Category Archives: Cannabis

Migraines: An Inconvenient Blot On Reality

04 Friday Jun 2021

Posted by in Brain Droppings, Cannabis, Healthcare, Medical Marijuana, Mental Health, Migraines, Pain, Psychedelics, Recovery, Spirituality

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A migraine isn’t just a bad headache. A migraine is a big chunk of time where I can’t do life. I can’t cook, drive, shop, eat, or even talk well. And if I am not careful, I can cause much bigger problems for myself just by the way I act when I have one.

I don’t build up any sort of tolerance or immunity when I have a migraine. When I recover from one, that doesn’t influence whether I will have another at all, as far as I know. Yes, I have tried everything: plenty of water, OTC meds, meditation, acupuncture, dry needling, vitamins, adding and removing different foods, etc. And no, those essential oils won’t cleanse my salty chakra.

I don’t even look at migraines the same way as I used to. Even with all of the neurological and physical symptoms I have, and everything I have learned about how they work. A migraine has just become nothing more to me than a multi-day long period where I am a useless lump.

A migraine is that time period where I don’t get to do any of my daily life, that extends through to being a partner, a parent, an employee, or a even a reliable friend. And there’s a whole bunch of other side-crap I let pile up as well. I also don’t make lots of long-range plans, because everyone gets kind of sick of me breaking them.

Each time I have a migraine, I also get less healthy because I don’t move around as much. I certainly don’t exercise. I don’t eat right. I give in to cravings a lot more, and reach for easy stuff. And of course I end up taking lots of medicines. Eventually, those take their own toll on your internal organs, surreptitiously damaging my health in other ways. And, so many of the medicines that are designed to abort a migraine have such horrid side-effects for me that I realized I suffered almost as much with them, as I did without. Hey! How’s about a little dose of serotonin syndrome for your entertainment pleasure? Good stuff man!

Opiates have helped in the past, but they have a problem built into them. One, the body’s tolerance to them can climb like a caffeinated squirrel up a tree if you don’t use them exactly the right way. And even you do, you can still very quickly find yourself with a very persistent monkey on your back. Since the death of my own brother from an opiate overdose, I quickly realized that regardless of their effectiveness they must remain a “For Emergency Use Only” medicine.

Then there is medical marijuana. I mean, pot! No, wait… cannabis, right?!

How cannabis has been working for me on chronic migraines is a post all it’s own, since it’s deserves detail. And whether I personally think it can continue to be successfully prescribed as a medicine, I think, depends a great deal on what we call it (something I have already talked about before. It is a more important topic than most people give attention to, I believe).

Anyway, as I was saying: Migraines suck.

Marijuana

05 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by in Anxiety, Cannabis, Change, Fear, Healthcare, Medical Marijuana, Mental Health, Pain, Psychedelics, Recovery

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Words themselves have no real meaning, not on their own anyway. They are really just jumbles of recognizable sounds that we put together. It’s once we collectively agree on a meaning for that group of sounds that, Boom!, you’ve got a word.

When we begin to be mindful of the associations we carry for most words and names we begin to see that our thoughts, feeling, and maybe even many of our reactions, are largely built upon our own unique memories and experiences. Simply put, the word ‘Mom’ doesn’t evoke the same feelings and images to me as it does to you.

As we grow and start to interact with our world, we encounter things and we are told their names by the people around us. “That thing over there is called a bee, Johnny.”. Being curious little kid, Johnny wants to learn more about things so he reaches out grab a hold of the bee and…

Okay, stop a minute…

Now I am going to ask the reader to take a second and pause – Imagine what your initial reaction would be if someone that had never seen a bee before, reached out to grab one right in front of you. What would your knee-jerk reaction be?

If there is any truth to the assertion that we humans actually create our worlds, it is evidenced by the way we attach significance to many of the words that we hear every day, binding them with the bricks and mortar of our own individual experiences, emotions, and attitudes. ‘Mom’ is not just ‘mom’, she is ‘MOM’.

