Miriam&#39;s Dreamwidth blog

I seem to remember hearing about some study that nicotine protects from parkinsons.
Also I've heard of numerous studies that show multiple benefits from moderate alcoholic beverage consumption.

Personally I can drink tea but if I drink coffee is fucks up my blood sugar. It's too much for me, however I know people that feel nothing but positive effect from coffee.
Also there's that nice constipation relieving effect it has.

Strait caffeine and strait nicotine, pure alcohol, I've no doubt can be harsh but I don't see why there can't be benefit from substances that contain these things.

Why do you feel so sure there isn't? Or is it just the protective effect against Alzheimers that you don't believe?

Personally I'm of the opinion that Alheimers is usually either poisoning or mad cow disease. Side effects or toxicity of numerous drugs could account for the dementia and aluminum in the brain could too.
I used to work with very old people and it never ceased to amaze me that the weren't prescribed vitamins or herbal remedies that have been shown to work but they were prescribed more and more drugs. Most of the time they just assume it's alzheimers if there is dementia. Which personally I think is cruel.

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I should emphasise that while I seriously doubt the reports of benefits from these drugs, that doesn't mean I think there could never be any benefit from them. Subtle, but important distinction.

My doubt comes from two main things.

Firstly, the only way to find out about the effect on alzheimers is through epidemiological studies. That is, statistics -- counting numbers of people with and without alzheimers, what drugs and foods they consume and in what quantities, how much exercise they indulge in, what kind of environments they are exposed to, how much they read or use their minds in hobbies, how happy they are, how many friends they have, what diseases they've been exposed to, and so on. Disentangling all these strands is a nightmare. But more treacherous is the way unexpected spurious results can pop up. If cigarettes tend to kill people in such a study then there may well appear to be fewer smokers with alzheimers at the end because the younger, more resilient ones will remain who could be less susceptible to alzheimers. If caffeine causes a similar culling of people with incipient heart problems then the same kind of effect may show. There are other possible complications. If we find that alheimers is connected somehow with diet (I'm not suggesting it is, I'm simply making a random argument to illustrate the complications) then anything which causes people to eat less might show a "protective" effect, and nicotine and caffeine both reduce appetite.

You would think that researchers would take account of all these effects, but you'd be wrong. Not only is it pretty-much impossible to guarantee that all bases are covered, but also some research is actually surprisingly sloppy. I've been reading scientific literature for most of my life and I've seen oodles of cases where researchers made quite superficial analyses of their data. Far too often the conclusions would be utterly misleading. There are many conscientious researchers out there who are very careful in there work, but there is also a lot of money to be made by pandering to lucrative drug markets... and cigarettes and caffeine are two of the most profitable.

And that is the other thing that makes me doubt these reports. Money. I don't necessarily think the researchers are corrupt (though some certainly are). They could do good and honest work, but the news media is funded by advertising and more subtle forms of self-interested bias. A reporter who has a drinking problem will be delighted to make a big splash with a news item that might show some tenuous "protective" effect of alcohol, while disregarding all the population studies that show the longest lived segment of western society tends to be Seventh Day Adventists... who don't drink alcohol. Here's another example. Remember all those reports of the health benefits of vegetable oils back in the early 70s? That was just when margarine makers were boosting their products onto the market in a big way. Now we find vegetable oils are not the beneficial products they were made out to be. I'm pretty convinced money is the main reason they were promoted so heavily. We seem to be seeing the same kind of heavily marketed reports about the benefits of fish oils at the moment. I tended to think they were genuine until I noticed how heavily they are being pushed. Now I am extremely suspicious of them.

(I'm too long-winded and had to break this comment in two. Sorry.)

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I understand the culling effect that may not be accounted for.
I actually wouldn't think that researchers would take all these things into account because as you say, it's damn near impossible. I've seen sloppy research too, I've seen research slanted towards a desired end. And yes, whose funding it may make a difference.

Seventh Day Adventists are also vegetarians, right?

