let me, once again, explain the whys and wherefores of this profile "Punk Friends in Recovery Together." i feel i must do this from time to time because some people (me included) get confused.

first and foremost i am not now, never was and never plan on being a recovery program, a recovery guru or anyones online sponsor or higher power. i speak for NO program; not AA, NA, rational recovery or any other recovery program. i am not their voice, they have their own. i may endorse some types of recovery but make no mistakes, i dont speak for them.

i dont break any traditions here by being an online recovery page. see all the above for why.

by the way... this is not a recovery page. at best its a network of people in recovery. there is a difference. i do speak for my recovery, its the only recovery i CAN speak for.

please feel free to use this page to network, share ideas, discuss and make friends. my page is not a meeting, is no substitute for a meeting and never will be a meeting. if you need a meeting get to a meeting.

i write blogs. some of them are recovery related. these blogs are generally my opinion. theyre not the opinion of any 12 step or anonymous program. again, i dont speak for them. my blogs are usually loosely based on recovery. i do write about a lot of other stuff too and a lot of it has a recovery or addiction theme to it. these blogs come from my head to my keyboard and onto myspace. you guys comment if you feel it. its good to comment for many reasons: hundreds read every day and you never know who might to read what you post, im wrong sometimes and need correcting and its the best way to actually let people know a little about you. kudos arent necessary but will be eaten with tartar sauce.

there are a shitload of friends here... almost 25,000. most of them dont read or visit this page ever. the ones who do are appreciated.

i welcome all opinions here and all ideas as long as: you respect each other, dont pick on anyone, dont disrespect others ideas (especially about recovery or god) and try to be nice. you are completely allowed to be an asshole, i am, as long as you are willing to take some flack for being an asshole its cool.

this page is an adult page. this means i will say words like: titties, fuck, shit, cunt, bitch, bastard, cock, asshole, anal, dick and every other nasty word i can think of. "but jeff... thats not very spiritual." who the fuck, shit, cunt cares? your definition of spiritual might be completely different then mine. hell, your definition of recovery might be different then mine. i dont care. if you dont like my potty mouth then there are other, safer sites out there. here we cuss. oh... and keep your god and your spirituality to yourself unless i ask. thanks.

we dont talk about politics or religion here. this means anti-religion too. this only seeks to separate people by either making fun of their beliefs or even worse, telling them theyre wrong. all religions (and even non-religions) are correct if thats how you believe and thats all i will say about religion.

god is talked about here but usually on general terms. please try to refrain from naming your god as it could also cause separation. certain gods have certain meanings to some and some of these meanings are bad for some. so please keep all talks of god to general terms.

fuck.

we are all in this recovery thing together. the most important thing that happens thru my page is newcomers come here all the time. i (we) actually get to help people in trouble. this is the best thing about doing this page. when anyone, especially a newcomer, reaches out we reach back. these newcomers are so important that we cant afford to drive them away with pointless crap. sure some of my blogs seem pointless but theyre not. people are reading and a lot of them are new and still afraid to come forward. maybe your words might help them to come forward.

finally, i do this page expecting nothing. i dont get paid, i dont really care about praise and i am here because i get to help others. by doing this i get to stay clean and sober.

thats about it for now...

recently ive been getting messages about god and about the second step (which is very related to god). i want to write about the higher power topic, and a little about the second step, but since some people arent in 12 step recovery ill try to keep it simple.

first the second step... WE CAME TO BELIEVE THAT A POWER GREATER THEN OURSELVES COULD RESTORE US TO SANITY. what a lot in such a little sentence. you really have to look at the first step to undrstand this second step because the first step talks about POWERLESSNESS and UNMANAGEABILITY which is the insanity the second step addresses. we already admitted we were "insane" when we took the first step. im not talking about the clinical definition of insane, im talking about the way we lived, how we acted and the things we did to keep our addictions going. to people not addicted these behaviors certainly seem insane. shit, when we finally get some recovery in our lives we see this behavior as completely insane ourselves. so we simply COME to believe that some sort of "higher power" could restore us to sanity (this only works if we were ever really sane to begin with). 

so what is a higher power anyway? this is the actual question i have been getting a lot. people ask me how god is. how the fuck should i know who god is? look, i have a relationship with a higher power of my understanding but that doesnt mean that the relationship you build with your higher power has to be the same. heck, your god could even be different.

