January 9, 2012

Marijuana Never Did Anything To Me

Posted by franc under culture, drugs, education | Tags: , , , , , |
[3] Comments 

You have to be stoned to fully appreciate it.

The tornado has passed. The last of the hordes that descend from mid December have departed. Orthodox crassmass, celebrated using the older Julian calendar, is on the 7th of January for most (6th for some). They have left; there is glorious silence.

The last high/low-light was a testament to the joys of the ubiquitous $2 shops that largely support the bulk of sweatshop labour in the third world. Ma pulled apart a crassmass bonbon with my 3 yo nephew and it exploded with an anticlimactic pop and the usual tissue paper hat and junk gift fell out which junior gleefully grappled and pulled apart. The “gift” fell out – a flimsy plastic case full of sewing needles. I thought one of the others was a bit dangerous for kids, a cork screw. But fucking sewing needles? In children’s crassmass crackers? Those wacky Chinese sweatshop entrepreneurs. No harm was done in this case – Ma was paying attention. But the lesson of the day is never trust anything you buy at those junk shops, especially where kids are involved.

Another gem fell into my lap a few days ago in digitised format. A copy of Bill Cosby’s contribution to the War on Drugs – the 1972 Grammy Award winning (best kids album) Bill Cosby Talks to Kids About Drugs, which I actually do possess on vinyl. (more…)

 

February 6, 2011

Drugs Destroy Lives

Posted by franc under drugs, nonsense, politics, puritanism, shrieking hysteria
[2] Comments 

If you were an 18 year old kid during the Summer of Love, you’d be clocking up a crusty 62nd birthday around about now. And if they were still alive, both Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin would be a venerable 68. Allen Ginsberg would be a sprightly 84 and a half and yelling at them to get off his lawn. Are you smelling the fetid wafts of your own mortality yet?

Ginsberg died an old man of liver cancer complicated by hepatitus in 1997. Joplin overdosed on heroin of higher than normal purity (probably dumped on the street to pre-empt a well meaning police anti-drug initiative) and Hendrix choked on secobarbital and red wine vomit – both within a few weeks of each other in 1970. Given the choice, would you prefer old age and terminal liver disease or premature, unexpected, warm, comforting darkness and loss of consciousness? (more…)