I've started to get real suspicious of things that are heavily pushed as well. Like soy for example or agave syrup. Or milk, that's another one. That used to be pushed real hard.

About aluminum, I read somewhere that fluoride helps it cross into the brain. They often put it in our water here and most toothpastes have fluoride in it along with a poison warning. "Hey brush your teeth with this but don't swallow it and if you do call the poison control center immediately!". Nice.

Hmm, cell suicide... could be.

Imagining the Romans... I can see it, how could they know, especially once they'd been drinking the water. But mostly they drank the wine, right?

While I worked taking care of older people I got a first hand look at how they're treated. Even with me giving the best care I could, there was so much more that could have been done better that I really couldn't affect (though I wanted to).

Personally I think smoking is a bad for health overall. Breathing smoke, generally not good (unless it's incense) and inhaling the chemicals they put in most cigs, really not good. That seems pretty obvious. But it may still be that nicotine could have a positive effect in some ways, in some situations.

As for alcohol, well that really depends. If the moment one quits drinking they need to sign up for an anti-anxiety med when previously a couple or few drinks put it right, well then alcohol is filling a need fairly safely. If one tends to get drunk and kick the dog or worse, that's different.
Hell if a couple or few drinks doesn't seem to be filling a need or harming anything but it's just a preference I can't see anything wrong with that either. I don't see why one should have to consult the research to make such a decision. It should be pretty obvious if harm is being done or not.
As you say research is very often very flawed. And even if it isn't personal freedom matters.

And caffeine, well I don't know. But I do know I have experienced evil evil withdrawals from coffee addiction so I know what you're talking about there.
I do have green tea every day but strangely no matter how long I wait to have it I never get a headache.
Maybe if you want to quit the coffee you can prepare yourself by substituting some green tea and having ibuprofen at the ready to take the edge off that headache.
If you wanta quit the tea too, that'll probably be easier than quitting coffee.
Keeping the tea ritual might help you wake up *because* it's a ritual.

I personally am wary of puritan ideals in general, especially when they masquerade as research conclusions. One shouldn't have to feel ashamed for liking coffee, tea, marijuana, alcohol, opium, or various hallucinogens (or cigarettes for that matter even if I think they're nasty). Shame has a way of making people want to get drunk. And that doesn't help.
Pleasure really is a good thing. Yes it has risks. Everything does.
I do think pleasure negative ideals are a factor that can mess with research, just like the desires and beliefs of the funders of the research or of the researchers themselves can.

I only bring it up because we're talking about substances that we generally tend to believe feel good to us.

Which reminds me, have you seen this?: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/252

By the way, I don't mind you being long winded. You're always thoughtful, and that's nice. :)

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A lot of great points here, as usual from you. :)
My apologies for taking so long to reply. Been busy, and then yesterday was taken down by a day of searing headache... I think I forgot to have my blasted caffeine. :(

Not sure if Seventh Day adventists are vegetarian or not. I don't know a lot about that loony branch of religion, though I had a friend who I greatly admired who was (probably still is) Seventh Day Adventist. If they are then that would tangle up the longevity studies still further. I don't think they drink coffee either.

Hmmm... I hadn't heard that about fluoride facilitating aluminium's access to the brain. That's a worry. Most of Australia's water has been forcibly fluoridated. Queensland, where I live is one of the few hold-out states, though it wouldn't affect me directly even if they adopted fluoridation (the damn politicians are pushing for it here as well). I am on rain-tank and well water. I've been meaning to scan and OCR a Scientific American article on flouride. I'll post here when I have.

The Romans... their wine was in lead-lined containers too, and I think they lined their aqueducts with lead also, so it wasn't just the rich who got poisoned. The thought of this blunder is one of the things that scares so many people about fluoride now.