look at it this way... if we are told that we have to believe in god and that god HAS to be a specific god that everyone in the program believes in, then how many people do you really think would stay in recovery? very few. this is why certain stpes are written the way they are... a higher power or a power greater then me or a god of our understanding. not the christian god, not the jewish god and not any other specific god but for some that might be the god they choose. the important thing to think about is the relationship you build with whatever god you choose.

never, ever let anyone else choose your god for you or force their idea of god onto you. sure you can ask others for their interpretation of god and even take from their beliefs but there are some in recovery that will try to tell you that their god is the right god. there are no right gods and wrong gods here. even not believing in god is cool in recovery as long as you can get a grasp on something, outside yourself, thats greater then you are and try to put some faith in that.

recovery works a lot like belief in god... it takes a lot of faith for both to work. we believe that 12-step recovery (or any recovery really) works and it does, when we work for it. god is the same way. i dont think anybody has personally met god yet (except maybe some of you out there that tried some real powerful LSD) so we believe without seeing. this is called faith. faith carries a lot of weight. faith can help make things better. just the act of belief can get you thru some tough times.

so we break down step two... WE CAME TO BELIEVE: this is a process and for some its an evolving process. the god you have today might be very different then the one you have tomorrow and thats ok. THAT A POWER GREATER THEN US: some of us have a hard time thinking theres anything greater then they are. drugs were certainly greater then just about any addict. they constantly beat our collective asses. we would do anything for then wouldnt most of us? so we know there are things greater then us so why not try to believe that maybe theres something good thats greater then us. COULD RESTORE US TO SANITY: this just basically means that, thru faith, we believe that this higher power we choose could restore us to a state of power and put manageability in our lives, that maybe we could have sanity back.

step two is always where i relapsed. i might even have been on much later steps but when i decided to return to addiction i decided that (1) i was god once again and (2) im welcoming the insanity back.

so thats god, or God or GOD and the second step in a neat little package. if you dont have god yet may you find him/her/it soon because i know from experience that this program is awfully difficult without god.

sorry i havent been posting blogs recently, i been sorta busy. recovery is like that. sometimes when youre not drinking or drugging anymore life comes at ya.

my folks went away, to florida, right before this major snowstorm (30" in the front yard) and they asked that i watch their house. ME? watch their house?!? think about that... here i am, the fuckup just a little over two years ago now not only has keys to their house, im actually staying there while theyre gone. this is a big deal because in my last relapse one of the last conversations with my dad went like this: JEFF" hi dad. DAD: stay the fuck away from our house because youre not welcome and i have a loaded shotgun ready if you do come over... my how things change.

as you have probably heard we got hit by a little snow here in the washington dc area. there must be an awful lot of dopesick addicts out there now because i knew when i was using i barely planned for the day, much less several days. ok, i realize that some addicts will go to any length for their dope (i really wish people would approach recovery like this) but the idea of a sick heroin addict trudging thru the snow to score scares me a little. i pray for those active addicts in my area, may you get thru this and maybe, since by the time anyone can actually go anywhere, you might realize youre thru the worst of the withdrawal and maybe decide enough is enough. not one liquor store is open so i hope not too many alcoholics die tonight. i also really hope the homeless found someplace safe to go for the next few days. hell, i hope they find someplace safe to go permanently.

i did an internet radio interview today. ive done a few internet radio show interviews on recovery. mostly i talk about the same shit i write here on my blog. if ya wanna give it a listen you can find it here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/4505100

thats about it. now, with 952 blogs under my belt, im officially out of ideas. maybe you guys could help wih some ideas for me to write about...

every once in a while i come across a myspace profile where i know the person behind it is dead. yet the myspace profile lives on in perpetuity. even if theres no new stuff there or any traffic the profile is still there as if its waiting for something. its both a little sad and a little eerie.

my friend jerry died on december 2, 2006. he let his addiction kill him. i never met jerry personally but i knew him. his girlfriend had contacted me several months before he died and asked for help. jerry was shooting dope again and she had moved all the way from ireland to come to the east coast of the US to be with him.

jerry was one of us. he just couldnt stop. he died and left a lot of people behind scratching their heads... wondering. after his girl reached out to me i reached out to him. we chatted here on myspace and even talked on the phone a few times. every time we spoke he gave me the regular addit answer to every question: "im ok." obviously he wasnt.

