I have been doing some reading regarding the percentage of addicts (from diverse kinds) that keep sober. I was surprised to find that is very rare and that sooner or later they relapse. But due to the lack of information on recovery long term successes in Porn Addiction, I have been wondering if anyone knows if such information exists, what would be expectable data, if anyone knows about someone that cut it fully and no relapses and very rare triggers?
If is normal that an addict questions so often his attraction towards their partners even when they clean for some time and all they did was have a trigger?
What is expectable in the long run? Are ads for example for summer clothes and bikinis supposed to always be triggering? Are addicted people supposed to have triggers everyday and have countless triggers even in the long term recovery?
What is expectable in 2-5 or more years of an active recovery?

There is a sound that can only be heard by a small percentage of the population in New Mexico. This sound is somewhat of a low hum, a rumbling in the ears. Many scientific researchers have taken their shot at finding the origin of this anomaly that these unfortunate souls claim to hear. I say unfortunate because “the hum” as it came to be known, is constant. If you or I heard it for a moment we would simply be amused by the oddity of it, but these people in New Mexico hear it all the time. As they eat, brush their teeth or try to fall asleep they hear the hum. The rumble, uninvited, becomes a part of these people's lives. Some have sought doctors, some have tried remedies from both the East and the West… and some are driven so mad by it that they take the only known rememdy… the way of suicide.
When I heard of this hum, it was the closest I had ever come to finding a way to describe anxiety. And my brand of anxiety wasnt just any run of the mill anxiety. Mine was the concentrated stuff. The kind that can only live by growing parasitically from large deposits of shame. It produces a prodding and dull electrical current. This constant buzz that methodically and unendingly simply buzzes. You feel it throughout the entirety of your being. If the average person felt it for a moment, they would simply say to put on a pair of shoes and go to the gym to run off the excess energy, not understanding the perfection of its cruelty. It is not always boisterous, though in the swells it takes your breath away. It feels even manageable at times, but in reality, once combined with an already flawed consciousness, it gnaws slowly at the soul till you’ld do anything to remedy this monstrosity.
On a hungover Sunday in the medicine closet, I finally found my remedy. It was not death in the traditional sense, like suicide. This was much slower and frankly more enjoyable. So enjoyable in fact that people especially throughout the beginning of this century have done as I did and performed unspeakable and terrible things, things that tear apart the soul, to keep a steady supply. My remedy at first came in a small bottle and was watered down with acetaminophen. But over time I found a concentrated dose that matched my guilt. And what a remedy it seemed to be. It was called Oxymorphone. Pure, unadulterated, pharmaceutical grade heroin. The anxiety died in its tracks, but the problem is that some cures cause more sickness than the disease itself.
It's easy to pass a person on the street, covered in their own filth and dozing off into the whites of their eyes and ponder a common and expected thought, “How could they have made the decisions to put them where they are now? How could they choose this?”
To a degree, decisions we make as human beings come down to chemical reactions. If we are hungry - chemical response in the brain. If we are tired - chemical. Reproduce - chemical. In a good mood - chemical, bad mood - chemical. Our brain prioritises our needs based on chemical responses. In an addicts brain, a few unusual things happen. When the average person takes an opiate or drinks alcohol, they will experience a chemical reaction just like everything else. When an addict ingests one of these they will often experience a much higher dopamine or serotonin release than the average person. The brain over a short period of time will prioritize this chemical release over everything. Over all the things that we are normally programmed to desire. I will never forget that day that I was hung over, feeling shame, anxiety and deep regret. The unending buzz swelled inside me. I felt like I would never be able to catch enough breath to survive. I went searching for anything that could take me out of that tsunami of shame and fear. And when I found it and the chemical reaction took place in me, I felt something I have never felt before. Peace. Granted, it was false and manufactured, much different than contentment, but in that moment, I felt as though I had finally found joy. For the first time, I was hopeful that I could be happy. The clouds parted, the sun sang a sweet song through the window and wrapped me in its warmth. There I was alone and hung over on the floor having been in the middle of a shame induced anxiety attack just moments earlier. And now I was feeling as though I was tucked in safely at my grandmother's house in front of the fire the night before Christmas, giggling with my brother.
We all know what happens next so I’ll skip the details of the years of active addiction that followed. They started so warm and grew terribly cold. What started as hope mutated into an all consuming search of inevitable hopelessness. There are no amount of chemicals that heal shame. And shame manifests itself in so many different and ingenious ways. My shame came from childhood trauma. From believing that I was destined for punishment. I had come to the conclusion that I was inherently “bad”. As a child, believing this destroyed my inner monologue and self esteem. I overcompensated and indulged in my first addiction, attention. I craved it, believing that if others saw me and thought good of me that maybe it could balance the scale. Throughout the next couple decades the shame grew slow and constant. But during my addiction it grew swift and in wild spurts that caused a need for more until one day I was in a failing marriage (thanks to me and me alone), financially insecure and had, at best, strained relationships with family and friends. The lies had created a barrier between me and the outside world. I looked myself in the eyes of the mirror every night and told myself how pathetic I’ld become and that no one deserved to have to endure me in their life. Until one day it all came to a head.
My pills were in the collectors edition Princess Bride DVD case in the back seat of my car. 6 oxymorphones, The kind you could only get from cancer patients and amputees. The kind that could keep you high for hours no matter your tolerance, And the kind that if my wife found, there would be no questioning if I was a mere casual user of opiates or a deep seeded junkie that was so far underground that I no longer smelled the grass above my head. It seemed like a simple transfer. I would take the DVD case from my car and walk upstairs to the bathroom, unscrew the top of my deodorant canister, wrap them in toilet paper so they didn’t rattle and re-screw the top. To this day, I have a hard time understanding how the thing that I had changed my entire life's routine to hide had now come so easily to light. As I walked upstairs my wife asked me why I had The Princess Bride in the back seat of my car. She grabbed it out of my hand and the pills spilled out onto the floor. That moment, I knew there was no hiding anymore. Over the next few hours, she and I balled as I told her that it had been four years since I was sober. I told her I knew our marriage was over. She went upstairs and I didn’t see her again that day but heard her crying herself to sleep as I shook violent and sweaty from the withdrawals that ensued. That night the shame became the most powerful it had ever been.
Until the next morning. I woke up still shaking to my wife sitting beside me on her laptop. She calmly looked at me and said, “You’re my best friend. I love you and you need help.” She already had the best rehabilitation center in the state picked out. And the shame shrunk just a little. We briefly met with my brother and then she dropped me off at Cumberland Heights.
Over the next month there, I came to understand a lot about addiction, but mostly importantly about myself. About what trauma does. About what secrets do. And about the power of shame. I was by no means “cured” when I left rehab. That’s just not how it works. I still look at the addict on the street and while the average person pitties them, I’m instantly jealous. I can’t help but wish I was the one that was high and feel the temporary elation that they’re experiencing. That may never change. But what brought me to where I am today, 5 years off opiates, is compassion, love and healing. The compassion came from all of those friends and family who had the guts to sit down with me after all the lying and tell me how I had hurt them. There’s a purity and finality in releasing that anger. The love came from them still being willing to explore forgiveness and having the bravery to keep me in their lives. And the healing still comes today through therapy, through hard work on myself and most importantly through honesty. Taking those secrets out of the dark, exposing shame to the light of trusting someone else continues to make me whole.
I thought it was ridiculous when I heard someone say in rehab that “relapse is a part of recovery”. It made no sense to me. My wife however, ingested every book, video and meeting she could to try and understand my addiction. One day she told me in the car that she learned that over 97% of addicts relapse after rehab. While this scared me, she didn’t seem phased. She grabbed my hand and looked me in the eyes and said, “I know the statistics and if you use again but choose to be honest with me, I’ll choose to show compassion rather than anger.”
I wish I could say that was enough and I never used again. But honestly I wouldn’t have healed nearly as much if that was the case. The first time I used after rehab it took me a week to tell her. She was undoubtedly sad. She cried a few tears and then told me thank you for telling her. The next time I used I told her the next day. This time she didn’t cry. She looked at me again and said, “thank you for telling me. I hate that you were hurting enough to feel like you were alone and had to use”. The next time I held pills in my hand I thought of her. I wasn’t alone. I could share my shame and come out cleaner on the other side. I flushed the pills and haven’t touched one since.
I could go on forever about all the instances where people showed me this compassion and love and it brought about healing. But keep in mind that I am incomparably fortunate for the people I have in my life. For my family. For my friends who are like family to me. For the financial resources to even go to rehab or therapy. That person on the street nodding into their lap may not. That person acting out for attention both positive and negative may not have received any at a point in their life that they desperately needed it. That person making a ridiculously long internet post (me) may just need to get it out. Sometimes it makes these people annoyingly hard to love. They may even fight it because they don’t think they want it or deserve it. Or maybe they’ve never received much of it and it makes them sceptical and reluctant. But I assure you, with time and consistency, it will make an impact.
I keep a folder with five notes in it that I can access in my phone at all times. It contains letters from my mom, my dad and my wife, a text my brother sent me that I screenshotted, and a message my uncle posted to facebook about what my deceased grandfather would have thought about my sobriety. Anytime I feel like I’m on the verge of diving into shame, or am overwhelmed by anxiety and often when I’m convinced that only a chemical can heal my condition, I read these. And for the last five years compassion and love has won out over shame and anxiety.
It’s not always easy to love, especially someone who has betrayed your trust over and over and tests your ability to forgive. But you never know when something you do or say is permanently filed as someone's reason for why they feel worthy of it and it changes them forever.

The first of two I have queued up for today! You can scope the ones I've already done on Randy Choate, Kevin Gregg, and Dan Uggla if you feel so inclined. Now to our top story.