There is a possibility that nicotine could have positive effects, though I would be very surprised. If there was some, no matter how small I think the tobacco lobby would be singing about it very loudly. Anyway, it would need to be lavishly proven to me. As you say, the down-sides to smoking are too many to warrant its use, even if nicotine did show some benefit. I'm also wary of incense. The smoke is still mostly tiny soot particles that can damage lungs -- it is sweet-smelling danger. :)

The anti-tension qualities of alcohol... There are a couple of problems here. One is that any addictive drug, alcohol included, tends to cause the very problem that one takes to treat. In the short term alcohol may relax, but in the longer term causes more tension, which heightens the need to relax. Without it the person would likely not need the alcohol to relax anyway. The other problem is that humans have been drinking it since there were humans. It has become a part of who we are, and separating it out is not as simple as my statements might suggest. It is easy for me. I hate the stuff, but for one of my old girlfriends it was different. I don't know if she could manage without it. Perhaps it helped... I don't know. It eventually killed her, but her normal reaction to alcohol was utterly different to mine. I wouldn't be surprised if she had a physiological need for the stuff. In the middle ages alcoholic beverages were, I have read, linked to survival because contaminated water was so widespread. Brewed drinks guaranteed purity. I would not be surprised if some special ability to deal with alcohol grew out of that in some people... and perhaps even dependence. Who knows? I am just very wary of addictive substances.

I totally agree that shame is a terrible way to view drug use, and I think that's the main reason for the utter failure of the "war of drugs". I see it as a matter of practicality. If a drug can do something useful then okay, but the minute it stops being useful then it just makes good sense not to use it. It isn't a case of morality. I know someone who has had something of a battle with alcohol. I chat with her from time to time about it, but I stress to her that she shouldn't give up for moral reasons. She should stop because of the damage to her relationships, but only if she decides to. Other people can't really tell her what to do.

Puritanism is a really dangerous thing. It is worse because it can be so easily disguised as the sensible thing to do, but it makes for great intolerance.

Thanks for the pointer to the Dean Ornish talk... downloading now.

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Ugh, I'm sorry bout the withdrawal headache. Those suck.

Poor Romans with the lead in the wine. That's kinda sad.

I'm real glad you have a non fluoridated water source. That's awesome.
It's so weird that anyone would push fluoridation. What are the politicians getting out of that?
I seem to remember reading that it was outlawed in Europe though I could be wrong.
By far the biggest source has to be from toothpaste and people are shoving that right in their mouth.

The incense personally just gives me too much happy to not risk. I'm picky about the kind though I know it's all smoke. It just has a way of lifting my mood, kinda like the scent of flowers does. :)

All you say about alcohol, yah I've thought of, do think of. I wonder how much it's hardwired for some of us, I wonder how much we foster our own dependence. I hope humans can let go of the puritan shaming that often surrounds the subject. It only muddies the waters.
I've got a lot of questions about my own use and humans use of it in general.
In a lot of ways they are the same questions I have about meat. I've a lot of questions there too.

What were you referring to way back there when you mentioned the vegetable oils? I hadn't heard anything recent about them being not good. Just the normal trans fats and hydrogenated ones being bad thing.

I'd love to see that "war on drugs" disappear. The money could be used for such better purposes. Like education, health care, research, paying down the national dept, environmental protection, etc....

If we survive I wonder what the state of our knowledge will be in 500 years.
We're such babes in the woods still.

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I think the politicians feel they have to be seen to do stuff. It doesn't matter much whether it is truly good. I think it is the visibility that matters, like putting up statues to themselves. They keep wanting to bring daylight saving in to Queensland too, even though numerous surveys have shown most people don't want it, and scientific studies show that it wastes energy and doesn't get people more time. So it is with fluoridation, but perhaps with a subtle twist. It's my understanding that the soft drink and candy manufacturers and the aluminium industry want fluoridation. The sugar people, because it would remove one constraint on feeding their products to people because teeth would be more resistant. The aluminium industry wants it because they previously had to pay to get rid of the fluoride byproduct of aluminium refinery. Now they get paid by the government to dump it in our water. So I think the fluoride issue is not simply a matter of politicians wanting to be seen to do something; there is some corruption there too.

I burn incense occasionally too. It is nice. Even a tiny amount of it can alter moods without filling a room with a smoggy haze.