recovery can be sad. we lose a lot of people. recovery itself doesnt fail anyone, we are the ones who fail recovery. recovery is easy compared to the alternatives we face but some of us cant grasp this concept. we think we are better or smarter or even worse... different. we are not. addiction doesnt discriminate, it just doesnt care. it kills kings and paupers just the same. addiction will kill you if you let it. jerry let it. it won and lots of people lost the day he died.

its just sad to come across his myspace profile, sitting there all by itself all alone, with no new comments or anything. i guess his profile died too but it will live on here on myspace forever. thats maybe a good thing because its a reminder to me about what can happen.

when people reach out to me i reach back. someone new reached out to me last night. i reached back. you can see whats going on by reading my latest bulletin. her case is exactly the same as jerrys is but she doesnt have to die like he did. please read the bulletin and help this girl out. its my latest bulletin.

todays blog is number three in a three part "what it was like, what happened and what its like now" trilogy. yesterday i addressed what happened and the day before i wrote about what it was like so today its only right to write about what its like now...

we all came from a crappy life. i dont think anybody entered treatment or recovery because things were peachy. the only thing that was promised to me was that things would get different. i wasnt promised things would get better but it was suggested that if i do the things asked of me then the chances of things getting better were greatly increased. i wasnt promised a job or a girlfriend, i wasnt promised my friends and family back and i wasnt promised financial security. there is a section in one fellowships literature called "the promises" but specific "stuff" isnt promised there. principles and spiritual freedom are tho...

ive been back in recovery two and a half years now. ive been coming around since 1994 but not all in a row. ive had long periods of recovery. i have also had long periods where i just didnt use. there is a difference...

three years ago next month marks the anniversary of my last relapse. it was a long one by my standards. my relapses are usually very brief; a lot of srinking and drugging followed quickly by either arrest or hospitalization. this last one had both of those but for some reason these didnt stop me this time.

the last two blogs i wrote addressed how that relapse was. i wont go over it again, read the blogs, but if i had to describe it in two words i would have to say "it sucked." after my "run" i was faced once again with myself...

i wont say it was easy... the first month of recovery was terrible. i had the worst withdrawal i can ever remember and i wasnt sure id make it back; mentally and physically, but thru some miracle i did.

we in recovery have to realize that life still happens and we get no exceptions just because we stopped killing ourselves and entered recovery. we dont get breaks from the toils of life and bad shit will still happen to us and those we love. thats just called life. what we do get is another way of looking at things. we get to accept things for the way they are and maybe change what we can. we also learn the difference between what we can and cannot change and thats a big advantage we have over many of those not in recovery (addict or not).

life hasnt been very easy for me since i re-entered recovery. there was wreckage from my last relapse that im still cleaning up today. i have had some fairly serious medical issues. good friends have died. i havent worked a regular job and many other things that any addict might use as an excuse to say "fuck it, its not worth it." the thing is, for every not so good thing going on i have a thousand great things happening too. the balance of my life has shifted dramatically toward the "good" side. i have also learned to deal with the not so good shit as it comes. this ability is a gift of recovery because "old jeff" would usually ignore this stuff, hoping it would just go away. you dont have to use drugs in order to completely fuck up your life, we can do that just fine without them. its easy for some of us to slip into a "why me" or even worse, a "poor me" attitude. ive done this a few times and if its not caught using usually follows. the end result of non-acceptance is almost always using again.

so what is it really like now? i could nod and smile and say everythings wonderful but its not. everything IS better but its not now, nor will it ever be, perfect. just being in recovery doesnt entitle me to anything. that i fully except. my life isnt great but its infinitely better then it was a little over two and a half years ago. its better in every way. i have a place to live, i have friends and family back, i have a great girlfriend, i do make some money even tho im presently not employed and i get to deal with real live issues face to face on a daily basis instead of ignoring them, hoping they will just go away. my last month of using was filled with so much turmoil, uncertainty and fear. today i fear very little, my life is pretty predictable and 99.9% of the problems i face have solutions. i work toward these solutions. everything might not come out the way i want it to but the outcomes i do get are very acceptable.

recovery gave me my life back. when i was using the only things that were predictable were arrests, hospitalizations and eventual death. the misery was palpable. today there is no misery. there are times of uncertainty but thats also life. recovery didnt give me clairvoyant powers but it does give me insight. outcomes are way more predictable now then they were when i was using.

