15 ms·

Before entering the corporate work place I never touched anything. Once my one coworker started talking about it, the whole chain revealed itself, now it's supe

by EC1 13y ago

Before entering the corporate work place I never touched anything. Once my one coworker started talking about it, the whole chain revealed itself, now it's super social to go smoke a joint with my bosses after work and have a beer, I love it. I wonder how much I'm actually destroying my health by smoking weed every day, drinking coffee, and having some alcohol at least in a minor capacity. I feel as if the emotional/mental pain I suffered by not having any outlet greatly outweighs the physical damage I'm doing to myself. Now that I smoke/drink while working most of the time (self unemployed), I find that I am much more productive because I'm enjoying myself the entire time. Tunes, a drink, a smoke, and code. Never seen talk on HN about drugs really. What's your routine like with HN? What are your experiences?

hiphopyo 13y ago
Everything excess in life is poison. Like they say, it is possible that you hate a thing which is good for you [emotional/mental pain], and love a thing which is bad for you [being a drunk].
- bennyg 13y ago
  Maybe. I'm not convinced that when things are going well we should try to make things go badly just to "feel the downswing too." I think it more has to do with the fact that life can have ups and downs, they aren't easily predictable, and one shouldn't be afraid to face them both in stride.
today 13y ago
I thought I had things under control with weed. Gradually I realised I was using it to cope with chronic depression due to an earlier personal tragedy. Weed probably is great when things are actually in order in your life, but you may be losing contact with reality precisely because it makes it possible to enjoy yourself the entire time. I think you have to be very mindful of that. It's a painful processes, turning to face life directly, but I feel like I'm managing to do so day by day. Part of this processes involves speaking to a psychiatrist and starting an SNRI prescription. I do plan to smoke weed again, cautiously, once things are "in order". It's funny - when I used to smoke weed, I always felt like I needed to clear my daily todo list before hand. I would take out the trash I should have taken out, put clothes in the laundry, maybe respond to some lingering emails. It was quite productive. Now I'm recapitulating that pattern at a higher level in life. At least, I hope that's what's happening...
- makmanalp 13y ago
  Thank you for this - I'm always concerned that people miss this. I recall someone I know noticing that they just didn't enjoy smoking anymore, and it was actually making them more anxious. Without going into a discussion about why this happened, it took them a long time to realize this because they were rationalizing their use, and using more to counter the fact that they were feeling "off" after the regular amount. As a non-smoker, it's one of my fears that if this happens again, I won't be able to convince one of my smoking friends that this is happening to them. Mental dependence seems insidious in that way. Any pointers? Experiences to share?
  - MarkPNeyer 13y ago
    this experience was mine, too. i really liked it at first, and grew to hate it because i kept doing it even though i didn't want to. reddit.com/r/leaves is a great resource for quitting. if you read the posts there, you'll see that same story over and over and over.
- kpennell 13y ago
  nice comment
jonnathanson 13y ago
Alcohol is probably much worse than weed or coffee over the long run. It's exceedingly hard to slowly poison your liver and brain over the course of a lifetime by smoking herb. It's easier than you think to do it drinking alcohol. I'm not a teetotaler by any means. I drink a couple of glasses of something pretty much every other day. But that's about the limit of what a healthy, adult male should be drinking. Any more than that, especially over the long run, and you're setting loose a lot of chickens that will come home to roost when you're older. I don't smoke weed with nearly the frequency I did when I was young. That's got less to do with my beliefs about its health effects, and more to do with being too busy. But every now and then, sure. Sharing a couple of beers and a joint is a fantastic social experience. On a related note: SF is one of the most weed-friendly towns I've ever lived in, and there is virtually no stigma whatsoever here. One time I saw a dude light up right outside the freaking airport baggage claim, in broad daylight, and nobody around him seemed to care.
- DanBC 13y ago
  8 glasses of wine a week, at 250 ml per glass is 2 litres. Weak 10% ABV wine would be 20 units. Normal 12.5% ABV would be 25 units. Strong 15% ABV wine would be 30 units. UK advice is no more than 3 to 4 units per day for men, with a couple of days free of alcohol and no "saving up" of units for a binge. (The old advice was 21 units per week for men.) http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/alcohol/Pages/Alcoholhome.aspx http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/alcohol/Pages/Alcoholhome.aspx Drinking above that limit long term has some health consequences http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/alcohol/Pages/Effectsofalcohol.aspx http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/alcohol/Pages/Effectsofalcohol.as... Problem drinking has several definitions, but NICE recommend assisted withdrawal at 30 units per day. (15 to 20 per day if there are co morbid severe mental health problems). I don't care if people use cannabis (and I am strongly in favour of legalisation) but I fucking hate the refusal of many cannabis users to even contemplate any negative effects of cannabis.