The vegetable oils... they were part of a very big campaign back in, I think it was the late 60s early 70s. I've always been very suspicious of that because nobody ever seemed to be able to point to actual facts, and it coincided too well with the explosion of margarine manufacturers and cooking oils. Now we are finding that they don't have the great advantages they were promoted for. I've often wondered if it was that decision-makers suddenly realised how much DDT was in animal fat and what a danger it posed to the entire population, but to scare people away from DDT would have hurt the chemical industries. Much better to sell them something new. I may be wrong in this, and expect I'll never know... but I shall always wonder.

We truly are still in our infancy. I'd love to be able to see where we will be in 500 years... if we survive the next few decades, that is.

I've been following some of Sam Harris' interest in trying to get a science of morality established. It seems to me that if he gets his way we may vastly accelerate our ability to do good. That would be soooo wonderful to see.

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Hmm, yah, you're probably right about the politicians motivations. I find it difficult to fathom some of their actions.
Well goodness, now I'm questioning the vegetable oil thing. Although it hardly matters, I gotta put something in the pan when I'm cooking and I favor at least a bit of fat for the taste.

I don't know about this Sam Harris person. Who is he?

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Sam Harris? :)
I'd been wondering whether to write more about his latest exploits here. I think you've just decided me. :)

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Yay! I am looking forward to it. :)

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Gosh. I just watched another Dean Ornish talk on TED. I kept thinking of you while watching it. It is a brilliant talk and I'll be showing it to a number of my friends.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dean_ornish_on_healing.html
or to download it:
http://www.ted.com/talks/download/video/3247/talk/377

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:) Thank you. Yup, his stuff is lovely.

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Ummm... you may be right. I may be getting a little mixed up and the report on nicotine may have concerned parkinsons. My points would still hold though. I'd have to see really carefully prepared figures to believe they'd disentangled all the complicating factors properly... and I actually don't think any analysis is really capable of doing that yet.

As to what alzheimers really is... that seems less and less sure. I used to favor the idea that aluminium toxicity was involved. It still bothers me to the extent that I don't use any aluminium cookware. And prion infection (mad cow) is almost certain to cause some of the cases. But for the bulk of cases, nowadays I tend to lean towards the idea of some kind of infection causing the body to attack itself, similar to how some autoimmune diseases may work. I don't think the immune system is allowed in the brain, but there are still protective methods the brain uses against infection, not least of which is apoptosis -- cell suicide.

However, in the end I really have to admit that I just don't know. I'm not really attached to this or any other explanation, and will be delighted when the puzzle is finally solved. I bet it ends up being something nobody was expecting, but really obvious when all the clues are laid bare. We'll all look at it and say, "How did nobody see this?" (Imagine the Romans and their lead-lined water storage.)

How we treat people with alzheimers and other long-term problems can be terrible. Our over-reliance on drug quick-fixes is awful. My own feeling is that it won't improve a lot till we have personal robots to help us. It is coming, but is still a little way off. Damn.

Decades ago I heard a talk by a guy who was a doctor at a nursing home who insisted that many cases of "dementia" were actually confusion resulting from low fluid intake. As we get older our regulatory mechanisms (temperature control, appetite, thirst) fade. He said that giving people water instead of diuretic drinks like tea and coffee at this home made a major improvement to their lives. (Knowing how addicted to their tea and coffee some people are I bet they were not happy about it.) I don't know how correct he was, but I have noticed my Dad tends not to drink much water unless Mum pushes him to. And dehydration does lead to confusion.

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i've never heard that cigarettes protect from alzheimers. i have heard that about coffee though.

i don't know. i've researched this topic before, and i just feel like the fact that they have yet to find any evidence of any major ill effects of caffeine, makes it doubtful to me that there are. coffee and tea have been around for hundreds(thousands? i have no idea) of years. i do, however, feel that high doses of caffeine could probably lead to some sort of problems. when i worked overnights, i got into the habit of buying energy drinks. although the worst to ever happen to me was that they would make my stomach cramp, but then again, even pop does that to me sometimes so i don't know if that's really a smoking gun or not, heh.

either way, a good cup of coffee is one of my absolute favorite pleasures n this life. it's pretty doubtful i'd give it up unless the evidence was truly overpowering. especially since i still smoke and drink... it's definitely the lesser of the evils, heh.