even tho im mostly broke im ok. i can afford the things i need today. even tho i still am going thru the ramifications of my last relapse i can deal with this because i take full responsibility for what has happened. its no longer "why me" and "poor me" its " i did it, now what do we do to try to make things right again?"

recovery is a blessing because i have me back, so do those who love me. i cant fix all the wrongs of my past. i can but try, but i can also no longer repeat the damaging things i did to myself and others.

recovery is not a loophole we addicts can use to get away with stuff. recovery means living the best lives we can. we do this with help from our fellows and from a higher power (if you got one) and maybe we get an edge on life. recovery is taking personal responsibility. this responsibility means both owning our shit and making damn sure we dont fall back. there are steps for this.

so what its really like now is this... its good. thats much better then it was. thats all i ask.

yesterday i wrote about how it was in my last relapse. today ill tell you what happened...

in yesterdays blog i told you some of what happened, some of my consequences. if you havent read yesterdays blog i recommend you read it before you go on with this one as it will make it a little easier to understand.

im what they call a "late stage alcoholic." im not sure where i fall, stagewise, with other drugs but i certainly use them like a pro. i just dont have the same physical consequences, yet, from other drugs. given enough time im sure i would tho.

what a late stage alcoholic is is usually a dead alcoholic. nine times out ten people like me are found hanging from a rope or mangled beyond recognition in car accidents. some of us last long enough to have our livers quit completely or die in other "medical" ways such as pancreratitis or an esophageal varacy that just wont stop bleeding. some might get lucky enough to get arrested, dry out in jail and maybe not die directly from our drinking. some of us might even find recovery and beat all odds and actually stay but most of us wont get any of these chances, we will die in ugly ways alone. i certainly tried a few times...

before we die us late stage alcoholics are the type that have to drink all the time. i could not go more then two hours without drinking. i probably walked around with a BAL of 0.40% just to feel "normal." if it got much lower then that i suffered badly. it is almost always recommended that any late stage alcoholic get medical attention just to stop drinking because the sudden cessation of drinking can actually kill us. the body has learned to function with high doses of alcohol, take that away and entire bodily systems go nuts, there are many, many cases of late stage alcoholics dying, alone at home, in alleys, in their cars and even in hospitals from heart attacks, seizures and severe delirium tremons. it happens. if you have a serios issue with alcohol and any of these severe symptoms and you want to stop then please make sure you visit a doctor or the emergency room.

the "what happened" part they tell us to talk about is, i think, what was that moment that made us decide enough was enough and enter recovery. for smoe its that "moment of clarity" and for others it could be a series of events but i certainly had had a few of these moments in my past. i came into recovery in 1994 and hit a few jeffmade bumps along the way. im a relapser, not enough times for it to be chronic... yet, but ive relapsed a few times. each relapse had its own little hells that i endured; most of them were absolutely horrible from the start, all of them started for no reason other then me giving up on myself and on recovery, in just about all of them there were legal consequences, homelessness, loss of friends and family (not to mention self respect) and i had medical consequences in all of them. in most of my relapses there was even a suicide attempt (or 2... or 4).

what, then, is it that happened to make me stop using and re-enter recovery? to answer that i have to look at what i used to make me relapse in the first place. there are no good reasons for relapse, ever. i dont care how bad things are, they get even worse the second we add alcohol or drugs to the mix. my reasons for relapse were selfish. i simply didnt want to feel the way i felt at the time and for some reason we addicts think we can actually change how we feel if we use. i found out that this addict cant. when i use it usually amplifies how i feel and i feel even worse. the problems dont go away and i cant fix them if im using.

there were several selfish reasons behind my last relapse; i had a relationship going bad, my work future looked bleak, i had serious money issues, i thought i was losing everything including my home. i decided to drink again and yesterday i listed some of the things that happened to me during that relapse. today i will write about what happened to make me want to end this relapse.

several things made me want to end it; first is i didnt die. oh i tried, a few times. i tried by "accident" and i tried on purpose but i lived. the bad thing about me living is i was drinking and doing drugs. by living i felt i had to keep using. the reason for this was easy... withdrawal. i have it bad with serious consequences. when i am already drinking the fear of withdrawal is usually enough to keep me drinking.

