Alcohol/Smoking/Et Cetera

[Moomin]

Did you mean NOT be judged?

Whoops! Yes I did! Sorry!

 

[sidd851]

Pros and Cons.

Seems pretty black and white, doesn't it?
Tobacco, in whatever form, causes cancer.
There should be no debate here, right?
Those are abysmal 5 year survival rates for lung cancer.
Who wants to die, right?

Unfortunately, the pros and cons of even smoking cigarettes are far more fuzzy an issue than it appears on the surface.

When one weighs the benefits versus the risks, it becomes a bit more of a toss up than is comfortable for most, a bit more of a toss up than "common knowledge" would have us believe.

First: A disclaimer.
I am advocating for nothing here, except the unbiased pursuit of knowledge.

I am going to present some facts. I am going to limit the scope of the facts that I present to smoking, and nicotine.
They are by no means all inclusive, and I am only presenting facts that would seem to be relevent to the "Why start?" question, and the weighing of pros and cons.

Nicotine, in one with little or no tolerance, which is overwhelmingly the case when one is "experimenting" with smoking, provides a feeling of gentle euphoria and wellbeing, often described as a warm, pleasant, fuzzy feeling. This pleasurable sensation, in and of itself, is enough to account for smoking a second time, and on subsequent occasions thereafter, especially in a younger age bracket, which, at least anecdotally, is not yet so good at perceiving dangers, let alone weighing them against benefits.

While it is true that smoking regularly slowly decreases the conscious perception of "nicotine euphoria", it is "well known" that by the time that euphoria has diminished substantially, the habit is already formed.
I say "habit", here, because the reality of studying the effects of nicotine, is that it poses monumental difficulty to researchers using laboratory animals. The difficulty is, even given the "tremendous" addictive potential of nicotine, that substance that is widely known to be "more addictive than heroin", researchers can't get animals addicted to nicotine. The animals simply don't come back for more. They notoriously aren't interested, not avoidant, just not interested after their initial encounter.
Perhaps this is nothing more than an indication of unsuitability of animal models for nicotine addiction in humans.
For the sake of argument, though, we will allow that the popular conception of addiction is accurate and valid.

Did I mention that nicotine is not a carcinogen?
Nicotine does not cause cancer.

At any rate, if we have established that "addiction" has occurred, next will be the pros vs. the cons.

We'll start with a couple of pros.

Nicotine is the best cognitive enhancer known to science. Smokers are not only able to focus better and think faster, but they have better memory, and maintain concentration hours longer than
non-tobacco users in the workforce.

Nicotine is also a strong neuroprotective substance closely related to vitamin B-3, niacin(or nicotinic acid). The two are so similar, vitamin B-3 fills nicotine receptors, relieving nicotine cravings.
Nicotine is so neuroprotective, that smokers, and those that use other tobacco products are four times less likely to contract Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or dementia than non-tobacco users.
Now, I know what you're thinking,
"Yeah! Thats 'cause you get cancer or a heart attack and die before you can get it!"
This is not the case. Premature death is factored out in the above statistic.

Asthma, which is the result of overstimulation of the vagus nerve, is treated very effectively with nicotine, which soothes and calms the nerve, and ends an asthmatic attack.

So how about those cons?

The average age of the onset of lung cancer is 70 yrs.
Few contract it before age 65.

As far as death from heart disease caused by smoking? Only 33% of deaths from cardiovascular disease were caused by smoking, and only 20 % of ischemic heart disease deaths were caused by smoking---
in persons over 35 years of age. (U.S. 2008)


And so, it appears that one must consider the decades of enhanced cognition, it's affect on quality of life, the possibility of greater income as a result, the vastly decreased likelihood of the horrors of neurodegenerative disease, against the cons of only living to an average age of
75 -85 years, and the increased risk of heart disease.

Again, this is nowhere near a comprehensive list, but, to my mind, it shows that weighing pros against cons is not nearly so cut-and-dried as one might like to think.
Who wants to live to 95 years if the last 20-25 years are filled with the horrors and ravages of advanced Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, or dementia?

Happy calculating!

 

[Progster]

@sidd851 the main danger (lung cancer) with smoking is not the active substance itself, nicotine, but the smoke from the burning tobacco that one also inhales.