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Sorry to bring bad news, but we are really good at ignoring ill effects. The oldest known drugs are marihuana and alcohol. They seem to have been around for as long as there have been people. For a long time people didn't believe that either had bad effects. We tend to forget that the move against alcohol is a pretty recent thing in the West. (Islam singles out alcohol as a bad thing, but without any clear reason.) Many people still believe marihuana isn't addictive, and that it doesn't have a withdrawal effect, but if you use it for any length of time (I did, over decades) it is really easy to see the withdrawal. People don't see it because they don't want to.

Caffeine appears to be used by plants to discourage animals eating them, the way they use other poisons. What are the bad side effects? Well, chromosome breakage is one I'd read of when I was younger (though I can no longer find any reference to it anywhere). Caffeine makes the heart race, and some other things that might that have a damaging effect on the circulatory system... not a convincing argument, but something to consider. But the thing that worries me most is the headaches and generalised pains when you cease it. People surprisingly don't notice these and are quite surprised to hear that withdrawal of caffeine does this. I think they pass it off as a bout of the flu, or simply stress-related, when it is really drug withdrawal.

I'm wary of how drugs can bend my perception of pleasure. If you carefully observe the relief of withdrawal anxiety, in yourself you can see that coffee is actually a pretty revolting drink. I can hardly wait for that first cup in the morning, but I'm very aware that it isn't really pleasure that I feel (even though it is easy to mistake it as the real thing). It is relief. Complicating it is the way I can generate secondary, genuine pleasure on top of that, but that really has nothing to do with the coffee. It is pleasure from relieving something that is unpleasant.

I know this sounds a bit silly and irrelevant, but it is actually central to the problem. We are notoriously bad at seeing these kinds of distinctions, even though they can determine whether we live happy lives or not, and whether we remain healthy or not... whether we die or not. And we are especially bad at seeing them if we can blind ourselves with harmless-appearing white lies.

It is easy for us to see relief from something bad as the same thing as something that makes us positively happy. But they aren't the same, especially when a drug-induced bad is the thing we are getting relief from in the first place. This is the simple truth behind the addictive power of drugs -- it is about perception.

That early-morning coffee I look forward to is giving me a general feeling of malaise before I drink it. Relieving that bad feeling is not genuine pleasure, but reinforces a learned response in me that is difficult to break. I have broken it before, and I will again. Caffeine is the last of the drugs I use, and weirdly, it seems to be the hardest to give up. I'm convinced it makes me more tired overall, and the withdrawal headaches if I forget to refill regularly are annoying and painful. Each time I get rid of a drug from my life I seem to become a generally happier person, with less to weigh me down.

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"I'm convinced it makes me more tired overall, and the withdrawal headaches if I forget to refill regularly are annoying and painful."

i agree with this. but i really do like the taste of coffee, i also drink decaf all the time. and tea. and expensive micro brews. i seem to have this real fixation with liquids, dunno why. even those without caffeine, my favorite teas give me the same "ahhhhhh...this is nice..." feeling. my favorite tea at the moment is one made from blueberries. for me, it is about flavor, aroma, the moment. i can say this about all three liquids. at my old job, i was known as a beer connoisseur. girls would always pull me over to their table to help a customer choose an appropriate beer for their likings. i have been on private tours of 5 breweries, as well as visiting many more. i can't resist a new discovery and truly enjoy analyzing the flavors. with coffee, i am much the same. i know what brands i like, what roasts, what regions. i mostly buy a standard "okay" brand, but occasionally splurge, saving the beans only for certain special times. but i will not pretend i am not completely addicted to caffeine. it's difficult to wake up without it, i'm bitchy, my head hurts, etc... i'll drink a shitty cup of coffee if i must, but i won't enjoy it. you can't say it's COMPLETELY drug addiction, unless it's addiction to food/taste sensations. i won't argue that.