But it is also in this way that we create our own blindnesses, when we allow our distractions, resentments, desires, and prejudices tell us how to feel and react to a single word or phrase.

…And now back to our little bee!

And if you had never experienced a stinging insect before, bees sure do look fuzzy and cute. And if Johnny is curious about his world, he is likely to reach out and pick up the bee. It’s at this point that we experience that initial reaction to a kid trying to pick up a bee right in front of us. And if you have ever been stung before, or you are allergic to bee venom, you’re probably going to have a different reaction when Johnny goes to pick up the bee than someone like, say Steve Irwin would have.

The whole point to this is to talk about the fact that older slang words for cannabis like pot, weed, and even marijuana, by their very nature are slowing the cause of replacing the public perception of cannabis as a real medicine. Let alone as a safer alternative to some of the legal intoxicants people already use.

There is also the added fact that ‘cannabis’ is actually the plants real name. Add to that the fact that there are literally millions of people out there who still believe the antiquated disinformation campaign that pushed the ‘marijuana leads to harder stuff’ idea.

This one single action of carefully choosing our words when it comes to talking about cannabis, will help us more rapidly bring about these reforms because we won’t have deal with accidentally be conjuring up images of Cheech and Chong sitting in a parked and smoke-filled car, as one of them asks how his driving is.

It’s just not as funny when you just say you use a vaporizer with cannabis to treat the pain from your spinal cord damage.

As funny as that is, it has never gotten us closer to the image of seeing a doctor prescribe cannabis for spinal cord pain because of how effective it is. But also because they were concerned about the addiction potential to many of the other pain medicines they used to use.

“Can you pick me up a half of Orange County Lumber Truck while you’re out?“

27 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Cannabis, Healthcare, Medical Marijuana, Mental Health, Migraines, Pain, Psychedelics, Recovery

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One of the bigger problems cannabis faces as a medicine is that it has a few street names, such as Marijuana. That particular name comes saddled with serious baggage. Baggage that will likely require the slow erosion of time in order to really shake off such an entrenched reputation, even if it’s used only for the phrase ‘medical marijuana’.

Of course, none of that won’t stop millions from visiting dispensaries, chomping down edibles, packing a bowl or three, spinning up a few blunts, and vaping themselves into a Doritos fueled fervor. So, what’s the big deal right? As long as the people finally have some sort of legal access to some kind dank nugs at 4:20, what does it matter? Am I right?

Outside of the fact that I’m likely off by a couple decades on some of my nicknames, my point is that cannabis have had to exist ‘outside the margins’ as a street drug long enough for that whole paragraph to be written. The main problem with that is that we are beginning to learn just how much the demonization of certain substances because of their street profiles has caused us to ignore some very beneficial medicines, because we have been too busy watching Cheech and Chong.

It turns out that this whole thing isn’t so much a drug problem, as it is a challenge for all of us to learn how to open and change our minds about things we think we understand.

The Gateway Drug

23 Saturday Jan 2021

Posted by in Cannabis, Change, Conspiracies, Corruption, First Amendment, Healthcare, Heroin, Medical Marijuana, Mental Health, Migraines, Open mind, Pain, Psychedelics, Recovery

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Cannabis has been proven (not only by modern science, but by thousands of years of human history) to be an effective medicine for many things humanity is plagued with, pain being one of the main ones these days.

Yes, CBD is one of the compounds getting a lot of attention as something that is helping folks. But THC actually plays a very big part in pain relief as well. The problem is, it faces that bane of all middle aged children: A bad reputation!

It’s the compound in Mary Jane that gets you high man. It’s the part of the drug that got saddled with one of the worst parts of adolescence, a nickname. THC is the stuff in Dope that got it the memorable nickname “gateway drug”. And if any 12 year old can tell you, a bad reputation is harder to get rid of than booger on the tip of your finger.

