Alcohol as a problem of civilization

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance Grief & Praise
#21

I say it depends on the person, their culture and the length their culture has had experience with alcohol. and how far removed their cultural memory is from a sustainable culture.

For myself, it’s both food and medicine (and sacrament). But, for many of my relations, even though we’ve had at least a 6000 year history with alcohol when the culture that sustained us for thousands of years was destroyed, it became a poison.

For someone whose culture had no experience with alcohol and whose cultural memory is not far removed from a sustainable culture but if forced to live in this nightmare that the civilized have created, I could definitely see it as a poison.

My question is , is it the alcohol that is the poison or is it a symptom of the disease of civilization, where the abuse of alcohol is a way of self-medicating against the disease of civilization. Thoughts?

#22

Well, my impression is that alcohol becomes a poison if your body is exposed to too much of it on a regular basis. It is physically and psychologically addictive (moreso than many other psychological addictions because of the so-called “freedom” you get from it [although less psych. addictive, I realize, than other things, for example, cocaine]). I think that people are looking for that uninhibited freedom because of the confining, limiting nature of civ. Even if you’re aware of civilization’s influence and you’re trying to step out of it, you’re still trapped (by your past/formative experiences as well as your present needs – very few people can say they’ve actually stepped outside of civilization and can do so indefinitely).

But - regarding alcohol - I wouldn’t call it “poison” for somebody who has a couple drinks a week and really can stop any time. Then it’s just a recreational drug (funny to think of it that way though) :slight_smile:

#23

I have a couple of friends that I would definitely consider alcoholics, they would agree with me. However, in their minds their choices are alcohol, or suicide. I don’t like how much they are dependent on this substance that is slowly destroying them, but I am glad they are still around. It seems that while alcohol is poisoning them, it is also the main reason they aren’t dead yet :-. I can’t stand what this culture does to people.

#24

I have never met your friends, yet i doubt they would actually kill themselves would they never had a drink again. Again I do not mean in anyway to pretend to know better then they do how they feel but i just want to say that the very way they think (if they are alcoholic) is tainted by this alcoholism. So they might tell themselves they’d kill themselves (and honestly believe and thus speaking truthfully) when they’d stop drinking, only to find out that they really dont wanna die after they’d actually stop drinking. Alcoholism is an addiction like any other and addicts need their fix and they need to rationalize their fix so to not feel guilty getting fuckedup. So they make the proposition : If i drink im getting fuckedup, but if i dont drink…id die.

Ive been a drunk for a long time…one of the reason i drunk was to forget i was a drunk…go figure…

#25

I dunno … addicts in recovery are often suicidal. Depends on the addiction, & alcohol IS one of those substances that is physically addictive.

I have a friend who got into cocaine at the age of 13 or 14 (This was around 1980). His family was very wealthy, and the $6000/month that he spent on that shit went virtually unnoticed. When he was 17, his dealer/friend was murdered. The murderers used meat hooks (I kid you not) to kill him in an old abandoned building somewhere in Oregon.

This was enough to cause him to question his usage and the warped culture of addiction of which he was a part. So he asked a friend to lock him in the basement for a week so that he could go through withdrawal, and to not let him out under ANY circumstances. He “safety proofed” the basement beforehand so he could not kill himself. He told me that, even now, almost 25 years later, he believes it had been necessary to prevent himself from suicide while in withdrawal.

I’ve heard that alcohol is more physically addictive than cocaine. (Can anyone negate or affirm that?) If so, then TrollSplinter’s friends may not be exaggerating.

#26

i wanted to write a text on the difference between the ideas when in active-addiction and those in recovery but i couldnt get to the point. I wrote 2 long and confusing texts and deleted them again. My thoughts on alcoholism are all from own experience and therefore rather difficult to write down in english for me. I do believe though that anyone can essentially recover, the big question often boils down to: do we really want to recover?

#27
For someone whose culture had no experience with alcohol and whose cultural memory is not far removed from a sustainable culture but if forced to live in this nightmare that the civilized have created, I could definitely see it as a poison.

This is what I seen in southern Namibia with a tribe of relocated Bushmen. They were all drinking and trying to make do the best they could with their situation, from what I witnessed and from talking to some of them I would say it definitely is a poison, but I don’t blame them for turning to the bottle, They are adjusting the best they can.

I do however think that it would be better for the bars and establishments who sell liquors to close down or change their business and stop profiting from the ruination of lives and human suffering. I can think of a handful of other “industries” that are doing the same thing.

#28

We have to hit rock bottom to quit. And even then, each day, sometimes each moment, presents the choice all over again. What constitutes rock bottom is different for each person. For some, rock bottom may be losing their job or their marriage or it may just be a close call, but for others death comes before rock bottom. That’s a hard thing for people who love that person to come to grips with.

#29

an answer the cocaine v alcohol question – never had I the feel, once the ‘buzz’ of a drink was wearing off, that I REALLY wanted another drink. cocaine does it to me everytime, and I just happen to have what it takes to say, what I had was enough, that was fun, and now back to the world without cocaine.

I think your grounding in the world of chemicals your body can produce has a lot to do with it. if you are trying to escape your own chemical world, into someone or something else’s chemical world, then that place becomes home to you, and yourself becomes this place you are trying to leave. If you don’t want to simply visit these other worlds, and come back to your own world when you are done, then, I guess, this could be the chemical and spiritual root of addiction, not being okay in your own emotional and chemical ‘cloud’ becoming dependent on constant injections into your cloud.

perhaps there is something to the anal-retentive need for order, and how first usages of many chemicals do appear to bring order to the world, as it’s signal so overwhelmingly tunes out the other influences of the noosphere.

#30

Don Burnstick is an awesome guy. I am Alcohol is a very powerful one man play on video.

For a very funny look at contemporary Canadian First Nations culture check out his videos if you can.