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The Middle Way

~ A journey between extremes

The Middle Way

Category Archives: Heroin

The Gateway Drug

23 Saturday Jan 2021

Posted by themiddlewaythrough 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.

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

11 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Anxiety, Buddhism, Cannabis, Change, Depression, Ego, Emotional Intelligence, Environment, Fear, Heroin, Human, Medical Marijuana, Meditation, Mental Health, Open mind, Recovery, Spirituality

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*The following is 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…

 

In Memoriam… And it’s time to get to work

06 Saturday Oct 2018

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Change, Compassion, Ego, Emotional Intelligence, Fear, Healthcare, Heroin, Love, Medical Marijuana, Meditation, Memorial, Middle Way, Music, Open mind, Politics, Recovery, Sameness

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The last few years has been a tough ride for me personally. I lost a brother to an overdose. I lost my mother to cancer. I lost one of my oldest friends, and the best man in my wedding, to Alzheimer’s. There’s also a handful of other major events that would take too long to explain in this particular post. When I look back at every one of those losses, there is a fairly large gap in my blog post history. Who knows why? I suppose it’s one of the ways I don’t deal with grief, by simply ignoring any decent coping mechanism I have for processing it.

A week ago today, I lost one of the most influential people I have ever had the privilege to know and collaborate with. This time the loss is directly relevant to my spiritual well-being, as well as what I write about.

Brian and I met over a decade ago, when he was hired by a friend of his, who was also my boss. A lucky break for me since the same guy had been telling me that I would probably get along really well with his friend Brian. A suggestion that sparked one of the most pivotal relationships in my life.

He was more than just a friend. He was a mentor in a number of areas for me. At other times, he preferred to be the student. It was one the purest definitions of friendship I have ever experienced. For myself, I believe that’s because we recognized ourselves in each other.

Over time, we created and authored a number of blogs that discussed a range of topics. He was one of the few people I can honestly say was able to deliver criticism to me in a way that completely bypassed my defenses, and the need to defend myself from the criticism. He could bypass my defenses and deliver information in a way that made it easy to see his point, simply removing my normal need to save face.

I don’t write because I want to. On most days, it’s more of a need. But, when my ego flairs, writing the type of stuff I do can be painful sometimes. Based on what I know, I suspect that Brian had to learn how to reduce his own ego before he could help anyone else with theirs. I am a far better person today for having known him.

I haven’t used his full name for a few reasons. The first of which is that I haven’t sought any sort of permission from his family to compose a written memorial. But also because I think I knew him well enough to know that, the idea of anyone trying to memorialize him in any way, would have given him the heebie jeebies.

Over the years he pushed me hard to get over myself, and to finally realize some of the projects I wanted to work on. But, like most people, most of it’s blocked by whatever bullshit excuse for a fear that I’d given myself. Each time that he pushed, he was careful to do so in a way that was always most helpful to others, and less likely to focus accolades back on us. In other words, Brian showed me what humility was, from the inside.

…

Okay, so now after having written all of that nice stuff, it also appears that I have also acquired my own glasses-wearing, mustachioed Obi Wan-ghost, wandering around and bugging me that I’ve still got work to do.

You see, I am not trying to memorialize Brian so much as I am trying to write about the passing of a close friend as a way to exercise my own demons. And also to let people know that I plan to change directions with this blog for a little while, if that’s okay (and even if it’s not). This blog was never meant to be a political bitch session. That’s purely a side effect of our current political climate.

I have been working on a series of essays that discuss the current and ongoing change in status that cannabis is experiencing as medicine, as well as how that might affect people in recovery for things like alcoholism.

Because of some of the training I have, both personally and professionally, this is a topic of great personal importance to me. It’s also one that few seem willing to tackle. And it’s here that Brian recently applied his gentle pressure, for me to continue to explore the subject, so that we could continue to help others in whatever way works for them.

My secondary reason for this post is to ask help from the readers: If you know anyone who can be helped by this information, please share it with them, this topic must be a give and take. Like much of our political discourse these days, the medical benefits of things like cannabis are subject to media favoritism. And the popularity of certain methods and medicines, ebbs and flows on public perception. A perception that is largely informed by backdoor deals and lobbying efforts, usually designed to enrich someone else, somewhere else.