interesting what you said though. i also agree with your theory on pot. i know too many pot smokers that make up the most stupid ideas/excuses. one of my friends actually told me that he studies better on marijuana. i told him he's full of shit because i can barely have a conversation with him when he's high, he's too absent minded. and he failed several classes, heh. my problem with marijuana stems more from the frequency in which most smokers use. if they drank that much, anyone would call them an alcoholic, but they don't see it that way. it shifts the way that you perceive the world around you, just like alcohol, and that is what i detest about both. i don't think caffeine has quite the same effect, although i can understand the "happiness caused by getting your fix." idea. but caffeine doesn't make me perceive my reality any differently. that's what's important to me. who knows, maybe someday i'll give it up... but at the moment, i have no real reason/desire to. i feel more guilty about smoking and know that the time is coming that i will quit. i've been smoking long enough to start to notice ill effects and as these add up, my guilt is rising.

i understand the relief of letting go of bad habits/addictions. that's precisely how i feel about becoming a vegetarian again. the internal changes you feel in your body are wonderful and your choice is constantly reinforced just by your bodily functions! lol. this is something that the typical meat eater will never understand though. and this is why i just laugh when people try to argue with me about vegetarianism. i don't know if you're a vegetarian or not, but this is just my experience on something along the same vein.

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Sorry I took so long to reply. I've been busy lately and yesterday was knocked out of action by... what seems to have been a caffeine withdrawal headache all day. :D lol Talk about well timed!

I was relieved that your reply was so thoughtful and pleasant. I had become a little worried that maybe I'd sounded a little preachy. I don't mean to. I certainly don't think there is any moral side to drug use or abstinence. And you shouldn't feel guilty for smoking. I have a theory that the guilt actually makes it more difficult to stop. It stirs up tension which increases the craving for a cigarette. It should simply be a matter of practicality. You want to run without getting breathless? That's a good reason to stop smoking. Morality doesn't even come into it. You want to lower the likelihood of a painful death from one of the many cancers related to cigarettes? Makes good sense. Not a morality issue.

Regarding your descriptions of enjoying coffee, I'm not convinced. :) I know how seductive is the smell of coffee when I'm wanting one. I'm also conscious of how the drug plays funny tricks with my sense of smell and emotions. I don't really like the smell of coffee, it just feels like I do. (I know how dumb this sounds though.) Also I try to remind myself of how disgusting coffee was when I first tried it. "How could anybody drink this revolting stuff?" I thought. Tea less so, but my first impression of it was not of a pleasant drink. I drank it to get the effect. Same with alcohol. Your first beer drink (remember that?) tasted vile. That's how it still tastes, underneath the alcohol's subtle mind-game. For me beer still tastes like that because I stopped at that point.

Yep, I'm almost completely vegetarian. I only very rarely eat meat, and then only if my body desperately needs it. My main reason for it is less to do with health (though that is a nice side-benefit) and more to do with empathising with all those consciousnesses; all those lives that are ended just so we can stuff them into our greedy mouths. I hate that our ancestry has so much predatory history, but I'm also aware that it means it's very difficult to shake it off the need entirely. At the moment I'm down to a meal of sardines every month or two if I've exercised too heavily or been working too hard or been ill, but even that is upsetting me. I expect the time will come not long from now when I won't even be able to bring myself to do that.

