Well it’s official: My friend’s kid died of a drug overdose (huffing). I used cocaine once. I had one line and had a life-changing epiphany I’d like to share.I remember that there had been a basketball player that had apparently died having tried cocaine for the first time (turns out he had a heart defect and the cocaine pushed him over the line, if I remember correctly). At any rate the news of the day was that one could die from Cocaine on a single use.As I raised my head from the mirror, having snorted my one line, I realized that I had just risked death — the cessation of my existance (as an Atheist, there is no afterlife, so death is pretty bad). No matter how small, it was a stupid risk. Stupid is the word — I felt really stupid for having taken such an unneccary risk.And that’s why I don’t use cocaine. That’s how Atheism stopped me from using hard drugs.I wonder if this is unique, or if there is a pattern here (admitted sample size of 1). How many Atheists keep clean because life is finite and therefore more precious than those who think there is more after death?And then we can relate this back to Pat Tillman and other Atheists in the armed forces. Does Atheism make those who risk their lives for family and country more brave/heroic than their theistic counterparts?
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“Does Atheism make those who risk their lives for family and country more brave/heroic than their theistic counterparts?”
This kind of brings me back to the question of motive. People do good things usually because they have some motive. Religious people do their good deeds because they believe they will receive great reward in the afterlife. Atheists do good deeds without that belief. In my opinion, that makes atheists better people for doing something without the hope of being rewarded.
And I’m sorry to hear that it was an overdose. That’s one of those things that you never really imagine is going to happen, like you sort of think that you would notice in time and be able to stop it.
Dave
Huffing? What a loss. What a waste.
I have known many that have abused drugs in my lifetime but have stayed drug free despite my sometimes associations. I also exercise regularly and eat a low fat low cholesterol diet. My lifesytle is very much a consequence of my atheism. You get one shot. Drop all unwarranted fear and live it. But by all means don’t BE STUPID.
That basketball player was named Lenny Bias (sp?) and he played for the University of MD. He had just been drafted (does basketball have a draft?) by an NBA team and was out celebrating with his friends. The year was ‘85 or ‘86.
I am unsure if it was really the first time he had tried cocaine or not, but I remember the coroner’s report stated he had enough cocaine in his system to kill a horse.
I’m not arguing in favor of using cocaine, but I think the story you passed on is just one more example of your government lying to you for your own protection.
Prohibition: Still a failure after all these years. It created the black market that has lead to the vast majority of crimes committed in this country today.
Ren,
I’m still of the camp that believes the government wants us to use drugs so they can control us even more.
HOLY SHIT! What if the government is telling us that they want us to use drugs to control us so that we don’t use drugs!? Either way they’re still controlling us so we’re screwed.
Ok. That’s all of my conspiracy theories for the night.
Bush. Addict. Death. Say no more!
There are legal, or at least authorized, drugs that can have adverse, even fatal effects on particular persons.
Taking cocaine or other illicit drugs is not a more dangerous activity. Sorry to hear about unnecessary death, but no generalization should be made.
If cocaine, or other drugs, were distributed legally with specific content standards, the likelihood of overdose would certainly decrease. One would know what one is taking, as with alcohol.
Sure some people die each year from ethanol poisoning. That doesn’t mean that alcohol should be banned. In fact, as I remember that has been tried.
Myself, I don’t take any drugs except for alcohol. I know that in excess it can kill me or heavily damage my health. So?
But I am more likely to be killed by someone else’s use of alcohol, drunk drivers for example. Not much I can do about that except demand stricter drink driving laws.
As to usage at college age, almost everyone I know regularly took a variety of drugs at that age, both students and working stiffs. None of them have died from it that I know of and none of them are users now, and all that I have kept in touch with are now successful in their careers. They are mostly professional people or business people.
So, I don’t see any relationship between use or non-use to later success in life and enjoyment of life.
People playing chicken one way or another in this society has never been uncommon and dare devil risk takers living on the fast lane has always been a fact of life here. It’s a shame when people make poor choices and gamble with their lives (and I don’t mean to imply that I’m immune from having done that) Maybie we can all try more to educate and encourage those of us survivors that we need to take better care and that we must not take for granted our lives and health.