What we really should be doing is using the technology we passively browse, and instead push it to increase our own access to information. We need it to help us expand our knowledge of the truth, and about the real efficacy of our medicines, and our politics. And for many who are trying to recover from addiction, helping them to increase the quality of their own internal lives.

Having said all of that, I want to once more thank Brian for everything he was able to teach me (not always such an easy task). And to also let him know that I miss him, and that I love him. Something I’m sure he knew, but I don’t think I got to say out loud.

Make ‘Em Deader

14 Tuesday Aug 2018

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Death, Dingleberries, Heroin, Human, Mental Health, Middle Way

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Fentanyl can kill faster than a politician can steal

Nebraska is now using fentanyl as an execution drug.

This means someone was reading the news and noticed how many people are dropping like flies across the country from accidental fentanyl overdoses. And then someone had an epiphany, that went something like this, “Hey! We’ve been trying to kill some people more efficiently than we have been. Maybe we should learn from the opioid epidemic on how to best make ’em dead faster!”

Congratulations America.

HOWLING BACK

14 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Conspiracies, Dingleberries, Ego, Emotional Intelligence, Hate, Heroin, Human, Islam, Medical Marijuana, Middle Way, Open mind, Patriotism, Politics, Quantum, Race, Sameness, Sex, Spirituality, Terrorism, Trump-Hole

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ginsHOWLING BACK
(tumbling along in Ginsberg’s wake, may he absolve me)

I saw the best friendships of my generation destroyed by politics,
raving partisan lunatic, filling the stark white streets with an anger they refused to see,
hicks and hipsters burning crosses and effigies to kick the political machines to one side,
rejuvenating poverty middle-class tattered to a blank-eyed smoking crater of cities contemplating sanctuary,
the minds of men interpret Jesus and Muhammad to illuminate their ideas and fears,
PC culture pauses on universities to keep the cold-stares fixed on the least civil of wars,
the expulsion of the crazy became the target of the right, they fight to relive the heyday of the white and obscene,
where they once cowered in plain sight lining their pockets with the scare of terror that funded their rape,
from Laredo to Los Angeles the 99 occupied their news in a nightmare of colored faces labelled with drugs that had been planted decades earlier,
as the storm cloud ceases motion and bids foreboding to the socialist Dem making more sense than cents,
filling the cemeteries with fentanyl no longer requiring the heroine dame to punch a clock,
alcohol’s predictive ways fell short of the final solution as they sought to seek the back doors,
the most private of prisons are lined with cake and cash heeding nobody’s needs and suck at the proletariat’s tax,
as Big Orange gets a sexy leg-up from Russia over Chinas migraine and Mexican walls,
thin lines of bleak light leak through false news to the social network happenings tweet tweet twist,
dancing on a pin and seeking sex wags the dog and cups his balls,
the implosion of decency fell from the tightrope held fast by the Gipper polished by the Peach puppet-master,
on and on I’ll Howl as Ginsberg did with no reparations coming, lost in the spokes of a tire spinning out of orbit,
forever feigning is the innocent and the ugly, forever tainted gold by the polished Tangerine, dream member dream, accountable to none

D.R.
12/14/16

“The funeral parlors will be packed.”

05 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Ego, Heroin, Medical Marijuana, Middle Way, Politics, Terrorism, Trump-Hole

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Trump “praised” Philippine president Duterte’s drug crackdown policy.

If you don’t know what Duterte’s policy is, here was his campaign promise: “When I become president, I’ll order the police and the military to find these people and kill them,” Duterte vowed during his campaign in March. “The funeral parlors will be packed.”

Nearly 5,000 people have died due to this policy, and Trump praised it. 

Dear Veterans and Forefathers 

01 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Change, Compassion, Conspiracies, Dingleberries, Ego, Emotional Intelligence, Guns, Heroin, Human, Islam, Kids, Male superiority, Medical Marijuana, Middle Way, Music, Open mind, Patriotism, Politics, Race, Sameness, Spirituality, Terrorism

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Thank you.