since i was still living and had to keep using i had to figure out how to keep using. i was getting weekly checks from workers comp for an injury. as long as i complied with the insurance company i got just enough money to keep fucking up. i stopped complying. i also stopped getting money. this caused me to need to find new enablers and i did, but on a very limited basis. i was at a point now where i couldnt buy enough to keep withdrawal away. i started having severe psychotic episodes, vivid dreams and i felt like absolute crap all the time.

these are the events that led up to me seeking recovery again. let me rephrase that... im not sure if i was seeking recovery, i just wanted to stop feeling like shit. sure other consequences were present like my friends and family disappeared, waiting for something to happen. i was looking at new legal issues too. i had no spirituality to be bankrupted from, i had given that all away in the months leading up to the relapse anyway. i guess i wanted to live but mostly i wanted things to change... for good or bad. at this point i would have welcomed death as much as i would recovery.

as mentioned yesterday i did try, for ten days, to quit on my own but that turned out horribly. after that i drank for a few more weeks then i went to detox, only to leave three days later. a week after that i went into rehab. it took 22 days for me to come out of the fog just a little. it was that day i decided that i wanted recovery back in my life. before that day i wasnt sure if i was even going to come back to being me. worst detox/withdrawal ever.

so... thats pretty much what happened. perhaps tomorrow i will write about what its like now.

my last run... my last relapse occurred almost three years ago. it happened the night before i was to celebrate three years of recovery and it lasted about six months. many of you followed my relapse because it happened after i created this page and i was pretty public about what was going on. even the things i kept from you, any of you in recovery could figure out. one of my biggest giveaways that i was still out there was my absence from this page and some of the ranting blogs i wrote in the late spring/summer of 2007.

anyway, i have written about this relapse before but i didnt go into much detail. the reason i write now is because it is coming up on the anniversary of it (it was my worst relapse) and maybe it can serve as a warning to others that think that maybe their addiction wasnt so bad because whats happened to me can happen to anyone who keeps using.

i dont want to go into details, ill just write about some of the major events, the feelings and my consequences.

five days after i decided to start drinking again in march of 2007 my throat exploded and i bled... a lot. by the time i made it to the emergency room it was figured that i had lost over three pints and probably more. my stomach was pumped and there was more then a pint and a half of blood in there and i had thrown up a lot of blood the two days prior. this is called an esophageal varacy. this can happen two different ways for a late stage alcoholic. for me it was the ingestion of very caustic stuff (half a gallon of bourbon a day, beer too) and throwing up that caused the walls of my esophagus to erode. it got so thin that the blood vessels were exposed. it was just a matter of time before they gave way. this kind of internal bleeding is hard to stop because its a wet area. the survival rate for a first time occurrence of this is only 50% and the odds go way down for a second time (rarely does anyone survive a third varacy).

i survived and left the hospital with an open ended prescription for xanax (they wanted to keep me calm because stress can reopen a varacy). needless to say i took off with this. i went from a 3mg a day therapeutic dose to a 30mg a day addiction. i wasnt drinking tho... yet.

i was pretty much homeless at this time. i was in the process of losing my home before my relapse anyway but while i was hospitalized i did lose it. i lived between cheap hotel rooms, my cousins house and in my car. i visited up to three doctors a day to support my xanax addiction and the same number of pharmacies. the gig was up two moths later when i visited both the same doctor too soon and the same pharmacy. no arrests were made but my xanax was cut off. i had to stop cold turkey from a 30mg a day dose. this really sucked and i was soon drinking again.

let me explain a little about what drinking doe to me. it made me sick. the physical illness i suffered when i drank was bad. i got all phlegmed up and couldnt clear my throat. this made me want to vomit and because of my recent throat trauma i wasnt allowed to throw up. it would easily re-open my esophagus. iyou know that feeling when youre all full of phlegm and you want to spit and cant? thats how i felt always. i was also physically sick. i got to the point where all i could hold down was booze; no food and no water. i shook all the time no matter how much booze i had in me. i was always under the possibility that my throat would re-open at any time.

this went on for months, all thru the summer. i would drink and drink, thats about all i did. i did get arrested twice and hospitalized once more but i didnt stop. i woke up every morning in fear, i couldnt stay in the same place for more then a few days (even if i rented a hotel room for a whole week) but i couldnt stop drinking. you see... my withdrawal from booze was by far worse then any illness i felt while drinking. i even tried to off myself a few times.