 

[Pats]

@sidd851 Yay and thank you. I've always been a bit confused with the cancer thing because all the friends and relatives of mine who smoked most of their lives never developed any kind of cancer. But I keep seeing people who never smoked with lung cancer. Didn't make sense to me. My mom died with pulmonary fibrosis - she never smoked and it's unknown what caused it. (I still think it's from working in a kitchen frying chicken because you breathe in the grease and have you ever tried to remove grease off the surface of anything? Not think if you can't and the build up.) My grandfather on my dad's side (that side of the family never smoked, drank, did anything wrong - they were a self righteous group), but that grandfather died at 59 from heart problems. My grandmother who chain smoked was in her 70's and very healthy until her heart attack. So I guess, mentally, I'm just not convinced of these 'facts and statistics' that are out there, because I keep seeing otherwise. I agreed to have a chest ct last month and I was actually very surprised at how good my lungs look. Oh, I do know another case of pulmonary fibrosis that the doctor said her smoking was keeping her alive and I've had patients with heart problems that were told by their doctors not to try to quit smoking because it would be too stressful. Stress heart attacks are the most prominent killers and smoking helps control that.
And it's all ironic in a way. My dad would tell me that smoking was going to make me die at a younger age. He also used to tell me that one day the world will be so bad that people will be begging for mountains to fall on them. So I used to tell him, when he complained about the smoking that when that day comes that people are begging for mountains to fall on them, I won't be around.
But when I go for my yearly check up my doctor always wants to schedule these screening tests and I always say no. I just did the ct because I was curious. But my last visit - we had talked about my back and neck issues and the pain and the trigeminal neuralgia which is incapacitating at times and the bone spur growing into my spinal canal and all the numbness (I don't even know when I get a splinter in my hand). So when she started asking about scheduling all these screening tests, I said why would I want to know if something is wrong? I don't want to live to be 90 and in a wheelchair and not able to do anything.
I think you might finally be someone who understands the way I think.

 

[Pats]

Oh, I also live on junk food mostly and my cholesterol, which is a leading cause of heart disease and blockage, is always good. Was good even after having a McDonald on the way to the doctors. I've had a heart cath and there's no blockage so at this point I'm not worried about if cholesterol does start building up. The heart cath was from some chest pain and damage from a very mild stress induced heart ischemia when my sister in law and her family was living with us and I was having to deal with her and my (now) ex and it was an absolute nightmare. Seriously, if anyone could cause someone to have a stress induced heart attack these 2 people together could do it.

 

[Progster]

I know people who got cancer who smoked, and people who got cancer who didn't smoke. Smoking doesn't mean that you will get cancer, it just increases your chances of getting it.

I know four or five people who died at a (relatively) young age as a direct, or indirect result of smoking. If they hadn't smoked, they almost certainly would have lived a lot longer, and may even be alive today. Not worth the risk.

(added on editing) Just about everybody has a relative who smoked a lot and lived to an grand old age and didn't die of the smoking. The fact is that they are the exception rather than the rule and they got lucky, and those smokers who use them as a justification to continue to smoke are luring themselves into a false sense of security, in my opinion. As another member here said, you're fine, until you're not.

 

[tree]

How pretty I thought my mama was, when she'd hold her
lit cigarette near the edge of the open car window at night,
and the tip glowed orange like a sparkler, and I thought
when I grow up I want to do pretty things like that.

I didn't think how pretty it was, when every morning before
I got out of bed, I heard my mama coughing and spitting
into the sink.

I didn't think my grandpa looked good when his face turned
blue from coughing. He gave up smoking after his first
heart attack.

I just thought that was what grown ups did.
Cough. Spit. Have heart attacks.

 

[Pats]

You know, I think we've lost the original poster's attention in this thread.

 

[Progster]

You know, I think we've lost the original poster's attention in this thread.

I see that the thread was made less than 24 hours ago - give them some time

 

[sidd851]

I have only recently found that I am on the spectrum.

I experimented, somewhat, with alcohol when I was growing up.
It was an interesting feeling, but one that didn't necessarily warrant searching it out or doing it all the time.
My alcohol use while in my teens was probably slightly less than average, compared to other teens.
I was a little more timid.

I was married at 18, and my son was born while I was still 18.
As I had a wife and son, and as drinking was not a priority, our alcohol consumption was a glass of wine or two, or maybe a couple of mixed drinks, or a couple of beers.
It was usually taken with a meal, or as we were relaxing, later in the evening, maybe once a week, or every other.