  - jonnathanson 13y ago
    "I don't care if people use cannabis (and I am strongly in favour of legalisation) but I fucking hate the refusal of many cannabis users to even contemplate any negative effects of cannabis." Don't get me wrong; I don't refuse to contemplate the negative effects of cannabis, of which quite a few have been hypothesized, some observed. When I said "alcohol is probably much worse than weed," I didn't say "weed is a free lunch." Just want to make sure I'm clear on that. There are cannabinoid receptors in the brain (and other organs). Our current understanding of them is far from complete, and we know that smoking weed habitually will reregulate them, and not necessarily for the better. I'm not one of those hippy-dippy types who thinks there are no ramifications involved in smoking weed.
dobbsbob 13y ago
When you stop smoking weed every day you have insanely vivid dreams for a few days, that's the only noticeable side effect I had. Weed can sap motivation if you let it too
- Crito 13y ago
  I've had that happen to me when I have fallen asleep while high (sativa, if it makes any different). I avoid doing that now; the dreams were never frightening or disturbing.. just kind of creepy how vivid they were.
Crito 13y ago
A vaporizer is perhaps a bit less social, but I find that it is much easier on my lungs than smoking. I'd recommend looking into them. I'm turned off by the pen-form factor/vapor liquid/nicotine scene, but a small vaporizer for ground plant matter is great. One problem with vaporizers is that there isn't a great word to use to describe the action of using one. "Vap" sounds lame or maybe even show-offy, so I just use the word "smoke". ;) Alcohol is what I truly appreciate though. The reason I smoke is so that when I want to unwind and tune out, I have options other than alcohol every time. Heavy long term alcohol use can be very bad for you, but by giving myself other healthier options I've managed to get my drinking back to 4-8 times a month (always Wednesdays, sometimes Fridays). Alcohol is what I love/fear, weed is what I entertain myself with between flings with booze. I am starting to suspect that caffeine is a net-negative force in my life, as it constantly jostles my sleep schedule.
- vaporizer 13y ago
  The social aspects of vaporizers probably depends on who you hang with. Everyone who I regularly get high with strictly uses a vaporizer when we are hanging out (or occasionally shares edibles). Not a lot of smoking going on. Of course, I am in my mid-30's and have friends of the same age or older, and most of these friends have stable jobs, such that spending $250+ on a vaporizer is a no-brainer. The verb "vape" is what is commonly used with the people I know. It's not show-offy if vaporizing is commonplace. This is more recent, and I just said "use a vaporizer" in the past if I wanted to be specific. Personally, I own both a non-portable vaporizer that can fill bags (Herbelaire) and a portable vaporizer (Pax). Both are used frequently and are easy to share with friends. I still smoke, but that is only maybe 10% of the time. I've been vaping for the last 17 years, starting with a home-made vaporizer made using a soldering iron. As for alcohol: I enjoy it, but I rarely have the desire to drink it for it's intoxicating effects lately. I really enjoy the taste of beer (and wine is good too), but it's becoming rare that I actually want to drink one. What changed is that I started getting back in shape and exercising frequently (well, moderately). Due to being a new parent, I often get my exercise around 9pm-10pm as that is the only time that works for me. That means many nights, alcohol is just not an option. Also, I have been fairly consistent in eliminating unhealthy foods (I can count the number of times I have a sugary dessert in a month on one hand), and I've started to see beer as unnecessary calories. The fact that I lost enough weight to stop snoring is just affirmation that I should stick with this. I'll save drinking beer for social situations, rather than something I have with dinner.
tbirdz 13y ago
Personally, I don't use any illicit drugs, smoke tobacco, drink alcohol, or drink coffee. I never have done any of these things either. I used to drink soda pop, but I cut that out of my diet a few years ago. I'm not even really tempted to start any of these things either. Sometimes people give me some flack about it, but I'm used to that by now, and once they get to know me they drop the issue (except for a few people who simply refuse to let it go). I don't know how much this is positively affecting my health, or if it is at all.
- collyw 13y ago
  sounds like fun
anewcolor 13y ago
marijuana and writing code go together like song and lyric
- Karunamon 13y ago
