Mittwoch, 28. September 2011

Anonyme Drogensüchtige

„... muss ich um drei noch zu den Anonymen Drogensüchtigen.“
„ich weiss nicht, wie Du es schaffst, zu diesen Versammlungen zu gehen“, sagte Patrick. „Sind da nicht lauter grässliche Leute?“
„Na klar, aber das gilt für jeden Raum voller Menschen.“

Edward St Aubyn: Nette Aussichten

Sonntag, 25. September 2011

A change of careers

A former drugs counsellor who visited schools to warn youngsters about the dangers has been jailed for 12 years for his role in a £1.3 million heroin smuggling plot.
The UK Border Agency (UKBA) confirmed Mahfooz Ahmed, 34, was jailed yesterday at Leeds Crown Court after he admitted importing drugs.
A judge was told how 24.8kg of drugs were seized five years ago after an accomplice dropped a suitcase in a residential street in Halifax, West Yorkshire, when he spotted approaching customs officers.
In the suitcase were 50 blocks of high-purity heroin with an estimated street value of £1.36 million.
Law graduate Ahmed had been seen driving a car with the drug-laden suitcase before picking up his accomplice and then dropping him off in Hopwood Lane.
He went on the run for five years but was arrested in October last year in Harrow, North London.

The Independent, 2 August 2011

Mittwoch, 21. September 2011

La buena voluntad

Aunque nuestra obstinación nos cierre la puerta como succede a menudo, siempre podremos volver a abrirla con la llave de nuestra buena voluntad.

Los Doce Pasos

Sonntag, 18. September 2011

I can't deal with my feelings

I am an alcoholic and a drug addict. I have used substances to control and kill my emotions and my insecurities and my rage for my entire life. I have spent the bulk of my existence using alcohol and drugs to destroy what I feel so I wouldn't have to feel it. (...) I am an alcoholic and a drug addict. I can't deal with my feelings.

James Frey
My Friend Leonard

Mittwoch, 14. September 2011

Sieben Gründe

Es gibt genau sieben Gründe, weshalb einer (Frauen sind mit eingeschlossen) säuft: Montag, Dienstag, Mittwoch, Donnerstag, Freitag, Samstag, Sonntag. Und es sind genau dieselben sieben Gründe, weshalb einer nicht säuft.

Sonntag, 11. September 2011

On Regrets

"You have a lot of regrets in your life, Robicheaux?" she said.
"All drunks do," I replied.
"How do you deal with them?"
"I don't labor over them anymore."

James Lee Burke
Last Car to Elysian Fields

Mittwoch, 7. September 2011

Psychology & Self-Reflection

What's the mistake with psychology and self-reflection?

"There's something profoundly wrong—as wrong as the Spanish Inquisition was. The Spanish Inquisition had one goal, to eradicate all traces of Muslim faith on the soil of Spain, and hence you had to confess and proclaim the innermost deepest nature of your faith to the commission. And almost as a parallel event, explaining and scrutinizing the human soul, into all its niches and crooks and abysses and dark corners, is not doing good to humans. We have to have our dark corners and the unexplained. We will become uninhabitable in a way an apartment will become uninhabitable if you illuminate every single dark corner and under the table and wherever—you cannot live in a house like this anymore. And you cannot live with a person anymore—let's say in a marriage or a deep friendship—if everything is illuminated, explained, and put out on the table. There is something profoundly wrong. It's a mistake. It's a fundamentally wrong approach toward human beings."

And so if humans persist in this way...?
"They persist in stupidity, then."

Werner Herzog in GQ

Sonntag, 4. September 2011

What gets us hooked?

Addiction has to start with exposure, says Dr Gillian Tober, president of the Society for the Study of Addiction. "It's generally for social reasons – groups of friends or a boyfriend or girlfriend – and it's often not pleasant. The reward is merely social. It then becomes reinforced and casual use shifts to dependence."

Drugs directly feed the reward circuitry of the brain, she says, and the brain learns to look forward to the thrill. Tolerance occurs as you demand more each time. Physiological dependence – addiction – then emerges. "It is this area – the mechanisms involved in the addictive process – where research has been most progressive and this has meant we have a lot more effective medications to help people come off nicotine, alcohol and opiates," Ilana Crome, a professor of addiction psychiatry at Keele University, says. "But we still don't know what actually causes addiction."

For more, go to here