Over the course of the next year, I watched my wife become someone that I didn't know, didn't even recognize.
She became cruel, there was physical abuse, psychological abuse.
As we had a son together, and believing that we needed to remain a family for his sake, I worked constantly, diligently, to keep the peace, but the abuse got worse.

She became downright wicked. She was ever finding new, more creative ways to hurt me. I could handle the physical abuse.
I was 5' 10", 180lbs, she was 5', 94lbs.
It was the psychological abuse that was destroying me. I had known of her cheating from the beginning of the relationship.
Now she began to be cruel about it.
She stopped trying to hide it.
She weaponized it psychologically.
She worked her way through my "friends", my acquaintances, my co-workers.
She made false reports to the police, so that I would be arrested, and she could use our home for her trysts. Then she would drop the charges and tell my of her "fun".

Mind you, I was on the spectrum and did not know it. I was beyond suicidal, but that was something that I could never do. By the age of 20, even being extremely healthy, I had ulcers. I could no longer walk on the street looking anywhere but my shoes.
I was ashamed. Ashamed of the way that she treated me.
Shellshocked is maybe the closest I can come to describing my state of mind.

My life had become an agonizing blur that I could not escape.

Finally, I knew that I needed help. I was going to die. Over a year and a half of the most unbelievable psychological torture imaginable.
I resolved to call the one person that I could call, though I was ashamed to make it.
The one person that I could trust and confide in.
I would call my mother.
I did.
I didn't know how to start.
After some time I said "Mum, *****'s cheating."
There it was. I was already crying.

Imagine my shock, then my utter despair when I heard my mother snap back
"Then why don't you quit the drinking!"

In a split second, I knew.
She had been calling my mother, all along,
making up things, sometimes horrible things.
She had been telling my mother, it turns out, that I was drinking heavily for the last year, and abusing her.
As she had been doing this for so long, and as my grandfather was an alcoholic, and often mean, my mother bought the story, lock, stock, and barrell.
Nothing I could say could shake the lies that she had been told about me.
My mother. Didn't believe me.
Wasn't going to help.
Was nasty in her self righteousness and conviction that I was lying.

There was no help for me.

I was alone.

My world finally fell all the way out from under me.

For two days, I was beyond wanting to die.
It is maybe sheer luck that I didn't.

Then, at once it hit.
Given that I had nothing that she didn't allow me to have, I would drink.
If I was going to be accused of it.
Denied help "because" of it.
Rebuked by my own mother for a lie.
Rebuked by the last person in the world that I had thought I could go to for help.

Well, if I was going to be blamed for it, then I was surely the hell going to do it.

I went to the bar that minute, and began what would become a years long, sordid,
sorry, destructive relationship with alcohol.

So, you see, it's not that difficult to decide to do something so harmful, to yourself.

sidd

 

[Pats]

I have only recently found that I am on the spectrum.

I experimented, somewhat, with alcohol when I was growing up.
It was an interesting feeling, but one that didn't necessarily warrant searching it out or doing it all the time.
My alcohol use while in my teens was probably slightly less than average, compared to other teens.
I was a little more timid.

I was married at 18, and my son was born while I was still 18.
As I had a wife and son, and as drinking was not a priority, our alcohol consumption was a glass of wine or two, or maybe a couple of mixed drinks, or a couple of beers.
It was usually taken with a meal, or as we were relaxing, later in the evening.

Over the course of the next year, I watched my wife become someone that I didn't know, didn't even recognize.
She became cruel, there was physical abuse, psychological abuse.
As we had a son together, and believing that we needed to remain a family for his sake, I worked constantly, diligently, to keep the peace, but the abuse got worse.
She became downright wicked. She was ever finding new, more creative ways to hurt me. I could handle the physical abuse.
I was 5' 10", 180lbs, she was 5', 94lbs.
It was the psychological abuse that was destroying me. I had known of her cheating from the beginning of the relationship.
Now she began to be cruel about it.
She stopped trying to hide it.
She weaponized it psychologically.
She worked her way through my "friends", my acquaintances, my co-workers.
She made false reports to the police, so that I would be arrested, and she could use

I'm sorry you had to go through this.