near the end i was taking booze, xanax, valium, percosets and vicodin. when i did finally run out of options i tried to return to recovery. i actually stopped all using on my own. this was a bad decision. after ten days of withdrawal getting consecutively worse i drank again, for a little while. im so far gone in my addictions that i need medical supervision to stop. after a few more days of drinking i went to the emergency room. i stopped only because i had run out of options. i dont really know what i had planned after this. i didnt have a place to stay, no money and shit was looking pretty bad.

it took 22 days of bad withdrawal in rehab, even while heavily medicated on 8 different drugs, for me to start feeling anything like normal.

thats what it was like... tomorrow maybe ill post about what happened.

arent they some sort of cheezy snack? kudos really cheeze your hunger away...

fuck this shit. lets rock this shit old school and im not talkin old school rap either. this page started out punk and i try to keep it punk sometimes. i realize 99% of you here arent punk and thats cool but there are some real punks around here somewhere.

i remember, back in the day, hitting the local clubs and seeing real shitty punk bands. those were the days... it kind of reminds me of what recovery is. these guys got up on stage and sounded like dogs fucking. sure, comparing recovery to dogs fucking is wrong but thats not what i mean. what i mean is these punks didnt care what anyone thought, they were up there for themselves. they didnt care about cheers or fans, they just cared about the music, the attitude and the style. thats what punk is. its not caring what anyone thinks about you doing what you want. recovery is the same way.

we thought we were like this when we were still out there. we thought we didnt care about what others thought but if this was the case then why did so many of us hide our addictions from others? punk dont do that, its in your face whether you like it or not. some people are that way in recovery too. i dont give one flying shit about who knows im a former hard drinker, heroin shooter, lsd taker, pcp smoker, glue huffer, pill popper and everything else i could get my grubby little paws on-er. i also dont care who knows that i have overcome these things with a little help from all my friends and a god i love. i yell it from the rooftops because i really dig it. thats punk rock brothers and sisters.

im off to give myself a mohawk... later.

i know the legalization issue isnt really a recovery issue... or is it? i think it is and i will tell you why. ill try to keep this short (good luck).

before i start into this dealy-bob i dont like the govn'ment telling anyone what to do or how to behave but some laws are there to both protect us from ourselves and to protect society as a whole. drinking ages and drunk driving laws are two i can think of. so are making certain drugs illegal.

i wont go into the history of the legalization battle with the racism behind it (google the history if youre interested) but i will say this: its illegal for a reason now. some dont think those reasons are good enough but hopefully i might be able to change a mind or two...

i want to mention medical marijuana quickly before i get too far. im all for any drug/medication that helps sick people. marijuana has some real medical value and i support this. the problem i have with the medical marijuana lobby is those out there protesting for the complete legalization arent those who need it for illness. its almost always those who want the right to get high. these people actually hurt the medical marijuana case because 'joe average' sees these protests full of hippies and stoners and dont want to support it.

pot IS harmful. its something you set on fire and inhale into your lungs. how can that not be harmful? it impairs judgment also. it slows reflexes and people get intoxicated from it. sure alcohol is worse and its legal. that dont float the argument tho. just because one bad thing is legal doesnt mean that we should make something else bad legal too. didnt someone once say something about two wrongs not making something right?

pot is also addicting. maybe its not as addicting as heroin or even booze but it is addicting. if it wasnt the rooms of narcotics anonymous would be about 30% emptier. also, if it aint addicting then why is there a marijuana anonymous? just askin...

ok, lets talk about the "legal drugs" real quick because some will use cigarettes and booze as an argument for legalization. the argument is legalize pot and tax it and you will raise a lot of money. really?!? tobacco is legal and taxed. in fact the US gov'ment raised nearly $35.2 billion in tobacco excise tax, sales tax and tobacco settlements to states in 2008. sounds like a lot of money right? sure is until you look at the actual cost of smoking. annually, the cost of just treating smoking related illnesses costs us in excess of $100 billion. kind of an unbalanced spreadsheet there isnt it? not to mention the half a million deaths annually from smoking. the costs for alcohol is probably close in with missed work, under production, accident clean up, law suits, medical bills, the cost of treatment for alcoholism not to mention the violence behind some drinking and the real fact that over 100,000 people die each year from alcohol and alcohol related causes.