Josh Hamilton

Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor: 64 Career bWAR (9 years): 28.3 Stats: .290/.349/.516, 1134 H, 200 HR, 458 XBH, 129 OPS+, 55 IBB, 701 RBI, 609 R League Leading Stats: RBI (130, 2008), Total Bases (330, 2008), Batting Average (.359, 2010), Slugging % (.633, 2010), OPS (1.044, 2010), bWAR (8.7, 2010), fWAR (8.4, 2010) Awards: All-Star 5x (2008-12), Silver Slugger 3x (2008, 2010, 2012), MVP (2010) Teams Played For: Reds (2007), Rangers (2008-12, 2015), Angels (2013-14)
I'm sure there are more than a few readers wondering "how in tarnation did Josh Hamilton not make it onto the Hall of Fame ballot?!?" The answer is simple: he didn't qualify. Hamilton only played 9 years, one short of the threshold necessary for the Hall. So I'm kind of cheating here. Now, there may be some who say "this is a complete and utter betrayal of the system you've set up! This series is about people who qualify for the ballot but aren't on it! There's no conceivable way Josh Hamilton could have been on this year!" To those people (who definitely don't exist), I will give one reason for allowing this departure from protocol: it's my series and I want to talk about Hambino so shut up. The man deserves to be remembered in one way or another. Let's start remembering him, shall we?
Josh Hamilton's story begins in 1999, his senior year of high school. More specifically it starts at Athens Drive, a humble establishment in the capital of North Carolina, whose entire athletic output at that point consisted of two NFL players, a foreign basketball player, and a soccer player on the US Men's National Team. Enter Josh Hamilton, baseball player extraordinaire, with a 6.7 second 60-yard dash, a 97-mile fastball back when that was incredibly fast, and a 25-game high school season where he hit .529 with 13 homers, 20 bags swiped, and 35 RBIs. By the time of that year's MLB draft, Hamilton was considered one of if not the best high school prospect in the nation. It was not a major surprise when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays selected him first overall. He was the first position player drafted in that spot since some guy named A-Rod, and got served a record-breaking $3.96-million signing bonus, so big things might have been expected of him. The excitement surrounding him would only grow when he was assigned to the rookie-level Appalachian League, and slashed .347/.378/.593 with 140 total bases in just 56 games. The next year, at 19, Hamilton played 96 games at the single-A level, and hit .302/.348/.476. That's pretty good. So good, in fact, that prior to the 2001 season, Baseball America named him the consensus number 1 prospect. Then, out of nowhere, disaster.
While his family was out driving, a dump truck ran a red light and smashed the side of their pickup. Josh's back was injured, his mother had to be pried out of her driver's seat, and his parents would have to return to Raleigh for medical care. Thankfully his mother would make a full recovery, but while she was doing that Hamilton was left alone. As a 20-year-old with cash aplenty and no one to answer to, he indulged. He began drinking alcohol and hanging out at strip clubs. He started using cocaine and hanging out with people who could get him more. He did whatever he wanted. In case you were not aware, this is not a good idea for a 20-year-old to do if they want to remain a top prospect. Hamilton only appeared in 27 games in 2001, slashing .200/.250/.290. His 2002 was better, with a line of .303/.359/.507 at A+-level, but that offseason would bring major changes. After catching wind of his activities, the Devil Rays decided to send Hamilton to rehab. Didn't appear to have worked, as he failed a drug test following a 2003 spring training invite. Not only was that a sign of continued self-destruction, but his prospect value plummeted. Hamilton took the rest of the season off, hoping to work on himself and improve. Well, by the next season, that hadn't happened, and three failed drug tests meant he had to take the year off again due to a season-long suspension. Once that was over, Hamilton was ready to prove that after almost three years away, he still had what it took to be a Major League star. Then he got arrested for smashing a windshield out of anger, and the Rays moved him off the 40-man, effectively ending his endeavor for the third year in a row. After a relapse, the next season was shot as well as he got served another year-long suspension. While that suspension didn't prevent him from participating in 22 minor league games at the end of the year, a line of .260/.327/.360 was a far cry from what was once expected. The time is now December of 2006. Josh Hamilton turned 25 half a year ago, and played his first minor league baseball games in five years just a couple months ago. No one blamed the Devil Rays when they decided to cut their losses, and left him unprotected in the Rule 5 draft. However, this Josh Hamilton was very different from the Josh Hamilton of the past five years.
During his 2006 suspension, Hamilton cleaned up in many ways. He began working at a baseball academy that let him use the facilities off the clock, he abstained from drugs for the whole year, and he showed that, while he may no longer be a top prospect, he could still play baseball. For those reasons, the Cincinnati Reds felt like they could take a chance on him. They made a trade with the Cubs to acquire him through the Rule 5 Draft, and intended to use him in 2007 as a 4th outfielder. After an excellent spring training where he hit .403, Hamilton made the Opening Day roster. His first appearance of the year, pinch-hitting for Aaron Harang, prompted the home crowd to give him a 22-second standing ovation. He had finally made it. Sure he lined out, but nobody cared. Josh Hamilton had taken a Major League at-bat. As little as three years ago, that was considered nigh on impossible. But here he was. And he made the most of it.
While he was limited to 90 games due to injury, Josh Hamilton's rookie campaign was fantastic. A line of .292/.368/.554 with 19 homers in his first year was downright stunning for the position he was in. You'd think all of that, coupled with his NL Rookie of the Month award in April, would net him some Rookie of the Year votes. Problem was Josh Hamilton had the misfortune of debuting the same year as Ryan Braun and Troy Tulowitzki, in addition to some other very strong cases like Chris Young's 32 dingers. Thus, despite 2.5 bWAR, Hamilton didn't appear on a single Rookie of the Year ballot. Where he did appear, however, was trade discussions. With Adam Dunn, Ken Griffey Jr., Norris Hopper, and Ryan Freel all slotted to be ahead of him in the depth chart for 2008, the 72-90 Reds decided to sell high. Hamilton was shipped off to the Texas Rangers in exchange for pitching help in Edinson Volquez and Danny Herrera. Little did they know just what he would become.
Many of you know what happened next. Those of you who didn't already had part of it spoiled by the stats you probably ignored at the beginning. For the precious few who are still in the dark, here's what happened for the next five years after Hamilton became, and stayed, a Ranger: he showed off everything he could do. He hit four home runs in a game. He got intentionally walked with the bases loaded. He set the record for most All-Star votes by 4 million. In the Home Run Derby, he hit the most home runs anyone had ever seen. He earned the MVP of the 2010 ALCS after hitting four home runs and holding a 1.000 SLG during the series. He played in back-to-back World Series championships. And that's not even considering what happened while he was an everyday player. Five All-Star games. Three Silver Sluggers. 142 home runs. 506 RBIs. Hitting to the tune of .305/.363/.549 over five years. And right in the middle, once he was done guiding his team to their franchise's first World Series appearance, and after leading the league in batting average and slugging percentage, Josh Hamilton won the 2010 American League Most Valuable Player trophy. In short, he became a superstar while in Texas. He wasn't shy about what he'd gone through, either. Knowing how he struggled with alcohol, after every playoff-clinching win, the Rangers wouldn't pop champagne, but replaced it with ginger ale just for Hamilton. From first overall pick, to cautionary tale about drug addiction, to feelgood redemptive conclusion, to MVP and perennial All-Star. Hamilton's story seemed too good to be true. And yet, here he was. He had made the most of it.
If the story of Josh Hamilton was turned into a movie five years ago, it would end right around here. Hamilton had conquered his own personal demons, some of which were literally tattooed on his body, and reached the peak of his potential. That offseason, his first in free agency, Hamilton signed a 5-year, $125-million contract with the Los Angeles Angels. The idea was that he would continue his production, and combine with Albert Pujols and the newly unleashed Mike Trout to form an offensive juggernaut that could not be stopped. That's, um, not what happened. His first full season as an Angel saw him post career lows in batting average (.250) and OBP (.307), while also turning in his worst defensive season yet in right field as he led the league in errors by an outfielder. For the first time since getting traded by the Reds, Josh Hamilton was not an All-Star. The $100-million he was still owed for the next four years was beginning to look like a huge mistake. It was now time to prove the doubters wrong. In 2014, he came out looking like he would do just that. Over the first week of the season, Hamilton went 12-for-24 with two doubles and two dingers. He garnered his first "AL Player of the Week" award since 2012. Then, in his eighth game of the year, he got sidelined by a thumb injury that kept him out of action until the beginning of June. For his first week back, it seemed like he would keep the good times rolling, as he went 12-for-32. The 24 hits combined over those two stretches of 15 total games would account for a little over a quarter of the 89 hits he'd record in 89 games played that year. While he outdid the previous year's batting average and OBP, this year it was time for his Slugging Percentage to take a hit. .414 was the lowest he'd ever posted. Despite this, the Angels made the postseason, only to get swept by the eventual pennant-winning Royals. Hamilton sure didn't help at all, going 0-for-13 and getting booed relentlessly. Those would be his last performances in an Angels jersey, as the following February, Hamilton voluntarily reported to the MLB that he had relapsed while rehabbing from offseason shoulder surgery. Angels owner Arte Moreno, utterly disgusted at someone taking responsibility for their actions, pulled all merchandise related to Hamilton and told the front office to trade him ASAP. Thus, in late April, Josh Hamilton was traded... back to the Rangers.
The Angels would be paying all but $6 million of his remaining $80 million salary, but the Rangers would have him on the field for those three remaining years. It seemed like a match made in heaven, with Texas hoping he'd pick up right where he left off when he was last in a Rangers uniform. And, well, it was the best season since his last one! He only made it into 50 games, slashing .253/.291/.441 with 8 homers. The Rangers made the ALDS, but lost in 5 to the Blue Jays, as Hamilton went 3-for-18 with 5 Ks. As odd as it was that he was back in Arlington, signs of change were on the horizon, and Hamilton looked like he was ready to take the step he couldn't in LA. Then he had to start 2016 on the DL due to knee problems, and once May hit, his season was lost. His knee had required three surgeries in the past nine months, and the Rangers would take no chances. 2017 would hopefully be a time to get back into the swing of things, until it was revealed that his knee would again require surgery. Ultimately, after it was revealed he had injured his other knee during rehab, Josh Hamilton got released that April. And so concluded his playing time, one year short of Hall consideration. But hey, he won MVP! So that's good!
This is usually the part where I say "I don't think Josh Hamilton was on the ballot because of this and that," but I can't do that here. Partially because, of course, nine years isn't enough so that's the entire reason, and partially because, unfortunately, Hamilton's story's ending is far from happy. Big warning and kinda spoiler, domestic abuse discussion ahead. Skip the rest if you don't want to read about that stuff. It appears in recent years, he's gotten much worse at battling the demons he seemed to have conquered. He and his wife divorced after his 2015 relapse, and his handling of himself hasn't gotten much better since. Earlier this year, Hamilton was indicted on charges of injury to a child. He is accused of abusing his daughters, and could face up to ten years in prison. When I see that story, I don't feel anger or hatred toward Josh Hamilton. I feel genuine sadness. Such a fantastic story of an individual's inspiring drive to defeat hardship ends with that very same individual inflicting hardship on those around him. I won't go into any detail on what the allegations are, but I'll say if what has been alleged really happened, he deserves prison time, and a lot of it. It just saddens me that a great story like his had to end like that. Wow, what a downer ending. Here's a video of hamsters to take the edge off.
Josh Hamilton doesn't get to visit the Hall. Only 9 years. Sorry, but rules are rules.

I know the science behind addiction, I know there are behaviors that inhibit people from making decisions, and I know getting over an addiction isn't easy. I've had addictions, I've known plenty of people with addictions, I understand quite a bit about how they function and how they affect a person. But I'm still not going to praise you when you say that you're one year sober, I'm not gonna act like you're strong and brave because you haven't touched a drop of alcohol or jerked off or whatever for an amount of time, because I think that kind of shit is just for looks, for attention, and it is hardly betterment.
What I think is strong is having enough mental fortitude to be able to go from being addicted to being able to take things in moderation. I think that someone is only really over their addiction if they're able to participate in whatever it is they're addicted to without having the addictive urges they previously had before they were "sober."
This is just how my brain works: when you have an issue, ignoring it completely is NOT solving that issue. If your car breaks down, selling your car is NOT fixing it. If you can't build a circuit because you don't know how to solder, then giving up is NOT solving that problem. If you want to be shredded, then tricking yourself into thinking your 25% body fat percentage is "shredded" is NOT becoming shredded. It may solve your problem by making it not be a part of your life anymore or tricking yourself into thinking something is what it really isn't, but it certainly isn't making any real progress when it comes to what it was you set out to fix in the first place. Of course, most addictive behaviors are health hazards, and quitting them is just generally better than doing it at all, but literally anybody who quits smoking or drinking or whatever, whether they're addicted or not, can say that about themselves, so that's a bit low of a bar. You aren't actually facing an issue, you're just cutting that entire part of your life where the issue lives.
You're letting your addiction control you even more than it was before because now you simply can't participate in what is probably something everybody else does comfortably like eating sweets or playing games or having sex or whatever it is. When you decide to just give up doing whatever it is that you have an issue with, you're showing weakness towards that aspect of your life, and this concept is no different just because addiction is a sensitive issue. In my eyes, it's no different from dropping out of college because you didn't want to put in the effort required to do well. Grats on stopping a behavior that most likely is harmful no matter how much you do it (not dropping out of college, I mean, like, taking oxys), but you're not any more special than anybody else who stopped smoking weed just because you were addicted to it and they weren't.
Instead, I think people should work towards moderation, not sobriety, meaning they should try to limit themselves to a reasonable amount of whatever it is they're doing. I've done it, my friends have done it, my parents have even fucking done it, so I don't know why people treat this like it's some sort of unheard thing that nobody has ever done and, therefore, is an insane and unreasonable expectation. I think it's a completely reasonable expectation. And no, there is no science I know of that backs this, there is no real argument, this is just my opinion like the sub says. But I've held true to this belief for most of my life, and I haven't seen any reason to not believe this.
Also, I know quitting can be a part of recovery, but the number of people I've seen go sober for however many months and then relapse because they never taught themselves to be able to do something in moderation is way higher than it should be. People treat sobriety like this crowning achievement, the hardest thing they've ever done and shit, and because of that they often think that it's the last step, that they don't need to do any more work. And then they relapse and have to go through it all over again. Everyone feels sooo bad for them, poor person, they tried so hard, and yet they're addicted again. No. They didn't try hard enough. They did the absolute least they could do, they did the first step and didn't follow through with the rest of the work. They got admitted to the college and then failed their first semester, lost their scholarship, and dropped out. Quitting can be part of recovery, but it very, very often is not, it's only part of a vicious cycle of sobering up and relapsing that a shitload of people are in and will be in their whole lives because they will never put in the effort it takes to learn how to take things in moderation.
This is a paragraph dedicated to me saying that heroin and the likes are not things you can just take in moderation. This is kinda obvious, but I feel like some smartass is gonna be like "hurr durr ok I'll just do meth once a week instead of every day thanks 4 de advice broo." So yeah, obvious thing is obvious. It's fine to cold turkey heroin.
People think that quitting something is the only thing they can do to stop addictive behavior, and that's why they stay in this cycle; they've been tricked into thinking that they're biologically programmed to not be able to possibly ever drink without getting blackout drunk or have sex without craving it every living moment. This is an extremely toxic and bullshit way of thinking that has caused people to make people like me, who encourage moderation, seem insane and unreasonable. I think that everyone can reach a reasonable stage of moderation, even if you have to do something like limit yourself to one drink, only have one joint, throw away all but one of your whatever it is you're addicted to. But people think no, that isn't enough, they have to completely quit doing it or else they will never have control over themselves, and since I've already explained how this is bullshit (quitting isn't controlling blah blah) I'll just stop here.

I feel a bit dumb posting this here because I know that many people who are often in contact with drugs think I am exaggerating.
But this topic concerns me very much and therefore I would like to get your opinion. I try to present the whole situation as factual as possible to give you an objective insight.
Me (19) and my girlfriend (18) have been together for almost 3 years. We are very serious about our relationship. We have had plans for the future for quite some time and plan to move abroad together to study.
Since we know each other, she knows about my attitude towards drugs: Personally, I strictly abstain from it, but I am in favor of a general legalization, because I see the war on drugs as lost and am much more in favor of helping addicts rather than prosecuting them.
She also knows that I avoid people in my immediate environment who have contact with drugs. Why? I don't know if it is because of my upbringing or something else. The only thing I know is that the thought of drugs turns everything upside down in my stomach. I think about all the people who have lost their lives on the streets and everything because of their addiction. People who often had a childhood like you and me. I know there are different types of consumption and only a small percentage of the users crash and end up on the streets. But I always have in mind that their homelessness was certainly not a personal choice. Nobody starts using drugs with the thought in their mind that they want to end up in an addiction.
In addition, over the years I myself have developed experiences with addictions (especially gaming) that always come and go. I know these are very common addictions, but I don't want to take any risks for me personally, because everything in my life is going extremely well and I don't feel like taking any numbing drugs.
To get to my girlfriend and the real problem: She came to me today and told me that she would like to smoke weed. She tried it before our relationship and wants to smoke a few times a year. She was never really averse to the drug, but she never really talked to me about it either. She told me that she feels restricted by me because I make her feel that she cannot smoke weed because of my aversion to drugs. And yes: I do not want her to do so. But at the same time I don't want to restrict her in this respect, because I know how toxic that can be. That is why I told her that it is her life and her decision.
But I have an extremely bad feeling about the whole thing because she comes from a family of addicts. Her parents are both alcoholics and her uncle died of an overdose a few years ago. She is nothing like her addicted parents or relatives, because she has her life under control and she is doing very well at the moment.
But as science has already shown: addiction can be inherited genetically and plays a significant role in the development of addiction.
Yes, I know: one cannot become physically dependent on marijuana, but "only" psychologically. What really bothers me about it, is that the inhibition threshold against other drugs is lowered (I've seen it with people I know) and the walk to the dealer, who certainly doesn't have only weed.
In addition, I don't like to be with someone who smokes, because it is not compatible with my partner's ideas (guys, breaking up is not an option). Yes, I know she only talks about a few times a year, but that's already too much for me and I'm afraid it could be more.
We have a very healthy relationship and never had any arguments or problems we couldn't solve, so I'm a bit overwhelmed. Usually in situations like this, we always find compromises that satisfy both of us. But in the discussed situation you can't really find a compromise in my eyes.
I have already pointed out to her that maybe she should think about the whole thing again. But she accused me of not trusting her. For me, this is not about trust, but much more about caring for her and not wanting her to end up the same as her social environment.
I often embraced and comforted her when she came to me crying because she came home to her mother, who had relapsed, drunk as a skunk.
In my eyes she doesn't need drugs to be happy or to relax because, as I said, everything in her life is going extremely well and she is dealing with her problems very well. I am afraid that she could destroy all this because she is immersed in this drug world.
I just wish that she never has anything to do with it because I really love her and would do anything for her.