 

[TempeFan]

Forgive me for my bluntness, but I don't get it. I don't get why people start doing it, and I especially don't get why autists start doing it, in their supposedly more logical thinking. I rarely express such views at all because I know they get met with scathing rejection.

If anything can come out of this post, I want to know if there are other people like me, and I want to know from the point of view of those who consume these drugs why they do it, more importantly, why they started doing it, in as much detail as they can. Thank you.

You wanted to know if there were more people like you who didn't get it. Well, yes there are. I was one of them. I have long been stymied by the phenomenon you asked about. I now have a much better understanding of why people choose badly, even when they are intelligent enough to know they are making a bad choice. All people in all walks of life participate (and don't participate) in these activities for different reasons. Like being autistic, a person's lifestyle choices, including addictions, have little to do with either intelligence OR choice. Human behavior depends more on the level of resources each person has access to and what environment, experiences and knowledge the individual has been exposed, limited and subjected to.

I've been on the forum long enough to have learned that autistic people generally have a lower EQ but NOT a lower IQ. There are as many smart (known as high functioning) as not so smart people on the spectrum as there are in the general population. Autistic brains are simply wired differently to respond to social stimulus autistamatically, not automatically. Since we are blinded to social cues and body language and false assumptions, we have less information to process, in addition to a more complicated way of processing and communicating it. This difference condemns us to being a minority, which means we are denied the same opportunities (employment, relationships, healthcare, etc) as the rest of society.
Because we are Aspy, we are less likely to succumb to peer pressure but more likely to sucomb to the excessive need for pain and stress relief caused by the lack of opportunities, the nonexistance of better choices, and the astronomical levels of bullying and hate crime and discrimination aimed against us.

Your scathing rejections come from the fact that people of all kinds aren't really interested in discussing their so called failings. Since the truth hurts, most people don't want to deal with it, especially when there is nothing they either can or are willing to do to fix it anyway. For the last half a century, my addiction has been to truth telling, so I have had many more scathing rejections than you can ever imagine. It's a really bad habit I am trying to break. Honesty is the best policy, but only if your intention is to be a target.

You picked a sensitive topic. However, we have been discussing it in an open rational straight forward mostly intelligent manner that is rarely acheived elsewhere IRL. Good job folks!

 

[Autistamatic]

I rated your post above as "winner" @sidd851 not because what your ex and your mother did to you was in any way acceptable, but because you shared something difficult which impacted your life in a way few young people ever hear about outside of fiction. Such stories are hidden in shame so others don't get the chance to learn from them.
We cannot learn from our mistakes until we admit them to ourselves. If we do not learn then we are doomed to repeat those mistakes until we destroy ourselves from within.
Whatever destroys us, whether it be addiction, counter productive behaviours, corrosive relationships, anger or hubris, our awareness of it and desire to change is our only way of ending the cycle.
I am glad that there are many good people in this community, including yourself and @Fino who have lived through trauma but have recognised their error before it was too late and become better people for it. Our community and our world is a richer place for such people and I, for one, count myself as fortunate for having crossed your paths through life.

 

[Fino]

I rated your post above as "winner" @sidd851 not because what your ex and your mother did to you was in any way acceptable, but because you shared something difficult which impacted your life in a way few young people ever hear about outside of fiction. Such stories are hidden in shame so others don't get the chance to learn from them.
We cannot learn from our mistakes until we admit them to ourselves. If we do not learn then we are doomed to repeat those mistakes until we destroy ourselves from within.
Whatever destroys us, whether it be addiction, counter productive behaviours, corrosive relationships, anger or hubris, our awareness of it and desire to change is our only way of ending the cycle.
I am glad that there are many good people in this community, including yourself and @Fino who have lived through trauma but have recognised their error before it was too late and become better people for it. Our community and our world is a richer place for such people and I, for one, count myself as fortunate for having crossed your paths through life.

 

[SUM1]

I started having simple partial seizures when I was ten, but I wasn't allowed to see a doctor (Christian Science) so I didn't know what it was and just thought I was insane. It felt like a weird squeezing sensation and there was a distant scream and I often stayed up all night experiencing that.

Starting from age 11, I was hit a LOT. Years and years, lots. The details aren't relevant, but I was like a boxer who never hit back. So much violence!

