Giving Up

This journal is aimed at helping people understand issues that lead to false arrest, or what to do when arrested. Guilty or not, you can harm your cause by not having a lawyer present during police interviews.

Another problem that can make you vulnerable is drug addiction. The trouble is with most drug abuse is that it is difficult to stop. How to get off herion is famously documented in the film Trainspotting... hellish delusions and rabid torture seems on the path, lots of unpleasant feelings, cold sweats, and so forth.

But what about stopping the use of more common drugs, like alcohol or marijuana? How do you stop taking these?

We all know someone that had to stop drinking, and some of us know someone trying to knock off smoking dope. Both drugs can be taken for many years with few apparent side effects. Neither is easy to stop.

After drinking for a few years, Person A had to adjust to a social life without alcohol. After a lifetime puffing at the end of a joint, Person B was faced with the choice - do I continue to do this, or can I take control?

Person A stopped drinking entirely and took control. We asked Person A how hard it was "at first". The ex-alcoholic knows that there is a fine line between one glass of wine and not being able to say no to a second glass of wine. And so do their friends. This exerts a certain social agreement which must be faced much like the consequences of plastic surgery. Pretty soon you will be offered a drink in public and cross the line by accepting it.

Person B stopped and started and stopped and started and then finally stopped.

Said life was better, with more meaning and colour. Started to go the gym and got healthy. Giving up led to a happier person.

Persons C and D are both habitual marijuana users. Although they are not Rastafarian, it seems like a genuine religion. Getting together in their secret huddle, lighting up and so forth are the attendant rituals.

One of the hidden problems of making drugs illegal is that you must stop doing something which is already hidden from others. Drug taking becomes a lonely affair.

A mother and son both smoke dope, but neither do so in the other's presence. There is a "secret code" world at work here, and it forms part of the addiction. It is something done privately, without witnesses, therefore there is no social outcome to face if a recovered addict "lights up".