So this is kinda a rant but..
Seriously, when you think about the amount of damage the porn industry has done to so many men, women, and children... why is the porn industry legal?
The percentage of people with PMO problems only seems to be growing year after year (I wonder if there were as many PMO problems when porn was illegal just a couple of generations ago? I'm guessing probably not). Now it seems like more and more people are being affected by this and at increasingly younger ages.nSomething like 25% of internet searches are just porn - isn't that indicative of a societal wide problem? How much of humanity's productive energy is being wasted on porn? If PORN hadn't been legalized and mainstreamed, I would probably never have seen it at 10, never spent late nights online getting addicted from 12-18. I'm 30 now, and PORN is even more present than before - half of every movie/TV show has triggering stuff in it and is hypersexualized and it's much harder to quit than it was when I was a teenager because it's everywhere and pushed in your face by everyone - even some 'so-called' mental health profesionals (I had a counselor that told me after I had worked hard to get to 5 months no PMO that I should masturbate again and 'enjoy myself' and that it was ok to go back to PMO! Of course I wanted to hear that and relapsed HARD!)
Obviously there are countries where it's illegal - but that doesn't really matter now in a globalized internet age, it's still easy to access. Pandora's box has been opened and it's nigh impossible to go back to how things were. What will things be like in the future?
Destroyed lives from PMO=relational problems Relational problems=broken marriages Broken marriages=wounded children Wounded children=disfunctional adults Disfunctional adults=Abnormal Society
Obviously you can disagree with me, but my opinion is that porn is the problem.
Regardless though, I choose to work on myself,.become a more complete person, work through my feelings and triggers, and leave PMO for good.
Right now I'm on day 22 of normal mode. And it's super duper hard y'all...
Edit: Sorry for the long read just wanted to respond.. Thank you all so much! Didn't expect so many comments and upvotes!! Also TOTALLY didn't expect this much pushback - but I love that we can actually dialogue about this here and talk without fighting
Just as a response to some of the general comments I am seeing: 1. Porn is in no way a "victimless crime". We don't even really know the societal price we will pay, the price for individuals is already extremely high.

1. When I say 'make porn illegal', many people think I am advocating for a "war on drugs" zero tolerance response; not at all. There is a whole realm of possible legal responses to porn that don't look anything like the failed war on drugs, and don't turn users into criminals - but do take steps to breakdown the power structure that is the porn industry to protect society.
   
2. You don't have the right to hurt your self, even if you think you do because it doesn't hurt anyone else. This is because we live as a society, and your actions always affect others, either directly or indirectly. Absolute freedom to do whatever you want is not a right either.
   
3. Lots of people used the slippery slope argument to say that if we ban porn then next they'll ban x. Sorry, not a valid argument guys, I could use the same logic to tell you that porn being legalized will only lead to worse things being legalized. Each thing has to be assessed on its own demerit.
   
4. Lots of people saying porn is about something consenting adults do... Ok, be honest then - at what age did you first see porn and when did your PMO addiction start? For me it was 9 and 12, my intuition is that it's the same for most of you. Nothing to do with consenting adults IMO
   

I am 13 years old and I am turning 14 in January so I just automatically consider myself to be 14. I started watching prn when I was 11 or 12 years old because I saw a YouTube comment that said something about prnhub and I was curious so I looked it up. Since March I have been trying to stop and I failed miserably. This year I have learned a lot especially from people like David Goggins, Jordan B Peterson, Jocko Willink, Joe Rogan, etc. I am glad that I have found these people because otherwise I would be in a really bad place right now because of how lazy I used to be. I am improving myself everyday by 1% which is less but it is not trivial. I am feeling also very happy because of me incrementally improving myself and becoming the person that I am supposed to be. I was for a long time very disappointed in how I was keep on relapsing and not learning from my mistakes. I am happier now, because I have (6 days ago) almost relapsed on day 2 ,and I even had the prn tab open and stuff, but I had a moment of clarity before I actually did it so I immediately did what I thought was the right thing to do, which was to close the tab and not relapse. This gave me a lot of strength, because it told me that I am bigger than this addiction and that I can do it. I can beat this addiction and if I could to that then I could overcome anything. But I am right now really scared that I will fuck up and live a life of regret and untapped potential. And that I will never amount to anything in my life which my father told to me too and I am not mad at him because I am not everything that I could be and I am running at maybe 4% efficiency and yes, I am improving myself step by step, but I still have a lot more percentage left. I have improved a lot during this 7 day nofap streak but I still have to be a lot better because I am making good habits like waking up early, making my bed, cleaning up my room, brushing my teeth 2 times a day, taking a shower every day, no PMO, being respectful and listening to my parents and my sister, but I still have a lot of bad habits. Basically I am terrified of making bad decisions, not making the right habits, not improving and staying in a self destructive rut which would then result into tremendous suffering and not only for me but for my family and the community. I keep on having nightmares of relapsing and then regretting it massively but then I wake up to find out that it was just a dream. I am really scared of going down the wrong path. Furthermore, I am in 9th grade and I am actually an A student but I have been getting a lot of Ds this time. I am procrastinating way too much like right now. I woke up at 5 am and now it is half past 6pm and I haven't done shit. I have 3 projects to do, 3 assignments to do, 4 projects to do, prepare for a french exam and I have to apply for an internship and all that I have to do in 2-3 weeks. I am improving but I still have a long way to go.

I tried to find statistcs, but only managed to find vague numbers of people, who seeked treatment and relapsed. However what I'm interested in what are the numbers in general public? As we know not all alcoholics seek help, so what percentage of total addicts die from alcoholism? I want to help my brother, supported him for few years by trusting him and believing in him, however it only gets worse. I want him to get on rehab, he needs to understand that the suffering frow withdrawals would not match the induced suffering of continues drinking. Please share the stats if you're aware of them, Thank you in advance, stay safe.

So I quit vaping back in March after chain “smoking” heavily for two years. I would buy the highest nicotine percentages I could find (so 5% or 6%) and hit my vape from morning til night. I took it everywhere with me and if I could hit it wherever I was, I would. I was heavily, heavily addicted.
When I quit, I wasn’t actually ready. The only reason I had to was because I started having some very alarming symptoms, one of which was a burning/tingling in my left arm that was exacerbated by vaping. Soon after I learned I had high blood pressure and prediabetes, both undoubtedly a result of my nicotine addiction (although the hypertension was hereditary in my family.. I think I just brought it on faster).
The problem is, I still crave it. I still think about vaping almost everyday, and I even have dreams where I’m vaping and simultaneously freaking out about exacerbating my new health struggles, but doing it anyway. I’m considering vaping 0% nic juices but given that we have no clue what that will do to your body long term, I’m extremely hesitant.
Nothing has ever given me the type of relief that vaping did. The whole oral fixation coupled with the nicotine “high” is pretty much unparalleled. I don’t have anything to replace it with and I’m worried about an eventual relapse.
Does anyone have any advice or tips to offer me?

To begin with I'm very new to this nofap community on reddit infact I made my account just 2-3 days ago. Heard a lot about this so here I am, to begin with
I'm 16 year old and addicted to PMO to the next level I mean literally for 2 years (so all this started when I was 14 basically). My addiction is such that just after masturbating I get a ton of guilt to myself that makes me firstly so weak & next to that so demotivated In 2019 my average nofap breakage cycle used to be 4 or 5 days....this made me so obsessed with this sin as it was an introductory year for me getting into this activity Then In 2020 my average nofap breakage was not well improved basically it became 6-7 that's it....and by the ending of year basically November and December I could last only for 16 days.....
I make each and every plan for nofap so that I won't watch porn and get such urges like just when I would be on day 1 of this challenge but just after a week I start getting urges and every PMO addict would be knowing just for sake relapsing you get 100s of reasons that's what is happening to me!!!! This is a very crucial time to make my career!!!! Infact cuz of this shit porn I've completely lost my memory in class 8 I used to generally get 95%+ but after this shit entered my life ie:PMO This made all my passions & my goals to the next level downward & now my percentage is always in 60s or 70,s infact in my board exams I scored only 75% seriously that guy who was a 10 pointer just became a 7 pointer
Plz help me guys I can't see myself falling down this way in life... I'm just asking as bro😭🙏 (Do comment & give suggestions so that I could complete my nofap journey in the new year 2021) Have so much hopes as usual but the time PMO hits brain I just forget about everything which shouldn't happen :"(

People say that alcohol , drugs and cigarettes are addictive but what is really addictive is this dirt as you can see the number of people connected to this channel and maybe it is just a percentage of the total number of people who watch porn . I just cherish myself and everyone who is connected to this group as at least they are trying to get rid of this dirt .I am on day 1 now as i relapsed yesterday but i think that that relapse makes us more strong ,yes it is really important to control yourself but a relapse doesn't mean you've lost. You are still better than the millions who don't even realise the harm it is doing to them. i heard my classmate quote that the world is not of the achievers ,it is of the people who cross one milestone at once .i just want to conclude all this with stating that just go on and prepare for the best but be ready for the worst

-- Making finding P*rn Impossible --

First off, P*rn blockers:
Please not be turned off by your previous experiences with p*rn blocker extensions. You have my promise that if you do every step of what I am about to tell you, you will make it physically impossible to access p*rn. Many of you might experiences with these browser extensions and might have found them not as reliable but I have found several methods to make sure that as long as you are home there is no way for you to relapse using p*rn blockers. This method has helped me achieve many days with ease, my streak never been this easier to achieve. This will also put a stop to all of you who are emotionally relapsing, thinking about it, or edging themselves by looking at p*rn but not m*sturbating.
Now, what can we do to forbid ourselves from looking at p*rn?

Stage 1- Install dozens of p*rn blockers and keyword blockers, not one or a few.

^{(Only to one browser})
-So why not a few or just one?
Because no blocker extension can truly cover all of your needs, each and every one of them have limitations. Each and one of them have weaknesses that you can exploit to access p*rn. Having dozens of blockers enables us to make sure they can cover up each other.
-What if I find one that's just really good? What if I purchase premium on this one that I really like?
You don't need to spend a dime neither you should. Many blockers will have limits to how many sites or keywords you can put into their systems before either stopping you or asking you to pay. We will get to how to use keywords effectively in a second, but having multiple blockers enables you to cheat so you can have more and more availability of keyword and site block limits. You don't have to buy anything.
-How many blockers do I need?
You need dozens at least. But I recommend much much more. It's because most of them cannot understand uppercases or lowercases, cannot understand that you found p*rn due spelling mistakes or weird uses of spaces. You'd be surprised how many of them have these flaws.
Also: You need many many blockers so that when you are in a second of relapsing the action of disabling them will seem much much more effort some than only one.
A good technique to know when you blocked enough is when they start blocking chrome extension web store due to p*rn or ad*lt videos texts being present. That's when you know you are going well, but I still recommend you to continue spending a lot of time installing more even if some of them block the store. And if you install dozens and dozens, eventually you will have enough to cover each other's flaws.
-------------------------------HOW TO USE BLOCKERS PROPERLY------------------------------
Install and give full control to your blockers, make sure they have the rights to work in incognito mode.
Passwords: Some blockers especially ad*lt-children control themed ones will have you set passwords. Type in the most absurd combination of words possible, save it to somewhere then once you successfully created the account/password or blocking configuration you needed to do. Delete where you saved the password.
But it is not over yet.
Most if not all blockers will block the majority of p*rn sites. However this will not be enough. Keyword blockers are also needed, some blockers might have this feature packaged, and for some you need to go out of your way to find them. After installing many many keyword blockers now it is time to put your security to test.
Test 1 - Find p*rn: I want you to go to google images, reddit and whatever site you know that you can use to find p*rn and start typing every single word you use to find these, into the keyword blockers. Make sure you type them spelled wrong aswell. Example: You might have banned the word incest but if you can still find p*rn on google by typing mother son inces, without the t. Then you need to put that word too.
Repeat Repeat Repeat: Attack your own defense system, give it your all to find p*rn and when you do type all those keywords onto your blockers. Block sites on all of your blockers that you use to find p*rn. (Except reddit, google etc. you don't need to ban those sites because your blockers will block you from going to nsfw subreddits I'll explain how below)
Try different word combinations, try different spellings, try to form sentences differently and see if they catch you. Imagine yourself about to relapse, now try to find p*rn. Repeat until you have almost a hundred words on blockers. Make sure to type things like rule 34 and sexcomic etc aswell. I reccomend stepmo aswell because it will stop you from typing both stepmom and stepmother.
Repeat this until it always stops you from typing anything p*rnographic or finding any p*rn sites including reddit. Do not mind google images finding you p*rn just yet, but make sure you have to do insane mind gymnastics to find them on google images without blockers blocking you

----- STAGE 1 COMPLETED -----

But none of my blockers can completely stop me from finding p*rn on google images?
Yes, welcome to stage 2:

Stage 2- Google and learn how to lock the "Safesearch" feature of google search.

This feature is SO effective, you cannot find any p*rnographic images or sites both on google images and normal search. You can activate this at the right portion of the screen when searching something on images or by going to search setting or options.
However the safe search feature can be deactivated by the press of one button or in some cases by clearing your caches or history.
To avoid this you have to google and learn how to force enable the safesearch feature, I did it myself so it is doable, do not be fooled by some old posts on the internet talking about how they couldnt.
Test your google and make sure safe search can never be turned off after this.

----- STAGE 2 COMPLETED -----

Now we have done a lot to stop ourselves from reaching p*rn, always test your blocker security by trying to reach p*rn. And take necessary actions by putting more combinations of words to workblockers and putting urls to site blockers such as reddit nsfw subreddits lists' link for example.

Stage 3- Uninstall every single browser you have on the computer, except the one with all the new blockers. And microsoft edge.

Taking action and stopping an addiction takes effort and sacrifice. This is one of them, you have to uninstall all the browsers you have on your computer.
Important: Delete all browsers from your phone. If you have a computer or laptop at home, make the sacrifice to only use your computer to research or google something. If you absolutely need your phone with google, download a safe search browser from appstore. Do not minimize the importance of this part, we are trying to make it completely impossible to reach p*rn for you.
-FFS HOW DO I UNINSTALL MICROSOFT EDGE?
I dont know about the possible troubles of mac users but most people on windows 10 will be unable to delete microsoft edge at first, for this, you have to google and learn how to uninstall it. I did it myself so the solution is simple and out there.
-I like my blockers, do I REALLY need to uninstall Microsoft edge or other browsers?
Yes. More browsers mean more room for the blockers to make mistakes. More parts there are in a machine, the more likely it is to fail. Remember:
This should be your motto while taking these actions:
I will m\sturbate to p*rn right now. If I am successful in finding something to m*sturbate, I still have work to do, sites to block, keywords to put in, new blockers to install, finding ways for blockers to stop me from googling reaching sites without p*rnogrographic names. (Do these after all stages are done)*

----- STAGE 3 COMPLETED -----

You have successfully made it impossible to find p*rn on your computer. Now go and spend a lot of time testing your security, try your best to find it, go into your relapse mindset and try your best to find ad*lt videos or imagery. And put in more security and precaution if you are successful.

How effective will this be for me not to relapse?