I have always been bothered by noise and filth, but somehow my entire family is the opposite and always created a home of cockroaches, dirt, barking dogs, and yelling. Anything that bothered me meant I was just trying to get attention and them wondering what's wrong with me.

I didn't have any friends so was very isolated and by time I was thirteen felt that I was supposed to be hurt, that the reason I existed was to please other people. I felt unbearably uncomfortable being comfortable so I started self-harming, cutting. Covering the floor of the shower with blood was satisfying.

When I was sixteen, I stopped going to school and got a job at a movie theater. People there were horrible, but at some point I went to a party where I drank for the first time, not really understanding what it was and just being told to do it. And for the first time in probably ever, I FELT OKAY.

So I kept drinking, on and off in varying amounts for about seven years. It helped with the seizures. It also helped with the fact that around fifteen, I developed a sexual attraction for the abuse I had been enduring, also developing PTSD at the same time. So I'd be triggered every few seconds, be confused and ashamed of arousal, as well as panicked and frightened of the memory.

I often binge-drank, hoping I'd black out and not wake up.

I took random amounts of random pills, hoping for the same but always just got sick, which was also preferable to the prior state.

I had periods of confusion about reality and identity, whether or not I really existed, who I was, was I of equal value to other people. Hurting myself didn't feel like hurting a person, and drugs and alcohol had no risk, only reward. Pleasure is good, pain is good, death is good. All good.

Also, I had a theory that if I were stupider I would be happier. I was hoping drugs and alcohol would make me dumb enough to feel okay.

I entered into abusive relationships and did everything I could to stay, because that was when I felt most okay.

I started doing other kinds of drugs, like ecstasy, lsd, shrooms, and a bunch of others I won't list, along with various anxiety and amphetamine meds. While on these stronger drugs, all of the weight that constantly tried to kill me, the shifting realities, the confusion, the PTSD and memories were all reduced to a little bunny. So I kept doing it

I have Borderline Personality Disorder and ADHD, as well, so of course those are factors.

I attempted suicide countless times and, without a lot of these drugs, I would have continued trying. In my mind, the option was to be high or kill myself. And I usually chose to be high.

Thank God for drugs. I'm lucky to be alive. I no longer abuse drugs and would like to keep it that way, but I'm happy they were there. Of course, it would have been nice if I didn't do that. It also would have been nice to not be abused, neglected, and mentally ill. But apparently what's nice is often not what is.

Does any of that explain anything at all to you, or are you still in utter confusion?

I appreciate your long description a lot, but unfortunately almost all the replies have only added to my confusion. What they've shown me is that either people are involved in crazy social situations from an early age, like your party, that I could never involve myself in (one reason being this exact fear of alcohol and people under the influence) – parties were so much more innocent in childhood – or that there's something fundamentally different with me which means I'm just way too cautious of all drugs in a way that I absolutely cannot imagine being different from. There's clearly no group I fit in with here at all, so it must be something to do with me.

They've also shown me, as @Pats said, that people are, well, just as sensitive about their drug use as I expected them to be really. I learnt nothing on that point, only the same reason I never even address this with people (when a post calling you "self-righteous" gets some 10 votes in agreement). Though there are a few people, like yourself, who've shown a willingness to understand and be understood.

I feel that I must get to the bottom of this, because it's wrecking me totally. It's a mental drain when everyone around you is doing this thing that you feel is so fundamentally wrong. I must get some kind of understanding. Yes @Fino, I would have to dip into my 1,000 reasons to perhaps reach that understanding with people, but after this post I've only found myself just as hesitant to do so. My initial upfront style of post was the first time I've addressed it publicly like that, because I was tired of hiding my confusion to people with euphemisms and stepping around the topic. I can't say that I didn't expect it to rustle a few jimmies, but I still don't understand anything about why. I do understand the "that". I understand that people have these different upbringings and different influences and pressures and make different choices. But if I tried to put myself in their situation, I still can't imagine my mind giving into taking any sort of recreational drug. There must be something they're going through or some way they're thinking that they're not saying or can't articulate. I mean take the first reply, whittling it down to just "to feel differently from how they feel initially". I certainly feel like I could articulate my side in far more detail (with the 1,000 reasons). I guess a private message may be at hand.

 

[SUM1]

HOLY MOLY I FOUND THE PERSON WHO IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF ME LOL I can't answer this thread right now, I'm too giddy.