  It actually has the opposite effect for me.. Getting a little faded cranks up my usual ADD to the point where I can't do much of any productive work. The things I could do with better focus and less of a need to seek novelty....
  - shawnz 13y ago
    > The things I could do with better focus and less of a need to seek novelty.... Isn't it a need to seek novelty that makes you want to do those things?
    - Karunamon 13y ago
      To a point, but if you've blazed once you're not experiencing much new each time you do it. (At least I don't :P) My problem is that anything, no matter how cool, rapidly becomes boring and uninteresting to me. Whether that be a game or a programming language or a project. Probably the single greatest stumbling block to advancing my career, knowledge, and overall life.
ridgeguy 13y ago
"I wonder how much I'm actually destroying my health by smoking weed every day, drinking coffee, and having some alcohol at least in a minor capacity." Probably not at all. Cue the "correlation isn't causality" soundbite, but coffee consumption is negatively correlated with developing Parkinson's disease, and moderate consumption of alcohol has been shown by many studies to correlate with positive cardiovascular status. Haven't researched the literature on associations of weed with positive health outcomes, but it's interesting that smoking weed doesn't correlate with developing lung cancer. You're probably just fine so long as moderation is your mode.
staticelf 13y ago
I have experience from three different substances that I thought I'd share. The first other substance that I tried and did so several times was something called "Spice". It was legal in my country for the time being and you could order it online quite cheap actually. It is a substance created to be as similar as cannabis and to be legal. However a couple of years ago they banned it in my country. The experience of the substance was pretty bad actually, but since I was so young and hadn't really done anything else I had nothing to compare it to. The first time I got really high on it was with my childhood friends. We sat on a bench in a small forest and lighted it up in a bong. I took several hits and felt nothing special at the moment. So we started walking and soon I began to feel something, it was walking in a mist (not visually) but my head started to feel thicker and suddently we'd walked over 1km and it felt like it was in a blink of an eye. I started to panick since I had no idea what was going on and felt pretty scared. Every step I took my knees itched so bad and it wasn't very pleasant at all. It took more than 1 hour before I calmed down and I thought my heart would collapse or something. That experience sucked basically. But after that hour, I began to enjoy it a little but not that much. The drug mainly made you feel scared and it wasn't the best drug I've tried. Second drug to do was cannabis if I recall it correctly. It was hasch and the I didn't feel much at all. It took me several tries (in seperate occations) until I finally got high. The experience from hasch was much better than spice. Imo, you can't even compare the two since the experience is so different, at least for me. I've also done marijuana several times and it is a really good drug, much better than its brown sister hasch from the times I've tried it anyway. My weirdest experience is altough on LSA which is also legal in my country and we ordered it online, just as spice. As our understanding goes it's some kind of seed from a plant or something. So we just swallowed some with water. It is supposed to make you feel ill in the stomach in the beginning since I think it's poisionous for humans and I felt a little ill a while. But after like 1.5 hours the illness was completely gone but I didn't feel a thing. So me and my friend walked around in our neighborhood and looked at stuff. It took a while until I realized this drug doesn't make you feel high at all. I was completely clear in my mind and I don't think I've ever been so clear-minded before or after taking that drug. It was a wonderful "feeling" and in those days I didn't program but if I would I think it would be a perfect fit. After spending some time, me and my friend seperated and I walked home. I looked upon myself in the mirror and I could not see any color in my eyes, just black and white (almost). It was a very very wierd experience since I looked so strange, but I didn't feel anything special unless more emotional and very clear-minded. I thought a lot on my life in general and what I wanted to do with it and so on. I felt happy in short, I felt that my life was really headed in a good direction and everything was basically good. The clear-mindedness just continued through the day but as the drug wore of, so did the clearness of everything. Unfortunately, several years after this usage my friend committed suicide and he had a lot of problems with drugs. But the problems did not originate in the drugs but rather on his family situation. He was a very intelligent guy and I miss him. He was depressed for a long time and even when we contacted the authorities for help he recieved none. I hope you guys will get something from my experiences :) my general stand on drugs is very liberal even if a tragic event has happened in my life because I know the drugs weren't the real issue, just an escape.

