In my extreme youth I experimented with quite a few drugs, including, but not limited to Ganja, Liberty Cap Mushrooms (so called magic mushrooms) and heroin (with the latter, I found I suffered a massive allergic reaction to, and found the same again when I was injected with morphine in hospital awaiting treatment... seems I'm one of these very few who are allergic to something in opiate based drugs...)
I have also been at one point an Alcoholic, and no I'm not talking drinking to stupid amounts every friday night, I'm talking a couple of bottles of cheep plonk, a few beers and maybe as much as half a bottle of rum per day, every day. I didn't start out like that, it as a few here, and a few there, but it built up to that at the end.
When you wake up and your only thoughts are "Where and when am I going to get my next drink" and realise you're thinking that and the ramafications therein, you know you have a serious problem. I know its a cliche, but its true.
Comming off that amount of stuff wasn't easy, indeed it was perhaps one of the most unpleasant experiences I've yet had.
Can I drink now and stop when I've had enough? Yes, but its not easy, and I have to be fully aware of what I'm doing, in as much as counting what I've had, comparing it to what I know I could drink, and making sure what I have and what I could take are very different figures (maybe a glass or two of wine once in a blue moon, then walk away). But tbh I'd rather not have to put that much concentration into a night out, its easier just to stick to soft drinks or Tea (or at a pinch, coffee.)
I still have vague recollections to this day of what an A-hole I was when I was a drinker, and occational flashbacks to things I can't for the life of me pin down.
In short, its not something I can honestly recommend to anyone, not even people I dislike. I suspect many "recreational" drugs with prelonged or heavy use would do much the same for the person as Alcohol did to me. Which is to say utterly fubar my life for several years, and effectively leave a very large question mark on what I did during those years.
I know why I started drinking, but that isn't for public discussion.