ok, so there wont be as much illness behind pot smoking right? wrong. there are more carcinogens in a joint then there are in a cigarette. cigarettes are mostly filtered, pot isnt (even a water bong filters little). the only reason there arent more cancers and other illness are (1) its legal statuis and (2) most people dont smoke 20 joints a day. there are still long range health issues behind smoking pot and any taxes raised wont even begin to cover these costs.

another argument i hear is this: legalize and tax it and use that tax money for education and treatment for pot smoking. what the hell are you people smoking? lets make it legal and then try to educate and treat those who smoke it!!! that sounds completely insane. how much money you think the gov'ment spends on treatment for alcoholism from the taxes they bring in for booze? how about almost none. bad argument.

dont even mention amsterdam. theyre in the process of closing their coffee houses because of certain addiction issues and the real fact that drug dealers are coming there from other countries and buying as much as they can to sell back home.

lets talk about the cost of legalization (or even decriminalization. altho i do support smaller penalties for first time possession offenders i do support harsher penalties for repeat offenders). the real cost would be more addicted to pot. alcohol and cigarettes are good indicators of this. they are, by far, the most used and abused drugs because they are legal and easy to get. sure pot is easy to get too but there is a penalty for having it. these penalties, the very real threat of going to jail, are the reason some addicts stop using. consequences are the reason we stop using. take away any consequences and you have less reasons to stop. make it legal and more people will try it. the more who try the more that will get addicted. not all addicts have kick started their addictions. the fear of arrest probably keeps some potential addicts from ever starting. personally, i didnt do any illegal drugs until i was far into my alcohol addiction (altho i was under-aged and therefore even alcohol was illegal to me). i feared the consequences behind using certain drugs back then (the penalties back then for drinking under age was usually pouring out my beer, even in the car).

what we need, as addicts and society, are less intoxicants not more. certainly addicts will get pot regardless of legality but why make is easier to get? why make it ok to get high? why send the message to our kids that smoking pot is fine and dandy? making pot legal will cause more problems. any money raised from taxes will be eclipsed by the costs of treating pot related illnesses, accidents and other expenses. this is proven by cigarettes and booze. it costs the country more actual cash for booze and smokes then is raised in taxes.

crime... ok, so you might get rid of street dealers and lower the violent crime rates in mexico but will crime go down? i dont think so. i think there will be more instances of driving under the influence of pot, more accidents and more personal injury lawsuits because more people will smoke it and more will drive under the influence. did you know that drunk driving is, by far, the biggest violent crime in america. add pot to that mix and you have an even bigger problem. so fewer addicts will be jailed and street dealing will go away but who cares? this takes me back to consequences for our using. take those away, things like a threat of jail, and you take a reason for stopping away.

look, i dont give one flying shit what you do in the privacy of your home as long as youre not hurting anyone, are willing to take the consequences and i dont have to pay for it. smoke pot, shoot heroin, fuck dead cats... i dont care but dont bitch and whine because YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING thats not legal and make it my fault or my countries fault. making something legal thats illegal isnt the answer. id love to see alcohol and cigarettes made illegal but it aint gonna happen. thats still not a valid argument for making pot legal. "whine, whine... booze is legal so pot should be." fine, lets legalize it. lets legalize all of them; pot, coke, heroin, meth... lets make prescription drugs easier to get too. imasgine the tax dollars we vould raise. what? heroin and coke are more harmful then pot? i beg to differ. while you can die from heroin and even coke, used in moderation they arent that bad. well, they are pretty bad but not as bad as say... setting something on fire and inhaling it into your lungs. plus theres way more crime behind meth, cocaine and heroin then there is behind pot. so why not make em all legal and put a stop to this crime? the pot lobby hates this argument because it casts doubt on their own arguments. they claim pot is less harmful but if theyre all legal and regulated then they should be ok, right? safe heroin sounds good dont it? what a crock of shit.

just look at the problems behind alcohol and you should realize why any other drug shouldnt be legal. there are more people addicted to alcohol yhen there are to every illegal drug, combined. so lets make another one legal and lie about the fact that the number of those who might get addicted to pot will go up. make it ok to use and easy to get and you got more problems. there are bars and booze stores everywhere. do we need pot bars and hash houses too? somec say yes but i dont. ive seen the health and addiction effects behind pot and theyre not pretty.

so let the hate comments fly. just make sure youre ready to be challenged and you can back your shit up.

i saw this on facebook. i dont know who wrote it because its being passed around like my cousin ester. anyway, this is one of the few re-posts ill ever do because this is funny shit...