Assuming you successfully did all the stages, and you cannot reach it on your phone aswell. You are %95 secure. There will always be a very very small chance of finding it somehow ( and when you do, kill that chance by blocking the sites or ways you used )
But at the end of the day, you still "can" relapse. You still can go and install a new browser and relapse. This is not a way to completely make your journey of nofap effort-free, but to help give you a huge percentage of not relapsing.
Note 1: Sorry for if there are some formatting or spelling mistakes, by blockers messed up the editor sometimes due to me saying p*rn, not a joke.
Note 2: I censored ad*lt and m*sturbate because the subreddit was removing my post

I've been trying to figure out the best way to write this post for a while. For starters, I want to say that I think the badges are helpful. They can inspire us when we see someone having success. They are a cautionary tale when someone is struggling. They are a way we can relate to each other and see that we're in this together. However, after a long streak is messed up by a relapse, I'm not so sure that the ZERO badge is always helpful.
When most of us started our journey, we had no idea how to combat this monster of pornography that we're dealing with. We didn't understand the nature and science behind our addiction. We were afraid to share. We were ashamed. We didn't have any tools to deal with urges. We didn't have a support group. That feels like ZERO to me.
But when someone makes a post about relapsing after a significant period of time (and that can be ANY amount of time), they often will mention that they're back to ZERO. They are not back to ZERO. None of us on here are at that same ZERO we were at when we started this journey. We've all learned so much. We've connected with people. We've gotten accountability partners. We've reached out when we've needed help. Most of all, we're still here and we're still fighting.
So when someone says they're back to ZERO after a few days, weeks, or months, I don't think that tells the whole story. ZERO has such a negative connotation. ZERO is daunting.
What if we thought of our "streak" as a percentage instead? If I have a 50 day streak and I relapse on day 51, that means that 98% of the time I haven't looked at porn. 98% feels empowering to me. That feels like I've become a different person. 98% or 90% or 75% makes it easier to stay strong tomorrow. We could also think of it as a fraction: 50/51 makes me want to get to 51/52 instead of 50/52.
I really wish I knew who first suggested that way of thinking. I didn't think of it myself. I read it on this sub over a year ago and have shared it with many people on here in comments. Whoever it was, thank you.
This isn't a call for an overhaul of the badge system. As I said above, I think that the streak is helpful. This is a different way to look at your progress and realize that you're doing better than you think. You are more than just a number. You are an individual that has infinite worth. No one who is here and trying is ZERO.

https://youtubeloop.net/watch?v=yaSFIJxU7ds
Had to keep a low profile under the red-faced fascism.
Fucking idiots thought it was all for global terrorism.
It’s a facade, Sweet Jesus, can you call in for a pacifism?
Never intended to be back from the dead like some exorcism.
Like scientists, experimenting on a foreign organism
That’s gonna end the criticism,
the fake believed atheism,
the troubled like racism,
and the over-bloated materialism.
That shit was so loud, I had to megaphone “bitch” in me journalism.
There’s a bunch more to this feud to be told.
Work in crunch time folds to reach our rainbow gold.
Got me blood-driven crazy,
Infused with heat to make a mold.
Stayed up hours to write this so badly,
to represent the silence and the bold.
So you all lay off from the graceful lady,
who’s destined to be with her man.
Had to call in an airstrike to this final stance.
Or face the wrath of the stone-gaze medusa glance.
At last, I see the entrapping death dance.
Reinforcements are sent to bomb their sorry ass.
Who are dipped in the sinful baths,
to wash up their corrupt paths,
and flush the flourishing of their unholy dams.
From the moment I took my final shootout stand,
I knew all along what made you so bland.
Hesitant to make your reach for my hand.
Thinking you and I were distant from far lands.
You’re confined into a spot where you can’t make a gasp.
Constricted, You’re trapped by thorn vines and cynical traps.
Don’t worry, you weren’t making bad attempts or worthless laps.
They think they're winning, but failing with a relapse.
Your efforts were not made in vain, all marks were on the maps.
I had you in my sights all along, to help you escape this insane lab.
Those giant enemy crabs have nothing better to do but make pitiful hyena laughs.
In fact, I’m about to end everyone’s career on fucking blast.
Ok dear fans, gather around to hear from this ghost-man,
Legend has it, he’s about to reveal the grandmaster-plan.
In order to subsidize the mass of ignorant, gossip clans,
Call me Mr. Clean, cuz you’ll remember my brands.
Like I’m a magician, a tactician, embroidered with so much recognition.
Fooling the blind eyes of those who don’t see the special mission.
Ignored the indirect aggression just so I can hold my position.
Honestly it felt like a prison, but I had to lay low, ocean’s eleven.
But my plan’s advanced to make moves like double o’ seven,
Now I adjusted it just for this powerful succession.
I wrote that piece for her to see my thoughtful confession.
Sent a letter after to explain everything I had in possession.
Sit y’all clown asses down from my reckless petition.
I’m gotta teach you in bits of repetition turned to life lessons:
I wasn’t trying to make a point about who's wrong or right.
Whether she was destroying my ego or I was harassing her all night.
I proposed a text fight we had offline when I was gone for a week’s time.
I was confused, heart’s tight, but it finally released to let out from my burden outside.
Masters of disguise, shifting forms for a longtime, to a halftime, and to avoid,
The shiftings of grimes and slimes made from all your filthy lies.
That’s my fucking job now, To clean up the mess from all your daring tries.
In order for you to get the fuck off our backs for a peaceful love-life.
Stop being nosy, it is so obvious from your intruding, glowing eyes.
It’s not your business, show’s over, move over with your sorry ass lives,
It’s time to end the drama series ties, there’s no more clues to find.
Shit, I got Black Panther and Batman on the same justice side.
The King of Wakanda and Gotham's Badass Knight.
They were sending songs made for me and her from their ig in due time.
I got a special bird on my end to send out a tuneful sly and to abide.
To keep in touch so we can believe in a happily ever after.
To set off on my accord to cease this idiotic banter.
I can imagine your “aha” moment with a “gotcha” laughter.
Don't forget, the rest of the team who knew about this fight.
They were assisting the dragon to come out for a terror flight.
Raging flames, I was resisting, scorching blames,
igniting the motivation to light up the night.
Destroying the lives of the existing games,
who have forsaken the innocent kind.
In that case, I had to create this kind of heist for her to avoid all these bites.
Excuse me, have you lately read of plato’s allegory of the cave?
Maybe it’ll mend your minds carefully to properly behave.
Maybe educate you on what’s the real hate, the sinking blade:
It’s you rats who crave the cheese, who can’t wait for the second tease,
Like an annoying party rave of chattering away with greed.
Honestly, if there were no laws, I’ll come furiously angry and make you bleed.
But we are civil, we don’t need to shed any, because I believe tranquility, peace.
But there’s nonstop about the next act, the next attack, the next trans-act,
The next re-act, the next fucking shit I have to hear about us and that.
Never giving us the mind of day, or a fucking piece of lay,
Scrapping for leftovers, from what we got on our own problem plate.
Always spotlighting us for a date which is so overly delayed.
That gives us more of a reason to not go in for and celebrate.
Understood that there’s treason to be made under these red gates.
I understood the message and I laid down for Ms. Marvel’s faith
Of loyalty, until I had to become like thanos, an endgame
For us to be together, without your disturbing tongue play.
Grab all the avengers just to prevent even more foul play.
Can you leave us the fuck alone? Do I really have to say?
We both shy but jesus fucking christ, we had to sacrifice,
Endured a close draw game, and I had to end up being crucified.
Almost brutalized to become mortified that we almost couldn't be fortified.
The staff had to come in and check if I pass from a wrenching suicide.
But what I felt was emotions booming from when I was traumatized.
Lord of flies, turning each other's skins into hides, so displeasing to the eye.
So much that I empathize why everything turned into a hypnotize.
Now that I’m superman, and she’s my kryptonite so I had to lay to rest to forever die.
We had to jeopardize, organize, normalize, agonize, dramatize, and stabilize
The stinking shit the environment that was demonized, mechanized, merchandised, and desensitized.
Carry on like George Clooney’s weight from Ocean’s Eight.
Strategize to handle the commotion of our steady motion.
Had to play with emotions until it’s time to be readily flowin’.
All it did was make our bond forever growing and pretend I’m blowin’
Up everything I was supposed to be knowing.
Oldest trick in the book is to play around with the rules.
You fools, what the fuck did you catch your four degree schools?
Are your learning pools that small that you become merely tools?
Look at the bigger picture here, it’s a plain world that’s cruel.
For me, I lived in a world filled with many death duels.
Confused about the feelings of love, which is sadly brutal.
Social Anxiety for my childhood dreams believing I’ll never achieve.
Now I look back and see, I was on a grinding spree,
Trying things to grow like a fucking tree, roots are in deep.
Like it’s said, in the hour of adversity, I triumph with honesty.
With empathy, telepathy for the weak, and most importantly, humility for the beat.
I got phobias of people staring, flaring, and scaring the shit out of me.
Didn’t think I had a shot at life, thinking it was given out of pity.
But she showed me something I thought I'd never see.
I saw beauty behind the imperfections, calms me, serenity.
Overcame addictions to defeat created naughty fictions,
Alcohol dosed, black outs, burning my throat frictions.
from home-beaten convictions and parental conflictions,
Been told constantly that I wasn’t made to be a mother-fucking vision.
My inner self was filled with contradictions and restrictions.
Stunted conditions, Prescribed for afflictions of self hate
Now, I stand before you as an artist and hit-rate musician.
Call in a physician, I got fucked up from heavy commissions.
Then there’s PTSD from the good ol’ army
Serving three years plus one to escape the reality,
Learning how to become a killing machine with ease.
Forgetting that people were people, that shit creeps.
Trust me, I’m telling you the truth, homie,
You don't want to know, you’ll never sleep.
Surviving an explosion underneath my jeep.
Depression’s left me guessin’ why I’m sweatin’
You never know who’s suffering, so don’t be bettin’
That everyone’s okay we all slept in. End of session.
She’s my angel, I’m the devil, I thought I was evil at the end all, be all.
But she left something I didn’t think I had in me at all, stand tall.
I fell into a deep comatose, kingdom of hearts, like a hidden call.
I’m able to breathe out from my nose, planes apart, after crashing into a skyfall.
Beast into man, I thought everything was all my fault.
I didn’t look into the broken mirror with a careful eyeball.
Untangled, Dismantled, I’m unshackled from my chains.
This ruined king is finally set free to reign to proclaim,
I’m no hero of this story, maybe, It’s not meant to be.
Play on words, look into the wise verse, the prison’s a curse
You’ll know where to find me. King of thieves, I stole the glory.
On the other side, the hills are greener but meaner.
Work out your mind to see things a bit clearer, and become a believer.
Change happens, rise from death, got us an achiever.
Outwit the storms, Cunning to jest, oh? You got a brain fever?
I had to self sabotage like Good will Hunting
I had my mind in a ball punting, walls were made blunting
Of how frustrated I was for even running
From Love, you showed me the clear passage.
I didn’t realize it from my own past trauma baggage.
Now I see clearly, revived from dino-time, jurassic.
Now, I’m sudden ravage, I’m a dangerous savage,
I’m back and I’m a fucking one-hit classic.
I forgot who I was and what I missed, point vantage.
I got this one life, I can’t miss my shot so I’ma lavish.
Thank you for reminding me of those tiny classes.
Thank you for uncovering the clothed bandage.
No merit, but hopefully you got my message
You’re quite impressive, to be quite perceptive.
To Decrypt things down to zero percentage.
Intelligence is the fetish, shit, I mess with.
Master spies, exploited all the lies, We won this time.
Baby, I’ll be coming for you once my uniform is due.
I’m so proud of you, I never gave up on you, and I love you.
Chipotle, you gave a place, I got it, so don’t be late.
You make the messes, I’ll clean them like they were never made.
I’ll make a date once we’re both settling down from this earthquake.
Final move on the chess board, Queen’s gambit, but will you take?
The floor was yours all along, King’s rampant, It's a checkmate.

