it hit me while masturbating in the shower, i’m never going to be completely sober. i need drugs to function as a member of society. and that’s alright with me.
i also know, more importantly, that there are millions of other people like me all over the planet. most of us just hide to survive.
humans have a long history of enjoying intoxicants that goes back before we were humans.
cars ruined this.
but i think that getting intoxicated is fine, too. but i do have to stop regularly. i gave up on the thought of quitting, though. i prefer to think of it as stopping for months at a time with accepting the fact that society calls me a drug addict because society and i know that i will want to start again at some point.
well honestly it’s the creation of high attention / judgment tasks with high risk to human health and safety then making many of them either a part of daily life (driving) or making them jobs you have to do 8-12h straight 3-5 days a week (health, public safety, public transportation, etc). Train companies in particular are basically famous for making their conductors functionally unable to use sick hours, and medical residency is famous for 48h+ straight shifts. Personally I’m finding I have to do about 4-5x12h shifts (48-60h weeks) to stay solidly in the black, but me and hubs are considering how we want to cut back for a little more wiggle room. If we really valued human health and safety we’d keep those tasks much more specialized and make sure the people who do them have way more downtime to decompress but alas the capitalist wheel must keep turning.
I’ve been on an extended tolerance break from substances myself. In January I’ll have two years off alcohol and I’m August I’ll also have two years off THC (I used it to quit the alcohol but wound up with CHS). Supposedly at the two year mark a bunch of your neurochemistry has mostly reset itself so once I’ve done that AND have a sober-only hobby I think I’ll be safe to reapproach occasional drinking. And I’ll also know that I have the coping skills to take another tolerance break if I need to. I too find the self flagellation of addict culture to be both highly performative and ultimately counterproductive.