The worst part is, it turns out THC wasn’t the real gateway drug. The real gateway drug it turns out, is and always has been, the pursuit and hoarding of wealth.

invisible

23 Saturday Jan 2021

Posted by in Anxiety, Cannabis, Compassion, Depression, Healthcare, Medical Marijuana, Mental Health, Pain, Prayer

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Chronic pain, headaches, muscular issues, and migraines from cervical damage, just plain suck.

If you’re a drug seeking individual, this kind of pain is like a winning lottery ticket. Willy Wonka meets Powerball.

But, if you’re just trying to stay sober, and do life in a clear and lucid manner, pain is a lifetime sentence in the sandals of Sisyphus.

So, what’s been up?

19 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Anxiety, Brain Droppings, Cannabis, Depression, Emotional Intelligence, Grief, Growth, Human, Love, Medical Marijuana, Mental Health, Middle Way, Migraines, Open mind, Pain, Poetry, Prayer, Recovery, Writing

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This used to be a cohesive blog to some extent, until a few years ago. A few years ago I started to get migraines.

Actually, based on what I now know about migraines, I guess I’ve had them for most of my life. So the fact that I say it the way that I do means they got pretty bad. Bad enough to have screwed with every part of my life, in one way or another.

I always loved writing, but as the migraines got worse, the ability to string two thoughts together has gotten more difficult. Add to that the fact that most of it is written on a tiny little phone screen, and I fat-finger things when I trying to ride an epiphany and get the words out as fast as they roll through.

Then there was this thing I learned about that can go with migraines, called aphasia. I can ‘see’ exactly what it is that I want to say, but its word isn’t with it anymore. When I am writing and it happens, I give up. In daily life, I just come out with weird shit, like referring to a cutting board as ‘the under-the-knife block’. I get frustrated because I want the writing to be good. I’m starting to not care about that as much as i used to. Fuck it. If my typos bug you, there plenty of other blogs you can visit.

I’ve written a lot, but I think I deleted even more.

Poetry has helped me though. Because I don’t have to string thoughts. I have to evoke images and feelings, and tie them together in some sort of dance. And so, that’s been the majority of what I’ve been writing.

Many times I have tried to write about what I had been going through, only to delete it the next day when everything seemed to change again. If you know someone suffering migraines, you know what that means.

Much of it is related to chronic pain, and so a great deal of this involves dealing with that, when I wasn’t in migraine. And often with both at the same time. Although migraines tend to take over the show. Back pain is kind of like a guy who follows you everywhere playing a harmonica. He would be obnoxious and drive you crazy, right? But imagine if he were to then follow you into a Lou Reed concert or something. If you were even able to hear him, even then he would at best be mildly irritating. Migraines are like that. They’re so loud, they drown everything else out around them.

And with pain, comes pain management. And with pain management comes medicines. And I am in recovery. And it’s at that point that Pandora’s Box comes apart at the seams, as the scotch tape repairs let go again.

That’s been the juggle lately, anyway. Or at least it’s a good jumping off point for a few things.

Frunobulax

12 Sunday Jul 2020

Posted by in Brain Droppings, Cannabis, Healthcare, Mental Health, Migraines

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I am currently going through an extensive list of normally successful* remedies that I use for migraines, on a massive f**king cluster headache that I was having…

The problem is that clusters got so close together that it morphed into some sort of super-migraine-cluster-headache-mutant-freakazoid-thing, very reminiscent of world threatening monster Frunobulax, that Frank Zappa refers to here in ‘Cheepnis’.

Anyway, I am out of ideas and cumulative substances for a single evening. I will now lie here like a bird that just flew head-first into a picture window.

Frunobulax, the Cluster/Migraine

Medical Cannabis and Recovery – Part 2: What does it mean to you?