By: Nikita Alexandrov BChem, MBA - CTO, ThinkMyco
Jan 8th, 2020
2019 was a pivotal year in the psychedelic industry with US decriminalization actions, two companies receiving FDA breakthrough status for psilocybin, funding of the $16M Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Research Center, The US Defence Department starting their rumored $20M+ Focused Pharma psychedelic science program and the movement of top universities into research and clinical trials. With the explosion of the more than $100M dollars worth of investable psychedelic opportunities in Q3 2019, the collapse of high quality cannabis investments, one of the best Decembers on record and a potential $1B scale psychedelic IPO - 2020 will be the year of psychedelic investment.
The movement in the field recently is just a blip compared to what is to come, this industry has been brewing for the last few decades. Big Pharma has failed when it comes to new approaches to brain and central nervous system treatment. Due to poor understanding of mechanisms, complex clinical trials and systematic side effects, Neuro drugs have half the success rate of all Pharma projects, which caused most of the big players to reduce or cut their Neuro programs in the last decades. Recently, engagement is exploding with new clinical legislature supporting Neuro and the recent approval of 3 potentially blockbuster Neuro drugs in the last 2 years,
Q2 2019 saw a record of over $320M in investment into Neuro drug development. Interestingly enough an influential group of ultra-high net worth individuals including PayPal founder Peter Thiel funded the psychedelic holding company Atai Lifesciences which went on to fund Compass Pathways and continues to fund commercial efforts in this field. Atai Lifesciences recent movements are a familiar story of acquisition and consolidation in an emerging market which will be a common theme in the future of the psychedelic industry. In 2019 Atai Lifesciences acquired Perception Neuroscience and GABA Therapeutics for their next generation tranquillisers. Last week, Atai also acquired NeuroNasal, a non-psychedelic company creating a concussion nasal spray. In partnership with pharma, Atai's recent launch of EntheogeniX, an AI based psychedelic drug discovery platform, shows that Atai is serious about making investments into the fundamental research required to continue being an industry leader in the long-term. It is rumoured that Atai has made a number of cash investments recently, so new partnerships and acquisitions should be expected in the next months.
The collapse of investable cannabis opportunities are driving investors comfortable in stigmatised industries and binary risk to the table with big pharma, cutting edge science and huge unmet market needs to create a perfect storm of opportunity.
Highlight:
Investors seek 'mega blockbuster' drugs as neuroscience undergoes renaissance
How big is the Psychedelics Industry?
Historically, the psychedelics industry has been fragmented with around $60M worth of companies in the last 20 years, many of which were not sustainable. The current industry is around $220M+ worth of investments, dominated by the Peter Thiel backed Atia Lifesciences at $100M+ and Compass Pathways at $50M+, followed by Mind Medicine at $10M+, Fieldtrip Ventures at $10M+ and then a 10-25 early companies in the range of $2.5-10M each. The $220M+ worth of investable deals have only existed since the public formation of Compass Pathways in 2016, with the majority leaving stealth mode in 2019.
Highlight:
Transforming psychedelics into mainstream medicines
How big is the Psychedelics Market?
The psychedelics market is emerging while highly coupled to clinical/regulatory events and is split between recreational and medical psychedelic markets:
Recreational: $8-19.2B
Calculated from cannabis market and comparable usage prevalence as well as demand size economics.
Medical: $373B+
Calculated from the main markets addressable by psychedelic therapeutics (neurogenics market): mental health drugs, therapy spending, neurodegeneration drugs and cognitive enhancement.
Highlight:
Analysis of the Psilocybin Pharmaceutical Market
Who are the players?
Atai Lifesciences - German based, Global psychedelic pharma holding company formed by ultra-high net worth individuals and big pharma, $100M+
Compass Pathways - London based psychedelic giant, Atai's bet on psilocybin as an approved drug for depression, $50M+, IPO 2020
Usona Institute - A Wisconsin based non-profit powerhouse competing with Compass Pathways to approve psilocybin for depression.
Mind Medicine - Toronto based ibogaine derived addiction drug development company taking their lead candidate 18-MC through the clinical approval process, $15M+, RTO in 2020
Eleusis Benefit Corporation - New Orleans based discovery/clinical stage Psychedelic pharma company supported by industry scientists, raising $25M
FieldTrip Ventures - Toronto based, Aurora backed magic mushroom research and development company building clinical and production infrastructure, raising $12M+
ThinkMyco - Vancouver based holding company developing disruptive mushroom production technology and next generation therapeutics, raising $5M+
Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals - Psychedelic drug discovery company affiliated with the Atai owned Perception Neuroscience and Columbia University, raising 10M+
Universal Ibogaine - Vancouver based Ibogaine clinical development company franchising the world's most advanced ibogaine clinical model, raising $10M+, RTO in 2020
PsyGen Labs - Alberta based psychedelic mass production and clinical research company with highly experienced production chemists $8M+
Entheogen Biosciences - Vancouver based company pursuing psilocybin and DMT based drug development, raising $3M, IPO in 2020
Salvation Botanicals - A Vancouver based company touting a private controlled substances site license and supporting clinical research, raising $10M+, RTO in 2020
Numinus Wellness - Vancouver based wellness company building testing as well as clinical infrastructure, partnered with Salvation, raising $5M+, RTO in 2020
Cybin Corp - Toronto based research and development company building drug development and production infrastructure as well as nutraceutical assets in legal jurisdictions, raising $3M
Emerging Players - There are a number of emerging players, around $35M+ in emerging deals in Q3 2019 which have not passed due diligence.
Clinical:
Recent data is showing psychedelics can be real mega blockbuster Neuro drugs. Johns Hopkins recent trial on Psilocybin for smoking cessation showed an 80% success rate in terminating nicotine addiction, more than double any known therapeutic approach, including nicotine replacement therapy. This is showing addiction can be treated with new mechanisms that are much more low level than replacing the drug in the receptor. Academic data unequivocally shows that Ibogaine is 95% successful in terminating acute opioid withdrawal symptoms permanently from a single dosage. Limited data from long-term Ibogaine for opioid addiction trials show 50% success rates in terminating addiction in the 6 month period with a single dosage, more than 10X higher than the generous 5% success rate of other approaches in the 6 month period. Data from leading Ibogaine providers like Universal Ibogaine show that this 50% figure can be pushed closer to 75% with proper protocols and aftercare. Clinical trials on Psilocybin for cocaine/crack addiction are ongoing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a top 20 medical research university. 10 patients were un-blinded for bioethics review and the unpublished data shows that 30% never touched crack again while the other 70% had a relapse or two and turned their lives around, showing a 100% success rate in changing lives with minimal cost. When this data is available publicly in the next years, tidal waves of interest will move into the field.
Highlight:
Psychedelic Clinical Research Timeline
Projections:
As a recreational market, 0.1% of the population was surveyed as using psychedelics in the last month, placing the current black market at $19.1B while as a comparable percentage of the legal cannabis market adjusted for prevalence would place it at $8B.
As a medical market, the $373B neurogenics market seems to be the addressable market. Penetration into any indication in the neurogenics market would reap vast rewards. Psilocybin is on track to compete in the depression market with two FDA breakthrough designations, a 2% penetration into the depression market would being $1.4B+ in value yearly. Ibogaine's very reasonable projected 5% penetration into the opioid dependence market in the next 10 years will bring $9.6B+ in value yearly to groups like Universal Ibogaine which are deploying clinical infrastructure, supporting clinical trials and controlling the Ibogaine supply chain. Of all of the indications in current psychedelic clinical trials, not considering crossover, they address a $400B+ market, with projected penetrations across each indication and adjustments for market factors, it is projected $16B+ of value yearly will be created from commercialisation of the current late stage clinical trials which are in progress.
Highlight:
Johns Hopkins Psilocybin for Smoking Cessation Data
Challenges:
Regulatory Challenges:
While nearly 100 cities are creating legislation to decriminalize psychedelics and multiple US jurisdictions have passed decriminalization, federal changes will be required to open legal markets to the full potential. While investing in the binary risk of regulatory changes is standard in the junior markets, current regulatory controls are preventing early revenues. Many Canadian companies building production and distribution infrastructure offshore in jurisdictions such as Jamaica are operating in a legal grey area. While it is legal in Jamaica, any benefit or advantage given to a Canadian company could be considered a proceed of crime including IP development, capital repatriation and validation of technology offshore. Section 56 exemptions from Health Canada are required for Canadian companies working with psychedelics offshore and companies which are raising investment dollars without a secured Section 56 exemption may be incurring legal risk.
Cardiac Liability:
The unspoken elephant in the room of psychedelic derived pharmaceutical acceptance is not regulation, for example Ketamine is a scheduled drug which was recently approved for the general market. The problem is actually the liability of bringing a seratonergic based drug to the market like Psilocybin, DMT and LSD. The crippling withdrawal of blockbuster drug Fen-Phen and issues with other drugs like Imitrex due to seratonin agonist effects on the heart have scared the FDA into a position that any seratonergic drug will require extreme cooperation and diligence and will absolutely incur additional clinical and monitoring costs over other drugs. Psilocybin while technically hitting the 5ht2b receptor which causes cardiac side effects, does not have a high enough affinity to be a deal-breaker, meanwhile LSD having a very high affinity will cause large barriers for groups attempting to bring microdosed LSD to the market. Ibogaine suffers from cardiac liability due to an entirely different mechanism and unlike Psilocybin or LSD, adverse events have been reported. While Methadone and other standards of care also have the same long-QT cardiac liability at much higher rates and significantly higher mortality rates , Ibogaine clinical models must pre-screen patients for existing heart defects before procedures to guarantee no adverse side effects.
Banking/Insurance/Exchange Issues:
Legitimate psychedelic derived drug development companies have already had bank accounts halted at multiple banks for involvement in this industry and moving forward similar challenges faced by the cannabis industry should be expected. Exchanges and public offerings will have logistic challenges with this industry and minor friction has already been seen in the listing process. DNO insurance and other underwriting will be required to list in large markets and to date no psychedelic company has been underwritten, although underwriters and leading insurance brokers are actively exploring his industry.
Reimbursement:
The real whale will be insurance and single payer reimbursement of psychedelic derived pharmaceuticals on the market, allowing for global market uptake. Health systems have traditionally been decades behind the state of the art as seen in the point of care and home diagnostic device market, a market which could keep people healthy at minimal cost but has been crippled by lack of reimbursement.
Supply Chain Commoditization:
The production and control of psychedelic supply chains which is the familiar play of the cannabis industry will be a race to the bottom with magic mushrooms and other psychedelics. Production models are competing with a much more fluid black market and are being cannibalized by low cost home production and wildcrafting of psilocybin mushrooms. The LSD or ergoloid supply chain is highly monopolized, with the majority of the worlds ergoloids being produced in a single location. Companies competing in the production and supply chain space will face heavy price pressure and a highly coupled global regulatory system. The single outlier is Ibogaine, with a current global use estimated around 90kg, expected to reach 280kg in the next few years, this is a commodity whose price will drive through the roof. Large ibogaine producers have stopped production and natural sources are not commercially viable, with an Iboga plant producing maybe a single dose on the 10 year period, the move of Ibogaine to endangered status in 2019 and no synthetic GMP producers - the Ibogaine market is legal in the majority of the world and exploding while highly underserved and fragmented.
Delivery System Challenges:
A number of recent psychedelic deals are built around new drug delivery systems for psychedelics entering the recreational market to build expertise and infrastructure ready to move into the pharmaceutical market. Many of these technological approaches will not translate from the recreational market to the pharmaceutical market such as CBD/psychedelic compositions, natural product compositions as well as vaporizer and inhaler based delivery systems. While 20%+ of all new FDA drug entities are derived from natural products, natural product mixtures containing many products and a controlled substance have never and will never be FDA approved due to the regulatory system. Companies developing Psilocybin/CBD combinations and related therapeutics for the recreational market should understand that unlike the cannabis market, recreational approaches will not translate directly to medical approaches.
Opportunities:
Syndicated Investments:
One of the largest opportunities in any emerging market is syndicated investment, a 2002 analysis of 584 venture backed exits showed that syndicated investments produced double the rate of return of non-syndicated investments. Psychedelic research and development companies require standardized infrastructure that can be leveraged across a number of players. The big players entering the industry are more interested in empire building, requiring massive consolidations of commercial efforts which can be facilitated by syndicated investment groups. Companies like ThinkMyco, Entheogen Biosciences and Cybin Corporation which focus on technology development, IP Portfolios and early stage drug discovery will benefit the most from syndicated investment and collaboration. A Harvard Business School review of Pharma discovery programs statistically compared drug discovery programs to weapons research programs and found in these high reward/low incremental cost programs the optimal path is to run parallel programs, with an average Pharma drug discovery program having 16 parallel programs, 10 core and 6 low budget/high risk. At the current moment, around 5-10 psychedelic investment funds are forming in the range of $10-50M each, including the Cannacord Genuity backed Entheos and the $20M psychedelic quant fund Tabula Rasa Ventures.
IP Portfolio Development:
IP development is the highest value for dollar on the investment value chain and the psychedelic industry will be a totally IP driven industry. The most valuable patent portfolios will include new psychedelic compositions and therapeutic mechanisms, which require significant investments into fundamental R+D, while less competitive portfolios will include delivery system/psychedelic combinations.A recent review of patents related to psychedelics shows many hundreds of patents for psychedelic derived therapeutics with only a small cross-section being commercially competitive. DemeRX, the $40M+ Ibogaine research company holds 65+ patents in the ibogaine therapeutic area. While DemeRX filed for bankruptcy and their research and development assets were liquidated, it is rumored they have been injected with enough capital to come back to the party - this is a dark horse to keep an eye out for.
Mushroom/Protein Connection:
The real opportunity in magic mushroom production models is flying under the radar: protein production. Mushrooms are one of the highest quality sources of nutrition and protein, if you took a vitamin C supplement you can live exclusively off mushrooms. Dried mushrooms have basically the same protein percentage as beef and in terms of grams of protein per acre per year are 100 fold higher producers and much more sustainable than traditional agricultural practices. Companies in this space which invest into real R+D for lower cost mushroom production will get a lift from the $1.8+ trillion dollar protein market. A recent review of mid-sized mushroom farms shows that 50%+ of the cost of mushroom production is due to labor and technical inefficiencies. If energy, labor and materials cost drivers can be reduced, and the cost of growing a pound of mushrooms can drop from around $2 to around $0.75 through automation, mushroom protein becomes significantly more commercially competitive than many of the industry leaders in plant based protein like pea protein. If energy cost reductions can drop the cost even further, mushrooms will become a disruptive food source. Psychedelic companies building mushroom production infrastructure will be well served to remember that by investing in automation, new technology and new growing systems the price of mushroom based protein production can make it more competitive than any other food source. The largest food security report in history was released Q2 2019 and showed that without subsidies a hamburger would cost more than 30$ and the meat industry will economically collapse by 2040, the protein game is looking more and more attractive as a hedge against the regulatory risk of magic mushroom production.
China:
China is one of the most advanced markets in terms of size and pharma spending, as well as venture investment. Traditionally the Asian cultures had no interest in marginalized and politically tense areas such as drug medicalization but the movement into CBD and China's rabid interest in plant medicines may create a large influx of Asian capital moving into psychedelics. This industry shifting action will be leveraged by education and the court of public opinion. A dialog must be created showing psilocybin as a plant medicine and not a drug of abuse. Interestingly enough, Chinese firms have very recently started producing magic mushrooms industrially and importing them into the Canadian market where they are sold into the black market over-the-counter in some Canadian herbalist stores.
Ibogaine:
Ibogaine is the only psychedelic model which will not be very quickly commoditized. Ibogaine as a solution to the opioid problem is a disruptive technology, with the rise of fentanyl and fentanyl analogs like carfentanil dominating global supply chains, Buprenorphine, the preferred standard of care is no longer effective and produces a life threatening condition called Precipitated Withdrawal. This is due to the aggressive affinity of fentanyl to receptors, the lack of tolerance ceiling and the little understood metabolism of next-generation fentanyl analogues, dramatically compounding a problem already at pandemic levels. Ibogaine supply chains have collapsed at the same time that demand is growing exponentially, the firm which dominates the current global ibogaine supply chain will reap around $1.4M/mo profit serving the current global demand. One of the largest African Ibogaine brokers has seen a 30x increase in sales from 2017 to 2019. With Universal Ibogaine taking Ibogaine through the Canadian clinical process and the grassroots support from Health Canada, Ibogaine will be the first psychedelic approach available to consumers. While Ibogaine is a scheduled drug in the US and some European jurisdictions, it is not scheduled in Canada and the majority of the global market. Multiple Ibogaine documentaries are in filming, including actors such as Johnny Depp, as this is an education driven industry, we should expect exponential growth to accelerate in 2020.
Support Industries:
Industries supporting the growth of psychedelics will be a large part of the future landscape as was seen in the cannabis sector. A psychedelic business support network including education, conferences, business analysis and financing have already cropped up commercially. In Q3 2019 the renowned Cambridge House International Extraordinary Future conference created a panel for psychedelic opportunities. Two weeks before the conference there was a frantic rush and the majority of relevant psychedelic players were represented last minute in the panel discussion including: Compass Pathways, FieldTrip Ventures, Mind Medicine, Johns Hopkins, Dennis McKenna and ThinkMyco. Multiple psychedelic investment funds are forming alongside of industry press, consulting groups and other support interests. In Q3 2019, Dr. Matthew Thompson of Johns Hopkins and Dr. Charles Nichols of LSU/Eleusis Benefit Corporation helped organize the inaugural conference for the new journal called International Society for Research on Psychedelics in its home of New Orleans. Over 100 international scientists from top universities were represented, with the conference having to turn down many late registrations. Dr. Rolland Griffiths, head of the Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Research Center said "This was the best scientific conference I have been to in my entire career.".
Sub-perceptual dosing:
Microdosing was popularized by Silicon Valley, catalyzing the resurgence of the psychedelic industry but microdosing is a protocol built on unsound fundamentals. Research shows that the therapeutic effects of psychedelics are highly dose dependant, higher doses lead to better therapeutic effects. The microdosing supply chain model has excellent returns, with a pound of mushrooms costing less than 5$/lb to produce which provides around 1200X microdoses. When dosages increase past the perceptual threshold, the potential for adverse events such as bad trips exponentially increases. The ideal dosage seems to be just under perceptual threshold where you can still go about your day, but much higher than a microdose. This is industry standard with seratonergic pharmaceuticals, an example being the diet drug Belvique, which is closely related to psilocybin, dosed at the perceptual threshold for maximum effectiveness. Belvique can cause psilocybin like hallucinations if 4 tablets are taken as it is a seratonergic drug. High doses of psilocybin require a clinical infrastructure and in-patient experience, dramatically increasing costs and logistics overheads. Sub-perceptual dosed pharmaceuticals will be available for out-patient and take home treatment and in many cases may be as effective as full blown psychedelic experiences. Mind Medicine, ThinkMyco and Eleusis Benefit Corporation are leading the charge in sub-perceptual therapeutics.
Next Generation Drug Development:
Mind Medicine is taking the approach of engineering the hallucinations out of the therapeutic experience by removing parts of the molecule and are moving their drug, 18-MC through the clinical process. This is the ultimate high risk/high reward play in the psychedelic industry. 18-MC is modified which also changes a variety of important receptor binding effects. The modified receptors include the receptors responsible for neural growth factor release, cognitive effects, cardiac effects and the opioid system coupled NMDA receptor system. Since there is no data on the human use of 18-MC in opioid addicts, significant capital must be deployed before it is even known if 18-MC is as efficient as the parent molecule Ibogaine for treating opioid addiction, the ability to treat addiction in an out-patient setting with no cardiac toxicity - 18-MC will be the megablockbuster all investors in the neurogenic space are waiting for. ThinkMyco, Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals, Mind Medicine and Eleusis Benefit Corporation are leading the field in next generation drug development.
Lateral Drug Development:
While psychedelics address a $373B neurogenics market, companies such as Eleusis Benefit Corporation are showing they can address other unmet clinical needs such as chronic inflammatory disease. Eleusis is developing new psychedelic compounds for the treatment of inflammation, specifically within ophthalmology, and has recently published Phase I trial results revealing the safety and tolerability of low dose LSD in healthy older adults, with the intention of evaluating low dose LSD as a disease modifying therapy in Alzheimer's disease. Eleusis Benefit Corporation looks poised to cannibalize the $3B steroid therapeutic market. Not yet published research is showing Ibogaines potential as a therapeutic to treat sleep disorders. Johns Hopkins is currently reviewing the application of psychedelics in pulling patients from comas and vegetative states. The original pre-Mind Medicine clinical trials on the Ibogaine derivative 18-MC showed promise in treating Leishmania infection. BOL148, an inactive form of LSD, originally the placebo in human clinical LSD research, was found to in some cases to permanently terminate cluster headaches after a few doses and is being publicly demanded from the cluster headache community. These are the earliest days of understanding the application of psychedelic derived chemistry as new therapeutic approaches.
Public Health Engagement:
Looking at recently released data representing North American, working class adults, methamphetamine and fentanyl use is growing enormously and consistently. Linear regression of growth rates over the last 5 years projects a 380%+ increase in Fentanyl usage the next 15 years, with Methamphetamine projected at a 475%+ increase. This is concerning as there are more than a million high quality data points over 5 years and an R2 value of 90%+ which paints of picture of statistical certainty. This shows that the opioid crisis has moved from a lift caused by supply side drivers to an organically growing demand side driven pandemic, fueled secondarily by histories cheapest and most available synthetic drugs. With Johnson and Johnson settling with two counties in Ohio, projections have placed the total at $100B+ in fines for the opioid crisis in the next few years. State jurisdictions will shortly receive an enormous amount of cash that will be legally obligated to flow into anti-addiction spending. Due to poor outcomes and non-scalable approaches around advanced public health programs, there will be a flurry of legislature to address how to spend the $100B+ anti-addiction warchest. Players like Universal Ibogaine who have proven clinical models, can deploy infrastructure and guarantee statistically better outcomes will receive unprecedented amounts of non-dilutive government funding and will be the first to benefit from Decriminalization/Medicalization in the North American market. Players that can come to the table now at the state level and propose medicalization legislature as well as profitable clinical infrastructure with proven outcomes, could monopolize the entire US market. FieldTrip Ventures is developing Psilocybin clinical infrastructure while Universal Ibogaine is deploying proven clinical infrastructure already developed and proven by Clear Sky Recovery, the leading Ibogaine clinical experts with thousands of successful detox procedures and no critical adverse events.
Closing:
Like any emerging industry, there are challenges and growing pains but the blue-sky upside is unparalleled. "Black swan events are characterised by their extreme rarity, their severe impact, and the practice of explaining widespread failure to predict them as simple folly in hindsight." Due to changes in public opinion, a mental health and addiction pandemic as well as enormous movements of liquid cash, this sector is poised to explode in 2020.