If anything, I’d say my atheism has caused me to take more risks, not fewer. But not unnecessary ones. Living in a culture of religious oppression, my notion of what constitutes “necessary” has undergone some changes, and often I’m “forced” to take personal or professional risks on points of principle that a theist might never consider.
Putting oneself on the line over principle takes bravery, regardless of the source of principle, however. Surely the Tillman’s of the world are as brave as anyone. But MOST theists are just as scared of dying, I think, whatever false front of religious “faith” they might profess.
I grew up during the Nancy Reagan “Just Say No” era or drug prevention, and it actually did have a pretty big effect on me. For the longest time I had a mortal fear of any and all mind altering drugs (including alcohol). During college I did try alcohol and marijuana, mainly because all my friends did (see, Nancy Reagan was right about the peer-pressure!). I still drink now and then, but not often, and I haven’t smoked pot in ages. I don’t really miss it.
I had ample opportunities to use cocaine and other, harder drugs, but I never have. I do think that there’s always been some of that “Just Say No” fear left in me, but I also had some negative role models in regards to hard drug use. I had some friends who were heavily into drug use, and it was not a pretty sight. Maybe it’s possible to be more responsible than they were with drug use, but… I’d rather just steer clear of it, thankyouverymuch.
I don’t think my atheism had (or has) much to do with staying away from hard drugs, or keeping generally fit and healthy. It probably ought to though.
I have never been able to figure out the attraction of drugs. I’ve been drunk twice in my life (I mean horribly drunk) and felt so sick afterwards that I never want to go there again. I’m pretty happy with my mind the way it is, and don’t see any benefits that outweigh the negatives of altering my mind state by imbibing expensive, unpredictable, illegal substances.
That being said I will take prescription drugs, but only when totally necessary, and will get off anything that alters my mental state as quickly as possible.
I don’t think this has anything at all to do with theism/atheism, it’s just my personal preference. ie I like to be in control of myself, and I don’t like making a fool of myself.
Oh – and I’ve never tried pot, coke, etc – and neither have I ever even puffed a cigarette (at least not a lit one).
I’ve never used illegal drugs and I never will. Aspirin when I have a headache and cough syrup when I’m sick are enough for me.
From little miss sunshine
Grandpa: Let me tell ya, don’t do that stuff. When you’re young, you’re crazy to do that shit.
Frank:well what about you?
Grandpa: what about me? When you’re old you’re crazy not to do it.
I, too, gave up cocaine because of Len Bias, the basketball star who OD’d on coke. This isn’t an atheist story (I wasn’t one then), but I figured I’d share it anyway, due to the connection with Dave’s story.
Although I never liked pot, when I tried coke I loved it – made me feel like the most exciting moment in my life was always just a minute or so away. I used coke now and then with a group of people who were into all kinds of drugs. Then I moved away, and only used it a couple of times, when I had the opportunity to interact with that same group of people, since that was the only way I knew how to get it.
Anyway, then, as Dave said, Len Bias overdosed on coke and died. He wasn’t just a basketball player – he was the number one draft pick that year – a big, big deal. He was on his way to a multimillion dollar NBA career – could have been the next Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant or whatever. But before he played his first pro game he died.
Well, lots of famous people OD and die, so that didn’t have any real effect on me. Until I heard what my little brother had to say about it. He was in 8th or 9th grade then, and a big basketball fan. He just said, “I can’t believe Bias could be that STUPID. He had all that opportunity in front of him, and he was just plain stupid.”
I was a straight-A student, National Merit Scholar, Magna-Cum-Laude Chemical engineering degree in only three years, etc., etc. In contrast, my brother always struggled to get B’s and C’s in school. So when he pointed out how STUPID this guy was for ruining his life with drugs, it set me straight. I wanted my brother to look up to me as an intelligent, bright role model. The thought of him acusing me (rightfully so) of being stupid was too much to bear. So I swore right then and there that I would never use illegal drugs again.