07 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by in Cannabis

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brain

This post is the second part of a previous essay: Medical Cannabis and Recovery – Part 1: High Time For Change

–

Why I care at all about the topic of medical cannabis as it relates to substance abuse and recovery?

First off, I am not a fan of attending funerals and wakes of people who were once lived clean and sober, only to died suddenly of an overdose. I also don’t get any joy from watching someone overdose and turn blue, even if they pull through and live. For me, it seems to be the one way I can live with my own brother’s overdose and death, by trying to help others not follow the same path. I may not be the country’s leading expert, but I can certainly hold my own when in discussions with medical and substance abuse professionals on the subject.

Of the people I know in recovery who utilize medical cannabis, few of them are willing to talk openly about their use of this one particular medicine because of the ‘shame’ factor. But where does the shame come from, since shame itself usually comes from the knowledge that you are doing something you know you shouldn’t be doing. Where would the idea that people in recovery shouldn’t use certain medicines, while others are “recovery approved”?

Twenty years ago, the idea that someone was claiming to be clean and sober while also using a daily psychiatric medicine, would draw the ire of some very dedicated, very crusty old timers grumbling their opinion from the back of more than a few 12 Step meetings. They categorized most psychological medicines as “just chewing your alcohol”. They themselves would proclaim that they had been sober for X number of years, which they defined as ‘not using anything that affected them from the neck up’ (a popular label that is officially backed by exactly no one). Presumably, this hyperbole didn’t probably didn’t include other items in their drug free lifestyle, such as coffee and cigarettes. Those never seemed to make the list of unapproved medicines in AA to these self-appointed pillars of recovery.

And this goes precisely to the main points for this entire series:
• What is our personal perception of what is constitutes ‘a drug versus a medicine’?
• How do you defines ‘acceptable recovery’ for yourself?
• How do you define ‘quality of life‘ for yourself?
• Whether or not the individual themselves know what they can safely use of the first question, in order to obtain the rest.

Despite what some random AA member insists in the truth, these are questions that each person must ultimately work out for themselves. However, barring someone’s own willingness to get introspective on these points there is always a church basement full of people willing to tell you what they themselves did, and why you should do what they say. I mean honestly, has that kind of thinking ever worked on an alcoholic? Telling them what to do and how to live their lives? By the time most people have developed a substance abuse disorder, they have limited or lost their ability to accept suggestions willingly. And a large portion will never accept any outside input whatsoever, even long into their recovery.

One thing is for absolutely for certain, there are few humans who can actually persuade an active alcoholic to do something they don’t want to do. The same goes for a drug addict. Alcohol and/or drugs are often the only thing that the addict will listen to when it comes to curbing their use, up to a certain point. And, if the person is truly an addict or alcoholic, they usually no longer have the ability to even influence that choice themselves.

And yet, few can argue that at some point something deep inside of the alcoholic/addict kicks in and takes over, allowing them to suddenly rally and seek help when they normally wouldn’t. Call it what you like, their spirit, a sudden moment of clarity, a gift of desperation, a last gasp… whatever you like. Luckily, for some addicts there seems to be a hidden safety switch that gets triggered, suddenly saving them from themselves. And where once sat a sick and stubborn alcoholic hell bent on destroying themselves, there now stands a person willing to do things to save themselves that they would never have even considered before. Of course, that doesn’t always happen. Some people never rally, some try repeatedly and fail, and others simply choose this way to die.

But for those who choose to seek help, make the necessary lifestyle changes and do actually recover from alcoholism with the help of a 12 -Step program, they now face something even far more challenging: life. Or, as the saying goes in AA culture, “life on life’s terms”.

To Be Continued…

Medical Cannabis and Recovery – Part 1: High Time For Change

12 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by in Anxiety, Cannabis, Change, Depression, Emotional Intelligence, Healthcare, Human, Medical Marijuana, Meditation, Open mind, Recovery, Sameness

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*The following is repost (technical difficulties) of the first part of a multi-part series on the rise of cannabis as a medicine, how it affects alcoholics and addicts in recovery, and how to go about changing the information we have in our minds.

