The Walk Back Home

 It wasn't this bad simply because of the lack of industrialization, but people still became addicted. Granted, addiction was approached differently, and there were much more effective community-oriented methods of "helping wrest one of our brothers/sisters from the grip of tobacco." But if you go down to South America today you'll find that tribes imbibe tobacco (natural tobacco, mapacho tree bark, rapè snuff, etc) just like they always did. It's a lot harder to get addicted to tobacco when you have to go through the ritualistic process of preparing it and. Most likely unless you were entrusted as a medicine holder you wouldn't just have tobacco sitting around. The shaman down the trail wouldn't be willing to sell you a pack of mapacho bark pre-rolls for 10 bags of coca leaves, either. Plus tribal lifestyle involves a bond of community that I doubt (m)any of us are familiar with That alone is probably enough to discourage someone from sneaking off into th...

  The feeling of seeking satisfaction externally is very prevalent. It is addiction: to love, to substance, to food, to approval, to acceptance. To anything outside of myself that feels good. There's a distinct feeling to this, or at least a feeling that leads up to it. A sort of hollow sensation in my solar plexus, a lack of will, an emptiness. It is this emptiness that the entity seeks to fill through external validation, through pleasure, through creating situations that are hedonistic and enjoyable so that it may... exist. There is another feeling, though. One that I have grown foreign to, so foreign to that now it scares me and manifests as anxiety. It is that same feeling that I used to get in high school when I would take myself to meet a girl I knew, or take a driver's test, or start a new job: the feeling that I'm already full, I'm already complete, and that I'm going to offer myself to the situation. I feel that feeling now and it scares me, instantly repe...

  I know some people will read this and think, "duh." For those of you who have already realized this, hopefully it's been helpful for you and perhaps you could further chime in and shine some light on how this could be applied in the lives of us who are still struggling. The others who I know will read this and think, "a-ha!" I often struggle to understand the compulsion that drives me back to opiates again and again. I can write a list of pros and cons, come up with twice as many cons anspros, and then find myself on autopilot an hour later going to score. During these autopilot moments, I occasionally retain enough awareness to recognize that my body is carrying itself somewhere that my mind is urging it not to go. Sometimes I can stop it for a while, but inevitably those moments of grace are overwrought by the same cyclical driving force that triggers the lock-step following of my cravings. With other drugs I've used, this would usually be the time in wh...

 Time and time again I find myself circling around the question of how to fill the gaping hole that I find in my life when I stop using opioids. Doctors recommend opioid maintenance therapy, of course. I've had some success with kratom. But ultimately, those are just placeholders. The only substitute for the warmth of opioids is love. Timothy Leary's 8-circuit model provides an interesting explanation for this: opioids are believed to activate the first circuit of consciousness, that which is primarily engaged during the earliest moments of infancy wherein we are completely nurtured and nourished (ideally) by our mothers. Our every need is met, we're kept warm, fed, watered, and sheltered with minimal effort. That basically describes the sensation of being on an opiate. And thus it makes sense that replacing an opiate addiction would involve recreating that sensation. Love, though, can be a tricky beast when it comes to overcoming an addiction. It's far, far too easy to...