Thank you for my freedom

And what it’s truly worth

The freedom that you fought for

The freedom that you died for

The freedom to express my thoughts

The freedom to allow all others to speak

The freedom to love my country

The freedom to hate my government

The freedom to own a gun

The freedom to hate firearms

The freedom to love who I want

The freedom to marry and grow old

The freedom to work against hate

The freedom to seek my own center

The freedom to worship as I please

The freedom to choose the scientific method

The freedom to pledge allegiance to the flag

The freedom to burn it in protest

The freedom to stand in reverence

The freedom to sit in protest

The freedom to hate blind patriotism

The freedom to disregard political correctness

The freedom to hunt and kill

The freedom to tend a garden

The freedom to vote

The freedom run for office

The freedom to vote my conscience

The freedom to vote against your candidate

The freedom to defend my home

The freedom to fight for my water supply

The freedom to wander the countryside

The freedom to lose myself in work

The freedom to drink my liver away

The freedom to live simply

The freedom the destroy my own life

The freedom to rebuild as I see fit

The freedom to walk away

The freedoM to join you in defense

The freedom to know

Freedom is not tied to any one belief 

Caution! Heroin ~ Poison

04 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Change, Ego, Heroin, Middle Way, Open mind

≈ 1 Comment

For months now I have attempted to write a essay on heroin and the overdose crisis. I live in New Hampsire, the epicenter of this epidemic, and it’s bad. Over the last couple years too many people have died, and too many of them were too close to me.

The whole thing has been eating me alive. I start the essays, and by the end of the day I delete them. A week or two later I try again because it needs to be written, but each post ends up looking like a Jackson Pollock painting in a spin cycle. It’s impossible for me to gain any clarity. Every time the problem I face is the same… I need the post to make a difference! I want to be able to say that something that keeps others from having to go through the pain.

The problem is so multifaceted that it’s impossible to hone in on one precise target. I end up trying to address addiction, and drug laws, and the damage to families. I write about overdoses, and death, and Narcan, and recovery. I try to encompass relapse, and guilt, and stigma, and hope. I talk about public policy, and education, berate fearful politicians, and praise frustrated doctors. I try to look at other countries and what they’ve done right, then back at America and how stubborn we still are. I want to educate and appeal to emotions. And then, just as suddenly as I’ve started the essay, I’m stuck. I get lost in a quagmire of words and I’ve painted myself into a corner. And no one is saved, and I’ve written nothing useful again.

Last night I figured out why it’s so hard, why it’s so elusive. It’s because it’s too close to me. Or that is to say, I’m too close to it. Last night I spent the evening in the ER with a man who had been dead an hour earlier. But thanks to the miracle/curse that is Narcan, he was alive again. And when I say again, I mean this was the second time he died this week. The previous time he was so far gone that it took 5 shots of Narcan as well as CPR to revive him. The damage to his body from all of that efforts to revive, coupled with the overdose, left him in pretty rough shape, so they kept him for a few days. When they let him out yesterday morning he was still attached to a bag or two to keep him functioning. A few hours later he did it again. And around we go. 

The thing is, it’s not stupidity. It’s not even suicidal. In the end it’s just people who are just trying to get high and after a while they can only go in the deep end of the pool. The kiddie pool lost its charm years ago. Now they’re either blindly stepping off the cliff like The Fool, or they just don’t want to be dope sick. They’re using just so they don’t feel so bad they can’t function, or even worse, so they just don’t feel anything. Because, you see, opiates are pain killers. But they kill emotional pain way better than physical pain. And that kind of escape is hard to resist. And it’s heroin’s ability to cleanly and simply sever you from your emotions that makes it okay for a junkie to steal from their sick grandmother without a backwards glance. And if the regret surfaces later, just tamp it down again with another bag.

After two hours of talking with this guy, of working the phones and calling contacts, we were able to line up someone to help us. A total stranger was going to meet us late at night, to help this guy make it through until morning without dying. And when I explained the plan to the patient he looked me in the face and said “No. I’m sorry, but I’m not going. I know you want to help, but I can’t do it.”

That was it. Nothing was left to say, and so I left. I went home, put in my headphones and took my dog for a long walk in the dark. And I realized I would never be able to write the post I really want to write about heroin. And I probably never will say the right thing, because it doesn’t exist. It’s a dark lonely room they’re in, the doorknob is only on the inside and it only turns for them. You can shout all the encouragement you want, but until they’re willing to search for the handle, they’re never coming out. All we can do is keep reminding them what it’s like on the outside. 

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