And I haven’t (it’s been 20+ years), but I do admit that, at least in the first years after that, I wasn’t offered any either. I can’t say for sure that I would have stuck to my pledge in my younger, single days, had I been tempted. Now that I’m a 45-year-old married mom, I’m no longer worried about that temptation. But I’m still proud of my brother and grateful to him for what he did for me, although I’ve never told him any of it.
Dina Appleby
As hominid said, there are always risk takers & dare devils & I’m in that camp.
I absolutely love racing.
Motocross, cycling, karting, drag, autoX. I have yet to find anything more exciting.
But that comes at a physical cost, I’ve had more injuries than I care to remember, and I frequently hear about racing acquaintances being seriously injured. The latest being a 27 year old who is now paraplegic.
So, being an atheist definitely doesn’t make me more risk adverse, even when perfect examples of the danger happen frequently.
What a horrible waste of a life.
I’ve never had a whole lot of interest in drugs; I’ve never connected it with being atheistic, but maybe there’s something to that.
This is the only life I’ve got, and the only body I’ve got — I want to take care of it.
The remedy for drug abuse is education; not laws to drive it underground.
The most dangerous recreational drugs out there in terms of premature death are alcohol and tobacco. We all know how prohibition turned out.
Marijuana ranks slightly above caffeine in terms of dangerousness, and has legitimate medical benefits, but continues to be illegal for political reasons. Government stupidity.
In the case of huffing, the aerosol cans, like cigarettes and alcohol, are legally available, but kids need to be impressed with just
how dangerous the chemical fumes really are.
Years ago I remember an epidemic of teen deaths from sniffing airplane cement. This is the same thing in a newer package.
Ren,
You beat me to it. I really started to appreciate basketball and heard about the death of Len Bias. From that day forward I swore I’d never do coke. Haven’t yet though been offered multiple times. I’m all for medical legalization of pot.
TXatheist,
I grew up in MD and though I am not a basketball fan, he was such a star at the time, and I was a senior in HS, so even I knew who he was.
It was a real tragedy that could have been prevented by education, not the penal system. If the government hadn’t told so many lies about the dangers of pot, maybe people would be more likely to believe the actual dangers associated with hard drugs.
There is no more reason to take drugs than to do anything else.
Driving a car is more dangerous than taking drugs, except alcohol and tobacco.
I am amused by the self-righteous puritans here who are so outraged at the thought of someone doing something different than what they choose to do.
This thread takes on the feeling of a temperance meeting. I can’t believe how so many bought into the Nixon/Reagan/Bush propaganda.
For some it seems to be a virtue to promise to never use “illegal” drugs. Last time I looked, legal drugs were used and abused much more than illegal ones. For a long time Vallium was the most abused drug, maybe now Prozak is.
But that is OK because the doctor gives it to you, and gets his fee. Why not cut out the middle-man?
I actually feel sorry for people who have never taken LSD, or peyote, or mushrooms.
Why don’t you take a walk on the wild side for once? A start would be to read notorious drug user Aldous Huxley, “The Doors of Perception” and “Heaven and Hell”.
A funny little video.
http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=7219698706729504500&q=henry+rollins
As proof for what I said about legal drugs, the spam filter here disallows mentioning them, but apparently not the illegal ones.
bernarda,
I’d think that adderol (sp?) would be the most used, at least among a certain age group. When I went to public high school (which wasn’t that long ago mind you) a lot of the kids took adderol. At the private high school I went to though the more expensive stuff like oxycontin (sp?) was more widely used. Guess it also matters how much money you have.
i see this different from some of you. people aren’t in jail because drugs are illegal they are in jail because they broke the law.it is not a gov’t plot to control people these drugs are illegal because they are bad for you.alcohol was only relegalized by the rich because they don’t give a damn how many families are destroyed.same for tobacco they don’t care as long they make money.
just give it time the rich will get drugs legal unless they are making more profit from black market.
What I hear you saying here is, “cigarettes and alcohol should be illegal because they are bad for you, and the millions of people that would end up in prison for drinking and smoking would be justified because those individuals broke the law?”