by EC1 13y ago

hiphopyo 13y ago

Everything excess in life is poison. Like they say, it is possible that you hate a thing which is good for you [emotional/mental pain], and love a thing which is bad for you [being a drunk].

bennyg 13y ago
Maybe. I'm not convinced that when things are going well we should try to make things go badly just to "feel the downswing too." I think it more has to do with the fact that life can have ups and downs, they aren't easily predictable, and one shouldn't be afraid to face them both in stride.

today 13y ago

I thought I had things under control with weed. Gradually I realised I was using it to cope with chronic depression due to an earlier personal tragedy. Weed probably is great when things are actually in order in your life, but you may be losing contact with reality precisely because it makes it possible to enjoy yourself the entire time. I think you have to be very mindful of that. It's a painful processes, turning to face life directly, but I feel like I'm managing to do so day by day. Part of this processes involves speaking to a psychiatrist and starting an SNRI prescription. I do plan to smoke weed again, cautiously, once things are "in order". It's funny - when I used to smoke weed, I always felt like I needed to clear my daily todo list before hand. I would take out the trash I should have taken out, put clothes in the laundry, maybe respond to some lingering emails. It was quite productive. Now I'm recapitulating that pattern at a higher level in life. At least, I hope that's what's happening...

makmanalp 13y ago
Thank you for this - I'm always concerned that people miss this. I recall someone I know noticing that they just didn't enjoy smoking anymore, and it was actually making them more anxious. Without going into a discussion about why this happened, it took them a long time to realize this because they were rationalizing their use, and using more to counter the fact that they were feeling "off" after the regular amount. As a non-smoker, it's one of my fears that if this happens again, I won't be able to convince one of my smoking friends that this is happening to them. Mental dependence seems insidious in that way. Any pointers? Experiences to share?
- MarkPNeyer 13y ago
  this experience was mine, too. i really liked it at first, and grew to hate it because i kept doing it even though i didn't want to. reddit.com/r/leaves is a great resource for quitting. if you read the posts there, you'll see that same story over and over and over.
kpennell 13y ago
nice comment

jonnathanson 13y ago

Alcohol is probably much worse than weed or coffee over the long run. It's exceedingly hard to slowly poison your liver and brain over the course of a lifetime by smoking herb. It's easier than you think to do it drinking alcohol. I'm not a teetotaler by any means. I drink a couple of glasses of something pretty much every other day. But that's about the limit of what a healthy, adult male should be drinking. Any more than that, especially over the long run, and you're setting loose a lot of chickens that will come home to roost when you're older. I don't smoke weed with nearly the frequency I did when I was young. That's got less to do with my beliefs about its health effects, and more to do with being too busy. But every now and then, sure. Sharing a couple of beers and a joint is a fantastic social experience. On a related note: SF is one of the most weed-friendly towns I've ever lived in, and there is virtually no stigma whatsoever here. One time I saw a dude light up right outside the freaking airport baggage claim, in broad daylight, and nobody around him seemed to care.