HERE I AM...

THE EMBODIMENT OF EVERYTHING YOU'RE AGAINST.

Sorry for the obnoxious caps, my brain thinks in obnoxious caps. I'll comment something less obnoxious soon/later.

Also, it seems like everyone's the exact opposite to me at this point. So don't feel too special lol.

 

[sidd851]

And don't consider the downsides? Because that's what I said in my post. You don't do things just because of a positive. You consider the positives and negatives. But apparently people don't.

I'm sorry that you really haven't gotten "anything" from any of the posts here.
Perhaps it is from "black and white" thinking, as has been suggested.
I get the feeling, that at some point, you were presented with "facts", and did the logical thing, accepted them and acted upon them. It is only prudence, after all, in the face of such obvious danger, right? Hardly something to be faulted for.
Unfortunately, those "facts", while presented in "good faith", for the "public's wellbeing",
may not be quite what they seem.

I have found, in my life, that there are very few instances of "facts" being presented that don't also contain some motive.
Only if one looks to the sciences, is there less than an even chance that the "data" is presented to coerce.
By and large, the single-most common reason for presenting "facts" is profit.
Running a close second is political gain.
The two are interrelated in any case.

Do you know why we are constantly inundated with facts about the heroin epidemic, which kills 15,000 people a year in the U.S.?
Because 30,000 people a year die from
synthetic opiates. That's right, twice as many.
Those synthetics are created in a lab, and marketed legally. Bad press.

NSAIDS=Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as Aleve, Ibuprofin also kill
30,000 people a year(U.S.) Again, twice as many as heroin. Again, created in a lab and marketed legally. Again, bad press.

So it is swept under the rug with "informational campaigns" against some other substance(s), and the aid of government programs and policy.

How is it that such heavily regulated legal drugs kill so many more than an entirely unregulated drug? One that we hear the evils of so often?

Consider, for a moment, how the dangers of some substances, and their legal consequences and legality are inversely correlated.(U.S.)

Tobacco=legal=no penalty
lethal dose= ingesting orally one medium sized cigar
Taxed

Alcohol=legal=no penalty
lethal dose= ingesting orally one pint of grain alcohol
Taxed

Cannabis=illegal= schedule 1 narcotic(no medical use)
lethal dose= the equivalent of smoking 175,000 "joints"(approx. 75lbs)... at the same time.(physically impossible)

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-L.S.D.=illegal= sch 1 narcotic
lethal dose= there is none. There is no lethal dose for L.S.D.

It is obvious that some other purpose, not the danger to the public, is at work here.

It is sad commentary that corporations have the power to lobby and make a substance that competes with their own, illegal.
That they can create "information" campaigns to smear those competing substances--- while ignoring and hiding the risks from their own products.

Laboratory isolated and created opiates
are no more effective than natural opiates.
It is simply a pay to play scenario.
Corps. pay taxes, so it's legal for them to sell death. Period.
Same with the tobacco and alcohol industries.

I would ask that you consider the above information, consider the larger picture of which it is a part, and compare it to the "common knowledge" presented to, and reinforced in the minds of, the public.

Enough said.
========================
For every recreational drug, there are corresponding receptors in the brain.
Without these receptors, the drug(s) would have no effect.
There are really only two competing theories as to how these receptors got there.

The first is that over millions of years of evolving side by side with the sources of these drugs, and using them, the prevalence of these receptors evolved to be what it is today.

The second is that God created these receptors and put them, purposely and specifically, in the brains of humans.

I do not wish to challenge the wisdom nor the providence of either.
The conclusion is quite obvious.

It is natural, in either case, for us to use them. We have been, either for a very long time, or from the beginning of creation itself.

It is even the subject of recent study that such psychoactive agents drove the progress of mankind, and possibly contributed to the unprecedented expansion, and increased complexity, of the brains of some hominids, chiefly those that led to homo sapiens.

I suggest, that the less recognized but very relevant answer to your question is self-medication. The world of today bears little resemblance, in pace and complexity, to that of even 100 years ago.
The human brain has historically never been subjected to such a drastic change in sensory input in such a short time.
This bears consideration and investigation.