I find it ironic, that in the ‘freeist’ country on earth, the gov’t can mandate that you put certain things into your body (innoculations for example, which I agree with, BTW) and at the same time, deny you the right to put other things into your own body. (Pot; Coke; Heroin; 18″, black, vibrating, two headed dild*s?)
Amazing!
Ren,
“18″, black, vibrating, two headed dild*s?”
*gasps* Those are illegal!? Excuse me. I have to go burn some evidence…I MEAN LEAVES! THE LEGAL KIND!
The biggest drug dealers in this country have the letters “MD” after their name. While many legal drugs have the potential to save lives, big pharma is way out of control. They are motivated by greed, and their henchmen, the FDA, repeatedly allows poisons to be prescribed. My parents use more drugs today than I ever imagined putting in my body.
For the record, I’ve tried numerous illegal drugs (no H, PCP, or meth), and nothing beats a good ol’ joint.
I used to do coke in my 20’s (not much though), and then I went 10 years not touching it. Several years ago I tried it again. I couldn’t believe the MISERY I suffered under it’s influence. Never ever again will I touch it, yuck!
Holy crap! Gotta go; my husband’s bogarting the joint again!
cry4turtles,
Sounds like your husband needs a ‘dope slap’! Maybe you should get him a nice bong for his birthday. They’re a little wasteful, but much harder to bogart.
I went to a friend’s Bahai event one time and although I enjoyed the event, one particularly sour participant turned the conversation afterwards to how much he hated atheists. They have no purpose, he claimed, and he couldn’t understand why God would have created them. “If I were an atheist,” he shouted, getting warmed up to his topic, “I would have to kill myself.” I didn’t respond, instead I made what I hoped was a graceful exit, and thought of what I would have like to say. “Why would an athiest kill themselves? They don’t believe in an afterlife, so they would want to make the absolute most of every moment they have. If I were a theist I might kill myself to get to that perfect paradise in the sky a little sooner.” To be fair, I wasn’t an atheist when I began to be confronted with risky choices (and choosing to abstain for the most part), but now that I am I do always have it in mind that I can’t waste my time because this little bit is all I have.
(I just wanted to say that this is my first time commenting – but I have been a long time lurker. I love the blog, and I really admire the group. Thanks, AA for all the good work you do for us nonbelievers.)
arcticwoman,
Let me be the first to welcome you aboard. I think you’ll find the reception warm and inviting.
Except for the baboon phreedm. But don’t worry. His poop is nontoxic.
Ren
i enjoy going over these subjects with you guys.
question how do know we for sure prohibition would not have worked it didn’t last very long.
arcticwoman
A well reasoned perspective. Welcome.
Reason
This is from Wikipedia. A list of countries that had a prohibition period. I don’t think it worked well anywhere but I could be wrong. I wish it were that easy because Alcohol abuse causes soo much misery.
* 1900 to 1948 in Prince Edward Island, and for shorter periods in other locations in Canada
* 1914 to 1925 in Russia and the Soviet Union
* 1915 to 1922 in Iceland (though beer was still prohibited until 1989)
* 1916 to 1927 in Norway (wine and beer also included in 1917)
* 1919 to 1932 in Finland (called kieltolaki)
* 1920 to 1933 in the United States
mxracer652: You’re brave and I wish you success and good health. Also, most people get nervous with me if I’m behind schedule and in the drivers seat. But I like to watch races anyway!
Wecome: Arcticwoman
What: One thing regarding the subjects of ending of prohibition and racing that sticks with me is when Reagan pardoned that Nascar driver who got his fast paced experience out running the coppers during those American outlawed bootlegging days. I forget the guys name (and shouldn’t) What a story!
I’m responding to this a bit late, but that is the exact thing that keeps me from doing drugs.
Part of it is the whole risking-death thing, but another part is that I don’t want to alter my consciousness. Being alive in the first place is pretty cool. We have a unique opportunity to EXPERIENCE things, and we only have that ability for so long. But then you die.
I want to take full advantage of that opportunity, and would rather not have my perception clouded by something that is in effect a cheap thrill.
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