DanBC 13y ago
8 glasses of wine a week, at 250 ml per glass is 2 litres. Weak 10% ABV wine would be 20 units. Normal 12.5% ABV would be 25 units. Strong 15% ABV wine would be 30 units. UK advice is no more than 3 to 4 units per day for men, with a couple of days free of alcohol and no "saving up" of units for a binge. (The old advice was 21 units per week for men.) http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/alcohol/Pages/Alcoholhome.aspx http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/alcohol/Pages/Alcoholhome.aspx Drinking above that limit long term has some health consequences http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/alcohol/Pages/Effectsofalcohol.aspx http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/alcohol/Pages/Effectsofalcohol.as... Problem drinking has several definitions, but NICE recommend assisted withdrawal at 30 units per day. (15 to 20 per day if there are co morbid severe mental health problems). I don't care if people use cannabis (and I am strongly in favour of legalisation) but I fucking hate the refusal of many cannabis users to even contemplate any negative effects of cannabis.
- jonnathanson 13y ago
  "I don't care if people use cannabis (and I am strongly in favour of legalisation) but I fucking hate the refusal of many cannabis users to even contemplate any negative effects of cannabis." Don't get me wrong; I don't refuse to contemplate the negative effects of cannabis, of which quite a few have been hypothesized, some observed. When I said "alcohol is probably much worse than weed," I didn't say "weed is a free lunch." Just want to make sure I'm clear on that. There are cannabinoid receptors in the brain (and other organs). Our current understanding of them is far from complete, and we know that smoking weed habitually will reregulate them, and not necessarily for the better. I'm not one of those hippy-dippy types who thinks there are no ramifications involved in smoking weed.

dobbsbob 13y ago

When you stop smoking weed every day you have insanely vivid dreams for a few days, that's the only noticeable side effect I had. Weed can sap motivation if you let it too

Crito 13y ago
I've had that happen to me when I have fallen asleep while high (sativa, if it makes any different). I avoid doing that now; the dreams were never frightening or disturbing.. just kind of creepy how vivid they were.

Crito 13y ago

A vaporizer is perhaps a bit less social, but I find that it is much easier on my lungs than smoking. I'd recommend looking into them. I'm turned off by the pen-form factor/vapor liquid/nicotine scene, but a small vaporizer for ground plant matter is great. One problem with vaporizers is that there isn't a great word to use to describe the action of using one. "Vap" sounds lame or maybe even show-offy, so I just use the word "smoke". ;) Alcohol is what I truly appreciate though. The reason I smoke is so that when I want to unwind and tune out, I have options other than alcohol every time. Heavy long term alcohol use can be very bad for you, but by giving myself other healthier options I've managed to get my drinking back to 4-8 times a month (always Wednesdays, sometimes Fridays). Alcohol is what I love/fear, weed is what I entertain myself with between flings with booze. I am starting to suspect that caffeine is a net-negative force in my life, as it constantly jostles my sleep schedule.

vaporizer 13y ago
The social aspects of vaporizers probably depends on who you hang with. Everyone who I regularly get high with strictly uses a vaporizer when we are hanging out (or occasionally shares edibles). Not a lot of smoking going on. Of course, I am in my mid-30's and have friends of the same age or older, and most of these friends have stable jobs, such that spending $250+ on a vaporizer is a no-brainer. The verb "vape" is what is commonly used with the people I know. It's not show-offy if vaporizing is commonplace. This is more recent, and I just said "use a vaporizer" in the past if I wanted to be specific. Personally, I own both a non-portable vaporizer that can fill bags (Herbelaire) and a portable vaporizer (Pax). Both are used frequently and are easy to share with friends. I still smoke, but that is only maybe 10% of the time. I've been vaping for the last 17 years, starting with a home-made vaporizer made using a soldering iron. As for alcohol: I enjoy it, but I rarely have the desire to drink it for it's intoxicating effects lately. I really enjoy the taste of beer (and wine is good too), but it's becoming rare that I actually want to drink one. What changed is that I started getting back in shape and exercising frequently (well, moderately). Due to being a new parent, I often get my exercise around 9pm-10pm as that is the only time that works for me. That means many nights, alcohol is just not an option. Also, I have been fairly consistent in eliminating unhealthy foods (I can count the number of times I have a sugary dessert in a month on one hand), and I've started to see beer as unnecessary calories. The fact that I lost enough weight to stop snoring is just affirmation that I should stick with this. I'll save drinking beer for social situations, rather than something I have with dinner.

tbirdz 13y ago

Personally, I don't use any illicit drugs, smoke tobacco, drink alcohol, or drink coffee. I never have done any of these things either. I used to drink soda pop, but I cut that out of my diet a few years ago. I'm not even really tempted to start any of these things either. Sometimes people give me some flack about it, but I'm used to that by now, and once they get to know me they drop the issue (except for a few people who simply refuse to let it go). I don't know how much this is positively affecting my health, or if it is at all.