On June 10, 1935 the modern recovery movement was born when Alcoholics Anonymous came into being. And with it came an entirely new way for society to view alcoholism. While this isn’t the only method for people to recover, it’s going to be my primary starting point for now.

AA presented alcoholism as a disease, and one with no known cure. They also offered an ongoing “treatment” for alcoholism that would help the sufferer keep their illness in remission. It soon became very well respected, primarily for the recoveries that it had helped foster. Rather than branching out into other problem areas in society, it instead offered up its 12-step formula to other organizations, to adapt as they saw fit to help other populations with different needs. AA also offered its help to the world of science and health, helping to catapult much of the medical research on alcoholism and addiction that we now benefit from. They firmly put themselves in a position to only help, and never to engage in opinions one way or another. AA also tried very hard to foresee the future in order to avoid falling prey to medical fads, or fickle politics. In doing so, it necessarily took a step back, offering no opinions or endorsements. It’s that kind of foresight that has allowed the program to help as many people as it has over the years. It also gave the mistaken impression to many that the organization itself was mired in the past, advocating faith-healing over science, and allowing people to blame their problems on a disease instead of taking responsibility.

On August 2, 1937 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Marijuana Tax Act, setting in motion an eighty-year assault on plant that had previously been cultivated for a variety of uses by Americans up until that point. The bill itself was drafted by Harry Anslinger, who served (not at all coincidentally) as the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. There is more than enough evidence indicating that cannabis was already under assault on different fronts prior to this point, but history has also shown that Anslinger played a pivotal role in cannabis prohibition. And, like many of the other substances that were being regulated, and prohibited during this particularly active period of American puritanism, cannabis went from being a plant of many uses, to a fast and efficient way to ruins your life just from the penalties alone.

So, for 80 years those two worlds existed on parallel planes, rarely interacting. As the 12-step world grew and expanded to include organizations like Narcotics Anonymous, and Marijuana Anonymous, the idea of members using any sort of medicine that alters consciousness became taboo in church basements around the world.

It’s here where I need to step and explain something. I have and will use the terms organization, program, members, and culture to describe things like AA, and that isn’t accidental. It also needs to be pointed out that they aren’t synonymous with each other, something that becomes important as this narrative continues.

The organization of Alcoholics Anonymous is just that, the parent organization that exists to serve the groups, and individual members with information to aid in their recovery. This is the same type of organization that I mentioned had “firmly put themselves in a position to only help, and never to engage in opinions one way or another”. Unlike most organizations, they never set rules or requirements for their members to follow, at most they will offer suggestions. Not everyone at the organization is a member, let alone an alcoholic or addict. If asked about their position on different forms of cannabis being legally prescribed as medicine, or about recreational legalization, they would very likely say that they have no opinion on those kinds of issues.

The program of Alcoholics Anonymous are those 12-step things you hear mentioned in TV and movies all of the time. If you actually use these twelve things to help you in life, you are following the program. You don’t need to be a member, or even an alcoholic or drug addict to use them. They were designed to be “open source” long before that was a term of use.

The members of Alcoholics Anonymous are just that, the people in the seats. Someone becomes a member when they say they are, that’s all there is to it. Of course, because the membership is made up of people who get to decide if they are members, or even if they are alcoholics at all, it is as flawed as and varied as people are in general. And while that means no one person is in charge, it also means that anyone who thinks they are, will try to be. I invite you to someday attend an AA meeting someday, and then randomly suggest they move their coffee pot across the room. Watch to see how many people think they are in charge. This will become is a crucial point in this narrative, because they are people with lots of opinions, who talk to each other all the time.

Finally, there is the culture of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is where most misunderstandings and conflicts arise within the world of recovery. And it’s here where opinions become dogma, regardless of evidence.

To be continued…