A few nice Drug Research images I found:
drugs
Image by the|G|™
why do people use drugs?
this particularly harrowing picture had me asking this question of my own self:
www.flickr.com/photos/dennisroodbol/4159503093/
firstly, my heartfelt thanks to dennis [http://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisroodbol/sets/] for allowing me to link this particular image to this text.
it is as powerful a picture as i have seen in some considerable time.
onward.
the prequel:
two questions i have been wanting to ask for some time now is 'why do such a large number of 'creative' people use [and have problems with] drugs'? and why do those same people seem to suffer more with respect to mental illness.
[caveat] i have no hard research or figures to offer, just personal observations over my own lifetime as an adult.
firstly, let us not be foolish and talk of tea and coffee as 'drugs'.
in this instance drugs are those substances which can profoundly affect the human state of mind.
alcohol, dope, amphetamine, cocaine, ecstacy, pma, poppers, ketamine, lsd, methamphetamine, prescription drugs such as; codeine, methadone, diazepam, temazepam, valium, librium etc. you know the line up, the usual suspects.
again, why?
of those artists i consider to be important to me; writers, musicians, painters, poets, film makers, a great number have had terrible problems with mental health, and problems and/or addictions with respect to drugs of many kinds, though alcohol plays a major role here, in all probability due to it's acceptance and availability.
from my personal pantheon of respected artists the list is too numerous to tabulate here.
i have thought about this particular subject for some time, and talked of it with close friends [artists]. i find i have come to the conclusion that there are those people who posess an 'artistic temperament', and that possesion of such an 'artistic temprament' affords much enjoyment and discovery, but also incurs a human cost. often a high cost, and sometimes that terrible, and so often profoundly wasteful, ultimate cost, suicide.
i ask you to imagine one thousand 'average' [i am aware this is a generalisation :)] people who could not care less about the arts or engaging in creative practices.
now consider a further thousand people who posess this 'creative temprament' and are driven to create and communicate. i would suggest that the instances of drug use/misuse/addiction and imbalance in mental well being would probably be noticably greater in the thousand who posessed the 'creative temprament'.
indeed, i have seen this for myself with respect to my own circle of friends over the years. some of whom are no longer with us.
am i wrong in making this assertion?
i well remember a conversation being had at a relatives house with regard to art, my uncle [a fine builder] said to me, 'you are creative, you are arty, and those people who are arty are different'.
he said this without any wish to slight or offer insult, this was my uncle stating a simple fact, the fact that people who do not feel any need whatsoever to create consider those who do to be somehow 'different'.
are those who create 'different'? is this difference a key factor in the [seemingly] higher instances of drug use and mental illness amongst those who are creative?
the sequel:
why do people take drugs*
why do people who feel no need to 'create' anything at all. feel no need to communicate anything at all.
take any drug?
the primary function is of course to 'escape'.
though to escape from what, and to what?
responsibilty, adulthood, parenthood, childhood?
i see all addictions as a result of the above 'designations'.
these designations are false and illusory. we remain children even as we begat our own children.
that is part of the immense problem we face.
please do not offer the glib 'it makes me feel good' argument. this takes us nowhere with respect to a discourse. it is a cultural and psychological cul de sac.
some explanation is far more rewarding and constructive. however obtruse, or surreal.
why?
my own self:
alcohol has come frighteningly close to killing me three times over the past two years.
i am, in actual fact, very lucky to be alive [a quote from an emergency room nurse - not from me]
i take alcohol every night, and have done for about twenty years.
during the 80's and 90's i regularly took weed, speed, coke, acid and mushrooms in that order.
i no longer take drugs other than alcohol.
[caveat] due to mental illness [past three years], i have taken - temazepam, libirum, diazepam, valium.
and currently take citalopram daily.
as well as my alcohol.
in conclusion:
it seems to me that it will always be the same:
that those who want to suggest that things may be going wrong, or off kilter. those people who may wish to offer an 'alternative' view, or any alternative opinion at all, will always be hounded, misunderstood, rejected, pilloried and vilified by those who we may describe as 'normal'.
may history and sanity save us from normal people.
of course, this will not happen.
consult your history books.
blessed are the flickr fuckers.
the|G|™
Drug costs
Image by Ano Lobb. @healthyrx
Drug questions
Image by Ano Lobb. @healthyrx