It is true that, other than crude refinements, we have not been able to refine and increase the potency of these substances drastically until fairly recently--- several hundred years, at best. My point is that the dangers are largely due to post-industrial revolution technologies.
=======================
For myself, I think that it is a narrow, barbed, and loaded question to level--- asking "how can people do that knowing the dangers?"
"Why aren't they as smart as I am?"

It would seem to be asked, to point out that some have thought and acted in the correct manner, whereas so many others have not.

I dearly hope that no-one encounters the circumstances that have brought some of us to apparently disregard cost/benefit analysis.
=============================
I cannot help but think that such obviously superior analytic ability is sorely missed on the subjects of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, global warming, environmental destruction, war, profiteering, income inequality, institutionalized economic slavery, racism, the proliferation and distribution of murder weapons, nuclear weapons, starvation, discrimination, and a myriad of others.

Perhaps when we get done with the important question at hand, we can consider these secondary concerns.

 

[Autistamatic]

@SUM1 I'm sorry to have to be equally as blunt as yourself, but you are wasting your time trying to answer a question that has no answer.
Why is the Earth cube shaped? Why do people have three legs? What is the square root of fish?
You are seeking an understanding of why rational people do irrational things and there is no answer for you. The only answer available is "people sometimes do irrational things" and you don't appear to be able to assimilate that simple fact of life. There is no "why" that you can relate to.
Everybody, without exception, makes questionable decisions in life. We all have regrets that we didn't think more clearly at the time. You will do it too if you haven't already. In 20 years time when you are pushing 40 you will be so different to who you are now, your present self would barely recognise that person as being you. Many of the things you currently swear you will never do, you will have done and by then you will know why you did them.
There have been many stories told in response to your question. People have opened their hearts, sharing their weaknesses and mistakes to help you understand, but to no avail it seems.
You have not been insulted, you have not been condescended to, you have been given the closest to an answer you will ever know until you yourself walk in the shoes of those who have travelled before you.
Stop torturing yourself trying to answer the unanswerable and start living. Life itself will bring you the answers you seek.

 

[Fino]

Also, it seems like everyone's the exact opposite to me at this point. So don't feel too special lol.

I think by "everyone," you mean "some" and by "exact opposite" you mean "different in some ways," right? Some people here have agreed with you, so they can't be the opposite! Unless it was supposed to be understood that you were using hyperbole, in which case, sorry!

 

[Fino]

I appreciate your long description a lot, but unfortunately almost all the replies have only added to my confusion. What they've shown me is that either people are involved in crazy social situations from an early age, like your party, that I could never involve myself in (one reason being this exact fear of alcohol and people under the influence) – parties were so much more innocent in childhood – or that there's something fundamentally different with me which means I'm just way too cautious of all drugs in a way that I absolutely cannot imagine being different from. There's clearly no group I fit in with here at all, so it must be something to do with me.

They've also shown me, as @Pats said, that people are, well, just as sensitive about their drug use as I expected them to be really. I learnt nothing on that point, only the same reason I never even address this with people (when a post calling you "self-righteous" gets some 10 votes in agreement). Though there are a few people, like yourself, who've shown a willingness to understand and be understood.

I feel that I must get to the bottom of this, because it's wrecking me totally. It's a mental drain when everyone around you is doing this thing that you feel is so fundamentally wrong. I must get some kind of understanding. Yes @Fino, I would have to dip into my 1,000 reasons to perhaps reach that understanding with people, but after this post I've only found myself just as hesitant to do so. My initial upfront style of post was the first time I've addressed it publicly like that, because I was tired of hiding my confusion to people with euphemisms and stepping around the topic. I can't say that I didn't expect it to rustle a few jimmies, but I still don't understand anything about why. I do understand the "that". I understand that people have these different upbringings and different influences and pressures and make different choices. But if I tried to put myself in their situation, I still can't imagine my mind giving into taking any sort of recreational drug. There must be something they're going through or some way they're thinking that they're not saying or can't articulate. I mean take the first reply, whittling it down to just "to feel differently from how they feel initially". I certainly feel like I could articulate my side in far more detail (with the 1,000 reasons). I guess a private message may be at hand.

Yay, you're back! I was worried you weren't coming because of what you said to Tom!

Thank you!

Maybe it would be relevant to ask if you can relate to the idea of a person attempting/committing suicide? Or how about self-harm, such as cutting? Are these equally confusing or less confusing or more confusing?