Hello everyone. I hope you’re all feeling love out there. It’s been about a year since I last posted in the sub. Around two years ago, I called it quits on the DXM days and have successfully recalibrated my mental state and body. This has been a huge process and undertaking.
Firstly, for a little background on me:
I’m a 25-year-old healthy, athletic, and somewhat well-adjusted human being. From the ages of 18 to 23, I was not. I was mentally sick, scarred from trauma, and attempting to eradicate myself with drugs and alcohol abuse. It wasn’t that I wanted to die. It was that I wanted to disappear.
By the age of 23 I had been through 4 severe sports concussions, total separation and no-contact from my family, a failed engagement, a suicide attempt from my fiancé which led to later suicidal ideation from me, a false sexual assault allegation, and a failed Air Force career that I can only chalk up to Alcoholism and DXM abuse. On top of that, childhood trauma and divorce was also present.
On the physical side of things I have been through the ringer as well. I say with reverence and a twinge of shame that I know the prison which DXM can be. I remember not eating for days. Throwing up constantly. Puking blood. Drinking alcohol and taking DXM and realizing that I can’t move my body. Not pissing for multiple days. Shitting fiery acid explosions and painting every inch of the bowl and bottom of the toilet seat. Full-blown manic episodes pacing my apartment. The constant sweating, my bed always smelling of mildew. Watching the horror of a slow decay every day in the mirror. Just so you understand, I was taking generally 600 to 1000 mg of dextromethorphan Hbr with guaifenesin (I know), almost every day. I would go months without missing a day. Over the course of Five years, I was probably high for 3.5, if we’re going by percentage of time.
In addition to everything above, all of my relationships were destroyed. They were either running on false maniacy to feed my inner-narcissist, or neglected altogether when I couldn’t use you anymore. The real kicker was that I would then proceed to live my life in a holier than thou state where I pretended I was the moral superiority and was a master of my own reality. I’m pretty sure having to sneak out the back door at work and run behind the building to projectile vomit isn’t mastering your reality.
One more thing about me, I’m a musician. A drummer to be exact. That’s why am on this earth and I’ll never be convinced otherwise. My entire life I had plans to start a band and have a successful career. DXM took me out of the physical realm and allowed me to be content with living in my hallucinatory disassociative dream state where I could be that very rockstar of my own creation. It sounds great to create your own reality and live in it, but what you’re really doing is voluntarily going to sleep. Only now am I actually putting any of those dreams into action.
I did not exercise, I smoked and dipped tobacco, and did anything else I could get my hands on to escape. That’s where it’s a trick guys. You can’t escape. You just have to be comfortable that that’s who you are and decide if that’s who you want to be. It might take 1 billion years but it can happen.
Fast forward to about two months ago. The lockdown starts and I’m working from home. I have a ton of time on my hands. I’ve been fully sober for two years, not even cigarettes. I start drinking. What can a couple beers hurt? But you know what? A Newport would go really good with some beer right now. So I bought a pack. The next thing I know it’s a week later and I’ve fully relapsed. I’m standing in the kitchen with a bottle of DXM pills. I don’t want to take them but the call of the void is there. Something larger than myself demands compliance.
This terrifies me, I thought I beat this. I even have a calendar upstairs that recorded all the days I didn’t do these drugs. How much money even has been spent on therapy? I don’t even want to know. What do you mean that doesn’t protect me? I ate the DXM and it went as it always does. Vomiting out my soul, and feeling that sickly, giddy, buzz. I can feel it in my veins like some kind of black market jet fuel. My body isn’t used to running on this anymore. At 5 AM I eat more before bed. I wake up brain dead for work at 8:30 and somehow make it through the day. I literally cannot think. I remember this feeling. It’s like pulling the lever on a slot machine and watching at spin, but it never stops.
Here is where things changed. The habits and traps I fell into for years and years of my life were now clear as day. The feeling truly sunk in that that’s not who I want to be right now. A strange thing happened, a realization. All of the underlying fear I had about relapse and about not being strong enough has dissipated. I now realize that I can be stronger than my addictions. That is what true liberation feels like to me, I’m not a slave, but I am only at the bottom of the real true mountain of life now. Now the real journey begins.
I really don’t know what I’m trying to say here, but I needed to get this out. Right now I’m working on the band and training for a marathon. I’m determined to get healthy love back in my life without any strings attached or codependency. It’s all in front of me now.
Please contact me if you need to and we can talk.
The point of this post is not to discourage drug use. It’s your life. I needed my drug use to get me to where I am now. I needed the bad from the drugs to show me the good in life, and I needed the good from the drugs to show me the bad in life. Yin and Yang. I love you all. Be safe out there.
G

First, you need to understand that drugs are way to artificially induce happiness and fulfillment. When we first start using we feel so good that we completely abandon the idea of finding happiness and fulfillment by any other means than drug use. The clinical definition of addiction is characterized by an obsession with the cycle of anticipation, binge, and withdrawal. Our entire lives in our addiction can be summed up as being in one of these 3 phases.
This cycle become our whole world, it consumes every part of us, our thoughts, dreams, actions, beliefs, family, friends, and careers. This is part of what makes addiction so deadly and hard to overcome. Say you spent 10 years in active addiction, imagine how embedded that cycle of addiction becomes into your subconscious thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Thats 3650 days or 87,600 hours of training bad habits and bahaviors into your subconscious.
Not only that, but also the mentality that comes with it. As we continue to use, we have to sink to deeper and deeper lows to continue to make drugs our #1 priority. We normalize/justify lieing, cheating, stealing, manipulating, etc. and it becomes just as much a part of our lives as using. When an addict attempts to get sober, your left with a being that sacrificed everything good in their lives and about themselves for immediate gratification. You also picked up a bunch of habits from living in the gutter for so long. These things will be some of your biggest obstacles moving forward.
If we allow these behaviors to continue in our sobriety we will start to feel anxiety, cravings, emptiness, loneliness, and guilt in the pit of our stomachs. Many people feel this and think its just a part of the mental illness, but its not. Our emotions and the way we feel is always a direct consequence of our actions.
So how do we seperate these things from our subconscious you ask? You must train your mind to be consciously aware of your intentions whenever you interact with others. You can basically assume that any chance you get to lie, cheat, manipulate, or steal to benefit you in anyway, your immediate instinct will be to do so. You will be tempted and sometimes you will fail, but when you do, you must try your best to make it right.
Retraining your brain not to act on this instinct is one if the trickiest parts abour early recovery and is responsible for a huge percentage of relapse. People find themselves miserable 4-6 months into sobriety and they have no idea why. So be aware, be diligent, and pay attention to your emotions/feelings. They are your indicator of how well your doing in your sobriety. Understand that if you continue to allow these behaviors, you may benefit in the moment, but you must learn that our choices have consequences. If you continue to live like a piece of shit, you will feel like a piece of shit. I love you all, keep your chins up, fight hard for a better life, and lets get through another day together sober and happy. The path to heaven runs through miles of clouded hell.