collyw 13y ago
sounds like fun

anewcolor 13y ago

marijuana and writing code go together like song and lyric

Karunamon 13y ago
It actually has the opposite effect for me.. Getting a little faded cranks up my usual ADD to the point where I can't do much of any productive work. The things I could do with better focus and less of a need to seek novelty....
- shawnz 13y ago
  > The things I could do with better focus and less of a need to seek novelty.... Isn't it a need to seek novelty that makes you want to do those things?
  - Karunamon 13y ago
    To a point, but if you've blazed once you're not experiencing much new each time you do it. (At least I don't :P) My problem is that anything, no matter how cool, rapidly becomes boring and uninteresting to me. Whether that be a game or a programming language or a project. Probably the single greatest stumbling block to advancing my career, knowledge, and overall life.

ridgeguy 13y ago

"I wonder how much I'm actually destroying my health by smoking weed every day, drinking coffee, and having some alcohol at least in a minor capacity." Probably not at all. Cue the "correlation isn't causality" soundbite, but coffee consumption is negatively correlated with developing Parkinson's disease, and moderate consumption of alcohol has been shown by many studies to correlate with positive cardiovascular status. Haven't researched the literature on associations of weed with positive health outcomes, but it's interesting that smoking weed doesn't correlate with developing lung cancer. You're probably just fine so long as moderation is your mode.

staticelf 13y ago

I have experience from three different substances that I thought I'd share. The first other substance that I tried and did so several times was something called "Spice". It was legal in my country for the time being and you could order it online quite cheap actually. It is a substance created to be as similar as cannabis and to be legal. However a couple of years ago they banned it in my country. The experience of the substance was pretty bad actually, but since I was so young and hadn't really done anything else I had nothing to compare it to. The first time I got really high on it was with my childhood friends. We sat on a bench in a small forest and lighted it up in a bong. I took several hits and felt nothing special at the moment. So we started walking and soon I began to feel something, it was walking in a mist (not visually) but my head started to feel thicker and suddently we'd walked over 1km and it felt like it was in a blink of an eye. I started to panick since I had no idea what was going on and felt pretty scared. Every step I took my knees itched so bad and it wasn't very pleasant at all. It took more than 1 hour before I calmed down and I thought my heart would collapse or something. That experience sucked basically. But after that hour, I began to enjoy it a little but not that much. The drug mainly made you feel scared and it wasn't the best drug I've tried. Second drug to do was cannabis if I recall it correctly. It was hasch and the I didn't feel much at all. It took me several tries (in seperate occations) until I finally got high. The experience from hasch was much better than spice. Imo, you can't even compare the two since the experience is so different, at least for me. I've also done marijuana several times and it is a really good drug, much better than its brown sister hasch from the times I've tried it anyway. My weirdest experience is altough on LSA which is also legal in my country and we ordered it online, just as spice. As our understanding goes it's some kind of seed from a plant or something. So we just swallowed some with water. It is supposed to make you feel ill in the stomach in the beginning since I think it's poisionous for humans and I felt a little ill a while. But after like 1.5 hours the illness was completely gone but I didn't feel a thing. So me and my friend walked around in our neighborhood and looked at stuff. It took a while until I realized this drug doesn't make you feel high at all. I was completely clear in my mind and I don't think I've ever been so clear-minded before or after taking that drug. It was a wonderful "feeling" and in those days I didn't program but if I would I think it would be a perfect fit. After spending some time, me and my friend seperated and I walked home. I looked upon myself in the mirror and I could not see any color in my eyes, just black and white (almost). It was a very very wierd experience since I looked so strange, but I didn't feel anything special unless more emotional and very clear-minded. I thought a lot on my life in general and what I wanted to do with it and so on. I felt happy in short, I felt that my life was really headed in a good direction and everything was basically good. The clear-mindedness just continued through the day but as the drug wore of, so did the clearness of everything. Unfortunately, several years after this usage my friend committed suicide and he had a lot of problems with drugs. But the problems did not originate in the drugs but rather on his family situation. He was a very intelligent guy and I miss him. He was depressed for a long time and even when we contacted the authorities for help he recieved none. I hope you guys will get something from my experiences :) my general stand on drugs is very liberal even if a tragic event has happened in my life because I know the drugs weren't the real issue, just an escape.