I keep thinking that if I can't kill them myself then I shouldn't be eating them. Hell. I won't even kill ants that invade my kitchen. :/

You're right that the average meat eater doesn't seem to understand the health or the empathy aspects. [sigh]

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meh, i don't care if you sound preachy. i understand your point and i do think you have one, i'm just not ready to throw in the towel on coffee just yet (will i ever be?) lol.

honestly though, i've always thought coffee smelled/tasted good. my family has always been very into coffee and i remember when i was a kid (younger than 6), my parents had this neat antique coffee grinder on our wall that just had a jar on top, a hand crank grinding mechanism, and a cup below to catch the grounds. my dad used to let me crank it for his morning cup and i always thought it was really fun. i distinctly remember loving the smell of it. he'd let me sneak sips of his every now and then but honestly, i have been drinking coffee nearly every day since i was in um... 5th/6th grade maybe? i've always had trouble with sleep disorders and once i had to start getting up at 6 in the morning, my mom just started letting me have a cup of coffee (mostly milk though) every morning. good, bad, whatever. it's more ingrained in my routine than just about anything else (except maybe brushing my teeth). coffee is also very social in my family as we always have discussions over one or two or three cups of coffee, heh. i wonder sometimes if this is because that side of my family is scandinavian, and i think most people know that they rank highest on the list of countries that drink the most. i'm not suggesting it's in my genetics or anything, just that it may have developed as a lingering tradition.

oh and fyi, i do remember gagging at beer when i first started drinking it, haha. but to be perfectly honest with you, i still gag a little when i drink those same beers haha. bud lt/coors lt/miller lt... all of those common domestic beers are never really enjoyable for me, just cheap. not surprisingly, my favorite beers tend to have a roasted/coffee taste/aroma. my favorite beer is from a local brewery named New Holland and called Dragon's Milk. it's about 8 dollars for one bottle sized 22 oz... but oh so worth it.

about vegetarianism, we are very alike. i'm afraid i do still eat fish, but not really that often. i keep it in my diet because i love sushi far too much. but, health is a big factor in my vegetarianism and most fish is far healthier than meat, obviously. i was a vegetarian for a year, pescatarian for two years, but i had to stop when i was waiting tables at a bar that only served nasty bar food. our shifts were a minimum of 10 hours long with about a 7min break (if you're lucky) and the vegetarian options offered left a lot of holes in my diet. i've worked over 14 hours there w/o a break several times, a vegetarian diet just wasn't enough to keep me going under those conditions.
this bar also had a lot to do with the fact that i still smoke. if you smoked, you got a smoke break every 3 hours, but if you didn't... well, you didn't get a break. i needed those breaks just for my sanity sometimes, believe me. how many times have i gone back into that little room (we called it the "smoke hole" lol) and just kicked stuff or cried a little or meditated for 10 minutes, then felt relieved enough to get back to work and do it all over again? but now my situation has changed and i want to make some moves toward some healthier decisions. i understand what you're saying about guilt, that does make a lot of sense and i will keep that in mind. my girlfriend has just started taking a pill to help her quit smoking (against my warnings) so i will probably be quitting pretty soon here. i actually quit for a while not too long ago, until i found out she didn't hold up her end and her smoking around me all the time just led me to saying, "fuck it, gimme a cig". but i think if we can do it together, it's much more likely we will be successful. i really haven't been smoking that long anyways. i just started out of spite during my last breakup, haha. but that's another story...

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Yeah. I wish I wasn't drinking coffee, and have stopped in the past, and will again, but am not quite ready to do so just yet. These conversations with you and

dorjejaguar are bringing me closer. :)

It does sound like coffee is more than just chemical addiction with you. I don't know whether that is a good thing, or a bad thing, or neither. :)

Wow! Work conditions are the pits in USA. We have laws against that kind of thing here. The weird thing it is in the interests of employers to keep their staff happy and operating at peak efficiency. Countless studies have shown that people become irritable and make many mistakes if they don't get regular breaks. But employers have constantly fought against improving workplace conditions. Weird. I think it is because most see themselves not as employers, but as slaveowners. All that time spent trying to undo slavery and here it is still, in disguise.

I completely understand smoking because your partner did. It's the same reason I started using heroin ages ago. I stopped decades ago, when we split up. Contrary to what people like to say, I'm finding caffeine much harder to quit. Ending opiates was a snap... probably because I never really enjoyed it. I loved being in the same state as my girlfriend, but that was all about loving her, not the drug.