Warning: I tried to be as detailed as possible in sharing what I experienced on the non-zero chance that someone learns something from what I went through, so this post is a little long.
Double Warning: I have ADHD, so my writing, on occasion, might meander a bit here or there (though, for the record, I wrote this entire post in only one day... ^{...+ a few others. I am easily distracted.)}
There is a Tl:DR at the bottom.
Background: Before I quit CT, I used Kratom over the course of the past 1.5 years. It was on and off for half a year, then daily (16g) for the past year.
~7 years ago, I also used Kratom for around the same length of time. However, I cheated when I went CT then by using Adderal + Xanax daily for a week to try to dodge Week 1 Withdrawals. Thus, I consider this my first "real" CT experience.
For those wondering, my plan of dosing Adderal for a week (and Xanax at night to help sleep) made my first CT pretty easy. My tolerance to those two drugs was zero at the time (more or less 0. Adderal technically has a kind of permanent tolerance that lasts nigh forever even though my last dose was 2+ years prior at the time)
You won't become dependent on either drug in 7 days, even with the slightly above average daily usage I chose. When Day 8 came around, I simply stopped taking said drugs and was fine. The only "withdrawl" I went through from either drug was to feel slightly tired for a couple days (Very minor Adderal withdrawals I believe, though it could be from Day 8 Kratom withdrawls.)
Be aware: I consulted a doctor before starting my regimen to ignore week 1 withdrawals. I laid out my master plan (built from information I googled about each drug + my own fallible knowledge) and, to my surprise, he gave me the go-ahead. He also recognized Kratom, 7 years ago, when it was far less known. This Doc was ahead of his time.
The man didn't approve of me using drugs for reasons other than why I originally had them (shocking, I know), but told me my planning was solid and should be safe assuming I stick to it (I did), though he was unsure if it would work or not.
Sidenote: I highly recommend CT over Taper to quit, at least for people that used Kratom as long as I did (1-1.5 years or less)
Why?
I tried to taper twice and I found that while the negatives I felt weren't as severe as CT, they lasted far longer and eventually made me give up on the taper ~1/3rd-1/2 the way through.
CT sucks a lot more initially, but you get well much sooner. Don't drag out the pain. Just man (or woman) up and accept that life will be rough for a few days.
Sidenote: 3-4 years+ users might want to consult a doctor before choosing to CT. Maybe you'll have no issues, but at that length of time, your body has grown so used to Kratom, its absence would probably be a real shock. Better safe than sorry.
My Withdrawal Timeline:
Day 0 - I took my last Kratom dose and promised myself I would not touch the substance, setting a 120 days goal before I consider myself truly clean.
Day 1 - Withdrawls started and they were not that bad, actually. Reddit is full of wimps, this shit is easy (actual sentence I wrote down in my journal on Day 1).
I definitely felt the urge to take Kratom but I didn't experience too many negative effects. (I didn't know this at the time, but it was probably because I had leftover Kratom in my blood from days prior)
Night 1 - I fell asleep no problem. Things were looking up. How bad could tomorrow really be?
Day 2 - Pure Hell.
In bold, 64 font letters, that is what I have written out in my journal.
That line serves as a succinct description of the worst day of Withdrawals for me.
I took back everything bad I thought about QuittingKratom Redditors. This shit is not easy. The horror stories of quitting are true.
Honestly, this was one of the most miserable days of my life.
The reason I say that is solely due to 1 specific withdrawal symptom, of the ones I felt.
If I had to describe it, it was a feeling of "offness" with reality.
(Sidenote: Due to the fact that I am ignorant of a word to describe this symptom, I have decided to dub it "The Offness" for the rest of this post. Any comments that point out the correct terminology will be duly noted and then ignored as I refuse to publically acknowledge my mistake (also, my laziness. Maybe I could have googled to find the name. Maybe not. We'll never know. (I will, however, privately acknowledge my misstep and correct myself going forward, if someone does know a word for this symptom (This far-too-long sidenote (and others like it) is brought to you by: "ADHD Gang - We always take the scenic route"))))
I can't think of a better way to describe it then as I have. The world around me felt "wrong." My mind was thick and slow, it was like I was disconnected from my body and then shoddily reattached back into it. I was still there... but not all of me.
It fucking sucked. GOD, it sucked.
I couldn't think straight, I couldn't feel happy, I could do literally nothing productive (had to take a sick day from work, couldn't tough through it like I wanted).
It might not sound horrible just from its simple description, but let me emphasize: it fucking sucked. It's awful. Terrible. Everything felt wrong.
You can't truly understand what I mean until you experience it yourself.
Don't lose hope yet, though, future CT'ers!
This day sucked but... The Offness was only truly present for a single day! By the time Day 3 comes around, it had nearly vanished for me! Yay!
Depending on how long you've used Kratom (and in what amounts each day) plus personal body physiology or some shit, you might not even feel The Offness. If you are one of those lucky people, fuck you man. Or woman. I'm jealous. Honestly, 1 day of The Offness was enough to convince me to never do Kratom again.
Night 2 - LOL, I couldn't even dream of sleeping, let alone dream, period. 0 sleep. I laid in bed all night with my eyes closed. That helped a bit.
Terrible sleep will be a running theme going forward until Day ~8ish, things should normalize around then.
I wrote the previous sentence down in my journal as a prediction, early on Day 3. When Night 8 comes around, we'll see if my guess was accurate.
Am I a predictive genius? We will find out shortly :D
Day 3 - Not pure hell. The Offness has almost vanished and what was left was greatly weakened. It was still a pain, but way more bearable.
Sidenote: If The Offness had stayed at the same strength on Day 3, I 100% was going to quit my CT and try to taper again. It sucked that much. Or maybe I'm a wimp. Fuck that feeling.
Other withdrawal symptoms I had are what you might expect:
Constantly upset stomach (Kratom messes with digestion, once you're off it, your body takes some time to readjust. That is why you might find yourself burping frequently (a la excess stomach acid))
My head felt thick. It was hard to think (though nothing like Day 2).
My body (mostly my joints and muscles) was sore. I felt stiff and a little unwieldy. Thankfully, this feeling vanished by Day 4 for me.
Poor appetite.
Terrible sleep.
Poor internal temperature control. Lots of sweating.
Restless leg symptom (I actually didn't get this one, but from what I've heard, it's a fairly common symptom. Guess I was lucky).
THE URGE TO DOSE AHHHH
(Note: this urge will gradually die off over time. I was able to fight the urge by simply thinking about how Kratom was ruining my life, bit by bit. It was a good motivator)
If Day 2 was a 10 on the "this fucking sucks" scale, Day 3 was a 6. Far more bearable, but still bleh.
(...Heh, that's a decent name for a scale. (Fuck it, we're adding it to future days. (If your pet peeve is minor formatting changes mid-document, I recommend you immediately start building a bridge, that way you can get over your pansy-ass excuse for a pet peeve as soon as possible. (Eh, maybe that last sentence is a bit too harsh... OCD is a real condition right? uhh... back to the Timeline!))))
Night 3 - An almost repeat of Night 2. Laid in bed all night with my eyes shut. The journal says I got 2 hours of real sleep, so that's an improvement over Night 2's 0 hours.
Day 4:
(The dreaded mid-document formatting change has arrived! We're using colons by each "Day x" now! Hyphens are so 2019 and, as a man of my word (translation: lazy) I refuse to change what is already written!)
^{This message brought to you, in part, by: "Colon Gang." No association with "Colon Gang - The Organ Remix"}
Fucking Sucks Scale: 5 out of 10. (10 = pure hell, 1 = this is fine)
All my symptoms weakened by around 20%. I stopped feeling sore entirely, so that was cool. Nothing else really of note.
Withdrawals still suck, even when they're weaker. Also, water: it's wet.
Oh, there was one thing: I really really wanted to take some Kratom on this day, according to my journal.
But I held strong. Go me! My mantra: "Kratom is a drug, I have an addiction, it is ruining my life, I need to quit. Man up and tough it out."
(Fun (?) Fact: I typed that mantra out like 200 times (just went back and counted, typed it 107 times... I really had a lot more free time back then. (My guess of 200 was only 93 off... Idk if that's good or bad. (I shall choose to believe good. Go me, again, but this time in French! (on second thought, scrap the French bit. I seem to have vastly overestimated my memory when it comes to highschool French class)))):
Night 4:
Kratom Withdrawls: "You want to sleep? Sure, just take some Kratom!"
Kratom Withdrawls: "Oh? You want to sleep without using Kratom?"
Kratom Withdrawls: "Fuck you."
That about sums up my night.
I got zero sleep, just laid in bed all night with my eyes shut. This helps a bit (as mentioned previously).
Why could I sleep on the previous night for a couple hours, but nothing on this night???
Idk. Aliens, maybe. Moving on!
Day 5:
Fucking Sucks Scale: 4 out of 10.
Another percentage drop in symptoms, but a smaller one, like... 10%, maybe? Still very noticeable.
Day 5 was a defining day for me.
While life was still bleh, Day 5 was the first day I really started to feel hope. Not only had I stuck to my guns for 5 days, I also felt like I was past the worst of my immediate symptoms, and those still present were constantly becoming weaker.
Night 5:
The good news: I slept.
Praise be! Hallelujah! A miracle!
The bad (?) news: I only slept 3 hours (the rest of my night was spent sharpening my impression of a blind paraplegic.).
Day 6:
Fucking Sucks Scale: 3.5 out of 10.
Progress once more!
All symptoms dropped by... some amount. (I was unable to determine a rough estimate of how I felt, per my journal (how was I determining previous days down to exact percentages? hell if I know. Stop asking questions.). I felt a little better but couldn't really quantify that many specifics. Enough to go from a 4 to a 3.5, at least, on the Fucking Sucks Scale.)
One thing I did notice was that the urge to dose Kratom was JUST AS STRONG AS BEFORE, MAYBE STRONGER
LIKE, COME ON, MAN
FUCK THIS DRUG PLANT THING
Also, my appetite began to return a little bit. Yay food.
Night 6
Slept 4 hours total. It's too bad you can't will yourself to sleep. Alas.
Day 7:
Fucking Sucks Scale: 2.5 out of 10.
Progress. The final day of Week 1 welcomed more improvements on how I felt.
This was the end of my first "real" week of quitting Cold Turkey, and I was ecstatic. By this point, I was definitely past the worst of it.
I began to look at each day not based on how awful I felt, but based on how much better I was feeling.
There were still a few acute symptoms left, but my head was much clearer, my appetite much stronger.
Aw, this is cute. I have a little note at the bottom of the entry that states:
"Life is good again, keep up the good work me."
Positive reinforcement for the win.
Night 7:
~4 hours of sleep.
Meh, I'm not going to hold you all in suspense. I am sadly not a predictive genius. My guess that sleeping would go back to normal by Day 8 was wrong.
I have here that I got ~6.5 hours of sleep on Day 12, (Day 11 was 5 hours, previous days were 3-4). So, Day 12 would be around when I would consider my sleep schedule to return to a semblance of norm.
It took a while for all of my symptoms to die off. I think Day 12, the return of full sleep, would be the day where you truly start feeling pretty "normal" again.
You won't feel 100% normal for a while longer, but this probably varies from person to person.
Also, I didn't get any PAWS. I'm unsure if a consistent year of daily use (usually around ~16g total each day), and half a year of inconsistent use, is enough to guarantee PAWS. The science of it is beyond me, but suffice to say: Yay to dodging PAWS!
And now, the tl:dr for those that came here from the top :)
Tl:DR
How the fuck am I supposed to summarize this long-ass post for you?
Read the god-damned thing you indolent layabout. Or don't. See if I care.
(This TL:DR brought to you by: "Passive Aggressive Gang", previously known as "Me throughout High School")
TL:DR ^{deluxe edition}
I take back my previous statements, I have a real TL:DR to make.
TL:DR - 3 things.
1 - CT > Taper (unless you're a 3-4 year+ user... probably. Don't quote me on that. I can only speak of what I've been through).
Rip the bandaid off and get this shit over with. You have a life to live.
The best time to quit Kratom was before you started it. The second best time is today (or as soon as you can work a free day or two into your schedule.)
2 - Man the fuck up and don't relapse. You can do it if you believe you can. Kratom is not worth it. The plant is a subtle poison, don't let it chain you down.
3 - If you want to cheat (wimp (wait, I cheated in my first CT (...moving on!))), in my experience (amazing sample size of 1, I know), you can skip almost all Week 1 Withdrawl symptoms through a regimen of Adderal in the day (it blocked out almost all symptoms for me in my first CT) and Xanax (or certain other benzodiazepines) at night (to help sleep).
Please consult a doctor to be certain these medicines (and my 1-week plan) is safe for you. There may be other drugs you can substitute if need be. A doctor would probably be able to help you there.
I would think this "cheat" plan of mine should work for most people (unless I'm just super lucky), common things being more common, but that doesn't mean it will work for everyone. You can never be too safe. I reiterate: Don't take drugs without consulting your doctor. Also, if you do take this cheat plan, please make sure you quit everything by Day 8.
I still went through Withdrawl in my cheat CT. I kinda still "felt" the symptoms of Kratom Withdrawl. It's just, Adderall overwhelmed all of that and basically let me ignore them. It's hard to put in words.
I mention my "cheat" plan just in case something like this could be the final push someone might need to finally quit Kratom.
FAQ
That's right, I'm predicting what questions I will be frequently asked. Incredible, I know.
(Sidenote: I just realized... Since I'm already answering the question, doesn't that mean no one will ask it? How, then, can it be a frequently asked question? (Schrodinger's question. (That felt like the right to say, but I'm only a poser, so I'm not sure if it actually makes sense. Anyway. Onward!))))
Some of you might be wondering why I didn't use my cheat plan for my second CT.
Why, you ask?
Simple.
I chose to CT raw this time because...
I'm lazy.
It would be a pain in the ass (10 hours driving total) to go to my other apartment and pick up what I needed. How about no.
So, yeah, no grand reason or anything impressive like that. Ah well. That's life. Lower your expectations.
(I could've made up some pretty sounding reasons that make me into half a martyr, but that would be a lie and, as we have learned, I am a man of my word!)
Anyway, that's all.
Best of luck on quitting Kratom to any who have yet to take the plunge!

I’m a person in recovery and I’m currently in a halfway house program. I was in a group earlier and we were discussing how the statistics are completely against us as addicts. 95% of people that try to get better relapse. Often I question free will. I’m really into the loop theory which dictates that the universe is on a constant loop in which the same things happen every time. Eventually everything collapses and then it restarts with however everything was created. In order for this to really work the same things would happen every single time in all of our lives. This eliminates the idea of free will. My thought however is that maybe the statistics are just the likely chance of what we will probably do resulting in a change of choice. Maybe that little 5% is what creates an alternative universe where things are different. This would apply to just about every statistic of likely results. The larger percentage is our chances of everything going according to the “plan.” Just a thought let me know if this sounds completely crazy lol

I am on record saying that I think all drugs, including heroin, should not only be decriminalized, but legal. Here is the way I see it. Because of the myriad of factors that comprise the War on Drugs, and the opioid epidemic, this will be quite long and cover a lot of ground. I would like for everyone to read it, but I will not be offended if you don’t.
 
The War on Drugs is an utter failure. This is not an opinion. This is fact. It is misguided and count- er-productive, with devastating consequences. And it ignores laws of human nature, supply and demand, and basic science. The first anti-drug laws in the United States were passed in 1914 - over 100 years ago. And what do we have to show for it? Prisons full of people, a disproportionate amount black and Latino. People overdosing, all too often fatally, in alleys, public rest rooms, and in bedrooms and basements. People needlessly contracting HIV, Hepatitis C, and other transmittable diseases. Increased crime and prostitution. In short, the results from waging a war for 100 years have been utterly disastrous.
 
What is the goal of this War on Drugs? In 2012, the United Nations issued a statement saying the war’s rationale is to build “a drug-free world - we can do it!” This is foolish. What exactly is “a drug-free world”? Is it one without anesthetics? No epidurals? No pain-killers? No high blood-pressure medi- cine? No chemotherapy? No aspirin? No alcohol or nicotine? I am trying to be civil. I think one can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. But seriously, what bureaucratic lunatic in the UN issued such a statement? Is the goal to eradicate poppy plants, coca plants, marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms from the face of the earth? Get real! It isn’t going to happen. Is the goal to make everyone on the planet understand that these drugs are bad for you and you shouldn’t do them? Again, wake up! It will never happen. This message is falling on deaf ears. A recent Center for Disease Control and Prevention study showed that over 50% of adults in the US has tried pot.
 
Humans have been getting high, stoned, drunk and intoxicated for millennia. It is human nature. “That humanity at large will ever be able to dispense with Artificial Paradise seems very unlikely. Most men and women lead lives at the worst, so painful, and at the best, so monotonous, poor and limited, that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is, and always has been, one of the principal appetites of the soul.” Aldous Huxley wrote that back in 1951. I will take it a step further. It is not just human nature. It is animal nature. Getting inebriated occurs throughout the animal kingdom, too, from primates to cats to elephants to birds and to insects. To try to stop this is both futile and short-sighted. Besides, who says these drugs are bad for you? Psychedelic drugs such as LSD, mushrooms and DMT are mind-expanding. The “bad” trips that you read about are mainly overblown and government propaganda. And they are rarely addictive. Other drugs alleviate pain. I could be mistaken, but aren’t all medicines drugs? These medicines are lab-tested, refined, tested again and again and again. They are only approved for use after a panel of experts deems the benefits of the medicine (drug) outweigh the side-effects. But make no mistake: they all have side-effects. And they can be harmful if not taken properly.
 
Instead of simply trying to keep drugs out of the bodies and minds of people, we need to admit that the approach we have been taking is not working. We need to ask questions. We need to get to the roots of the issues, and not just say, “They are bad for you. Don’t do them or we will lock you up.” We need to ask, “Why do people do drugs? What causes addiction? Can addiction be overcome? If so, how?
 
When I just now asked “What causes addiction?” you probably laughed and said, “Well shit! The drug causes addiction. Any fool know that. If you take this stuff long enough - BOOM! - before you know it, you’re hooked.” That is what most people think. That is what I used to think. That is what has been spoonfed to us since childhood. Well not so fast. Opiates can play a role in addiction. The size of that role is open to debate. But it is by no means the only factor. Many scientists in the field think it is not even the major factor. It all depends on how people’s brains are wired. And why they are wired the way they are.
 
People think addicts are addicts because of the heroin or cocaine or the meth. They ingest these evil drugs into their system and then get hooked. But what about other addicts? Many people are addicted to gambling. Are they snorting poker chips? What about people addicted to shopping? Or video games? Or sex? None of these involve injecting, smoking or snorting anything into your body. Yet these people are still addicts. Alcohol, heroin, cocaine and nicotine do have addictive properties. But not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic. I knew a co-worker who only smoked on weekends when he went out for a few drinks. Throughout the rest of the week, he did not smoke. And not everyone who takes opiates becomes an addict. My mother and two of my brothers have all had two back surgeries each. My mother has also had a knee replacement. I have co-workers that have had knee replacements and other major surgeries. Friends, too. They have all been prescribed pain killers, some strong (oxycontin) and some not quite as potent (Vicodin and Percoset). None of them have become addicts. None. There is more to addiction than the drug.
 
There is a research scientist named Bruce Alexander. Years ago he read the results of studies that showed rats, when offered a choice between a bottle of water, and a bottle of water with morphine, invariably chose the water with morphine, to the point where many of them died. He decided to conduct his own variations of this experiment. Previous studies always had a solitary rat in a cage. He did the same experiment. And the solitary rats chose the morphine solution. But he also constructed a different set-up. This cage, called Rat Park, included tunnels, exercise wheels, wood shavings, and had multiple rats of both sexes. It was Rat Heaven. Rats in the solitary cages consumed up to 25 milligrams of morphine a day. But the rats in Rat Park consumed less than 5 milligrams a day. Alexander even had a set of rats consume the morphine solution for 57 consecutive days. He then placed them in Rat Park. They had the option of water or water with morphine. The rats twitched for a while (withdrawal symptoms) and then stopped drinking the morphine solution. It is not simply the drug. It is also the environment.
 
Okay, so why do some people drink and become alcoholics, and others do not? Why do some people do drugs and become addicts, and others do not? Why do some people gamble but can walk away from the table, and others lose fortunes and ruin lives? Why do some people play video games non-stop, yet others can put the PlayStation down? Some experts believe it is the way the brain was wired during the forma- tive years. People suffering from autism, ADD and ADHD are more prone to addiction than others. A large percentage of addicts are victims of physical and sexual abuse. Scientists theorize that while some people do not get addicted, many that do, do so because they are masking pain. They have a difficult time coping with trauma, fear, neglect, social exile, trust and similar issues. The drug becomes a coping mechanism. Before you start scoffing at me, accusing me of becoming a sentimental softie, think about it. Something causes addiction. It is not just the drug. To me, it is fairly obvious that addiction is a coping mechanism. They don’t shoot up because it is cool. There is a reason behind the addiction Some addicts say when they do heroin, it is like a warm, soft hug. One addict said when she first did heroin, “It is what I had been looking for my entire life.”
 
It is also very important to understand that addicts are not losers. Morality has absolutely nothing to do with addiction. “But Steve, these addicts are criminals! They are losers! They’re breaking the law. They’re throwing their lives away. And for what?” Well, the only reason they are criminals, is because we have made them criminals. We passed ill-advised laws making it criminal activity to do what they are doing. Why? One has to ask; for some action to be criminal, doesn’t there have to be a victim? If I purchase pot, go into my basement, and smoke it, am I harming anyone? If I drive impaired, that is different. That would be comparable to driving while under the influence of alcohol. But smoking weed in my own basement? Isn’t that like drinking a glass or two of wine on my back porch? Or are these addicts evil? Amoral? Bad people? The most famous nurse in the history of the world, Florence Nightingale, was a morphine addict. The man who gave us Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, and A Christmas Story, Charles Dickens, was also a morphine addict Dickens was a crusader for the homeless, the destitute and orphans. Yet he was an addict. There was a physician named William Halstedt. He was one of the four physicians who founded John Hopkins Hospital. He made revolutionary advancements in the treatment of breast cancer, greatly reducing the recidivism rate. He made advancements in blood transfusions. He has been called the Father of Modern Surgery. And he did 180 milligrams of morphine every day for decades. Today, we would throw someone like that in prison. Sad. Again, morality has nothing to do with addiction. Addiction is a coping mechanism.
 
The reason addicts become “losers” is because of the prohibition of these drugs. Having these drugs illegal makes things worse. These drugs are not illegal because they are dangerous. They are dangerous because they are illegal. The illegality of drugs has created a black market for them, one that cannot be controlled. Prohibition of alcohol didn’t work. What makes anyone think that prohibition of marijuana, cocaine or heroin will work? Did I mention that over 50% of adults in the US has tried marijuana?
 
During alcohol prohibition in the US, bootleggers produced millions of gallons of rotgut moonshine and bathtub gin. Much of this was produced from industrial alcohol. The federal government required com- panies to denature industrial alcohol to make it undrinkable. Then it ordered quinine and methyl alcohol to be added as an additional deterrent. Some estimates maintain that these poisonous mixtures killed more than 10,000 people. In one incident alone, in Kansas City, more than 500 people were permanently crippled. The United States federal government was intentionally harming and killing its citizens in a misguided effort to keep them from drinking. How can anyone think that the War on Drugs will have a different outcome? Scientific studies indicate that the most harmful aspect of drugs, is not the drug itself, but our prohibition of them. This is not to say that heroin, cocaine, crystal meth and other narcotics are harmless. Of course they can be dangerous. But one of the main reasons for their catastrophic consequences is because we have made them illegal. We cannot control the source of them. We cannot control the quantities of them. We cannot control the distribution. And we cannot control the products themselves. Criminals can cut the drugs with whatever similar-looking powders they can find; brick dust, bleach crystals and the like. And then they lace it with fentanyl, and now, carfentanil. The result is a chemical concoction that is often fatal. I do not have statistics to back up this claim, but I don’t think many addicts are dying because of heroin overdoses. They are dying because of heroin laced with fentanyl and even more potent opiates.
 
So what is the answer? The solution lies in what is called “harm reduction.” The drugs are not going away, no matter how hard we try and how much money we throw into this war. Instead of waging this war, let’s shift our goal and try to reduce the harm these drugs can cause. This is achieved by decriminal- izing, if not legalizing, all drugs. Let’s admit that prohibition does not work. People will get these drugs regardless of their illegality. In fact, they are more likely to get them when they are illegal. Have you ever had a teenager approach you and ask you to buy him/her alcohol? I will admit that it has only happened to me once or twice. But it has happened. Or maybe you were the teenager asking an adult to buy you alcohol. But has anyone ever approached you and asked you to buy him/her heroin? Crystal meth? Cocaine? No. And do you know why? Because they don’t need you to buy it for them. They can get it on their own down on the street corner or in an alley. But can they get alcohol in that alley? Is there some guy standing in an alley saying, “Hey kid. Wanna buy a Bud Light? You don’t like Bud Light? I have Coors and Miller Genuine Draft, too.” It doesn’t happen. Why? Because beer is legal. It is regulat- ed. The source is controlled. The distribution is controlled. The quantities are controlled. And the product (content and percentage of alcohol) is controlled. The same cannot be said of heroin.
 
There should be something called Supervised Injection Sites (SIS) where addicts can come in without fear of being arrested, and receive medically prescribed and supervised doses of heroin, cocaine, etc. These should be standard practice. Lest anyone think I have lost my marbles, these policies have already been tried and proven effective. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, John Marks opened a supervised injection site in Merseyside, England. A study was conducted over an 18-month span and results showed that there was a 93% drop in theft, burglary and property crimes. HIV infection rate among drug users was zero. Most importantly, the fatality rate was zero. Zero! There was also a decrease in new users. Many users found permanent employment and housing. 60 Minutes got wind of this and aired a story on this. The US administration took issue with this approach (one can only ask why) and pressured Margaret Thatcher to shut it down. And it was. Addicts went back on the streets, resumed their criminal activities and prostitu- tion, and died. From 1982 to 1995, Dr. Marks treated 450 addicts, and did not have a single drug-related fatality. Six months after being shut down, 20 were dead. 41 were dead within two years.
 
There are well over a hundred SIS in Europe. My personal physician, who is Spanish, told me they even have them at concerts, knowing that people will be doing drugs, so they may as well mitigate the dangers. Until recently, there was only one SIS in North America - in Vancouver, BC. It is run by a Hungari- an-born Jewish doctor named Gabor Maté. (If you have some time, google his name and watch a video or two, especially his Ted talk. If you get really ambitious, read his book In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts.) But Toronto’s City Council passed a resolution to add five such centers. And earlier this year, Philadelphia approved measures to open the first SIS in the United States. I can hear you now. “Having these sites is ridiculous. You are being an enabler. And if the government is giving this to people, drug usage is sure to skyrocket.” I am not going to bore you with details (there are certain stipulations associated with these sites), but in places such as Switzerland, where they have them, and in Portugal, where all drugs have been decriminalized, this does not appear to be the case. Besides, I would rather be an enabler and let these people live to see another day, and maybe, eventually turn their lives around, than turn my back on these people and let them suffer, and, as shown in Merseyside, die. Remember, addiction is not a reflection on someone’s morality or lack of. These are people. Children. Spouses, Siblings. Parents. Even if it did reflect lack of morality, aren’t we supposed to help one another? Or do we let them die?
 
Many people fear legalizing drugs is paving the way for a free for all. People everywhere will be doing drugs. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I see it, a free for all is what we have now. Unknown drug dealers selling unknown drugs to unknown consumers in unknown places. Do drug dealers check the IDs of the people they are selling to? Yet legalizing these products, regulating their content, restrict- ing distribution to only licensed vendors, and checking IDs of the consumers is paving the way for bedlam? What am I missing? How is this not better than our current policies?
 
Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001. Statistics from multiple sources all point to a reduction in drug use since this went into effect. Drug-induced deaths have decreased substantially. So has the HIV infec- tion rate. The same holds true in Switzerland, where addicts are treated at health clinics and yes, at SIS. Since implementing the sites in 1994, there has been a significant decrease in all harm-related statistics. Deaths are down. HIV, Aids and Hepatitis have gone down. Unemployment among addicts has gone down. We have to ask ourselves here in the States, why should we continue our current policies when there are better, proven alternatives? Why are we so firmly planted in our stance for eradicating drug use? We are causing more harm by keeping them illegal. A physician in Portugal said, “I prefer moderate hope and some likelihood of success over the dream of perfection and a promise of failure.”
 
If we ever want to rehabilitate addicts, then we have to stop locking them up in prison. Incarceration, lock-up rehab facilities, and the like create an atmosphere completely opposite to one that would help the addict. A caring environment should be the cornerstone of any rehab policy, not our current policy of criminalization and incarceration. I recently finished re-reading a book. At the conclusion, the author writes, “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It’s connection. If you are alone, you cannot escape addiction. If you are loved, you have a chance. For a hundred years we have been singing war songs about addicts. All along, we should have been singing love songs to them. One thing has potential - more than any other - to kill this attempt at healing. It is the drug war. If these people I love are picked up by the police during a relapse, and given a criminal record, and rendered unemployable, then it will be even harder for them to build connections with the world. And if that happens, then they will be lost....... It shouldn’t be this way - and it doesn’t have to be.”
 
Before I wrap this up, I want to elaborate again on the nature of addiction. I said previously that morality plays no part in addiction. Neither does choice, or one’s level of intelligence. I have read letters written to newspapers or posted on-line in which many people hurl insults at addicts. I read one just the other day in which a woman said she has no sympathy for addicts. It was their choice to do the drugs. She said she was all for resuscitating an addict with Narcan - one time. She wrote, “Everyone has the right to be stupid once.” Obviously, she does not understand addiction. Intelligence and choice do not play a part. Regarding relapse, Humberto Fernandez, in his matter of fact, straightforward book, “Heroin, It’s History, Pharmacology and Treatment” states that this viewpoint is held by many legislators and law enforcement officials, but from a health care perspective, the measure of effective drug treatment must be viewed in the context that addiction is, by definition, a chronic disease, and that the addict is susceptible to relapse. Mr. Fernandez goes on to say that while a parolee who relapses will be classified as a recidivist by law enforcement, the drug counselor will examine whether or not the addict has demonstrated progress in other areas of his life, such as holding down a job, staying away from other criminal activity, and the length of sobriety before the relapse. Addiction is a lifelong battle. One is never “cured.” Medication assisted treatment, a valuable tool in fighting harmful addictions, can last years, or even decades, further evidence of the chronic nature of addiction.
 
Last year, I wrote this rebuttal to someone who resorted to name-calling when speaking about addicts: Tell the four boys whose mother fatally overdosed after being addicted to prescription pain-killers follow- ing a medical procedure that their mother was a “clown.” Tell that to the countless addicts who are victims of physical and sexual abuse. Tell that to the addicts who suffer from ADHD, autism and other emotional and personality disorders. And tell the parents who have lost children because of overdose and suicide that their loved ones are “clowns.” I gladly welcome any discussion on this topic. Despite the length of this column, it is much, much shorter than I would have liked. There are so many things on which I wanted to elaborate. And many things I omitted completely. I hope everyone read this with an open mind. I used to think the War on Drugs was a noble cause. Just say “No.” DARE. “This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs”. But the more I read, the more I realized how ill-advised it is. And what makes it even more absurd, is that we perpetuate these erroneous beliefs.
 
I thank you for reading this.