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yeah, we have laws against that here too... haha. i don't know what it is, but the restaurant industry seems to somehow be exempt from all that. waitresses get paid $2.65/hr. (vs. the normal mininmum wage of $7.40) plus tips, and i think it has something to do with it. because you make all of your money on tips, i think people don't really complain. they'd rather catch the next table instead of taking a proper break. timing is also really difficult when tables keep coming in. the only reason i was able to do that job at all was because i existed on free soup crackers, pop, and other girl's food, haha. at least we were all good at sharing.

that's crazy about heroine addiction. i have no experience with hard drugs, but for the past several years, my cousin has been battling this addiction. i grew up with her and for most of my life called her my best friend, but i have seen her do things i never would have expected. stealing from our cousin whom she worked for, stealing from her mother, she's constantly in and out of jail/rehab. it's odd for me to think that quitting caffeine could be harder than all that, heh. it sounds to me like it was a very mental thing for you though. unfortunately, even if you try to talk to her about it... it seems as though she just says what she knows you want to hear. then a few weeks or months later, i always inevitably find out that she's using again.

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That's unfortunate about your cousin. I guess she hasn't really found a compelling reason to stop. Complicating any argument against drug use is the fact that addictive drugs create their own need and thereby skew the user's value system in favor of continued use. It is a very difficult thing to disentangle it from your "normal" judgments because in a sense we don't have a normal way of thinking. We change from hour to hour and day to day. Something that I like early in the morning may irritate the hell out of me late at night. One day I'll love visiting the coast, and another day I'll wonder how anybody wanting to retain some shred of sanity could even consider spending any time there. One day I'll see a sunset that will leave me breathless with awe, and another I'll see a similar or even more stunning one that feels merely nice. Add drugs onto our shifting natures and it isn't so surprising that one day she'll see that it is ruining her life, then another she'll think, fuckit I need another hit no matter what. It is a pity.

My brother gave up cigarettes so many times that he once told me that he had given up giving up. But he did eventually kill the habit. How? He just decided to. He just never had that next cigarette. Afterwards he was pissed off that he'd spent so much time and effort trying and in the end he just did it because he had reason to.

I think I was never particularly interested in heroin in the first place, so stopping never presented a great problem. My values all lie in another direction. I've known all along that speed was the drug I'd have to be careful of, so I avoided it. I think I might have had difficulty getting off that if I'd been unwise enough to get involved. I don't know... I have a feeling that my ability to think clearly is too valuable for me to get addicted to that either.

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oops. this is late, but i've been avoiding the internets as of late haha.

i really liked what you said about our shifting nature. it reminds me a lot of a buddhist concept called the 10 worlds. but since buddhism typically gives explanations/parables for what we do see in everyday life, it's not exactly interesting enough to provide an explanation... especially since you already seem to have a pretty firm grasp of the concept. i hadn't thought about applying it to drug use though.

i understand exactly what you mean about the drug thing. for example, i have heard that ecstasy is fantastic. one friend told me that the pleasure he received from ecstasy was a million times better than any sex he could ever have. i also like techno music a lot, but these two things frequently tend to go together. a friend of mine told me he enjoys techno music, but it always seems lacking whenever he's not on E so techno really just makes him want to do drugs. for this reason, he has found that he has to avoid clubs to avoid drugs. but for me, i've never opened that door so i am able to enjoy the experience just as it is and not constantly wish for something else. i have no doubt that i would probably enjoy E, i just don't ever want to go there. i'd rather just be happy with the situation as presented and not desire some completely harmful illegal chemical. i do believe that there is such a thing as having too much fun.

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heheh :) I haven't been using it much lately either. Been putting up with headaches for the last couple of days because I stopped drinking caffeine at long last. This time I won't take it up again.

The buddhist connection is interesting. Thanks for that. It stands to reason that it is one of the things they'd tend to see better than most. I have a lot of time for the thoughtfulness of buddhism.

Keeping away from something that you know you'd enjoy too much sounds weird on the surface of it, but I always remember some horrible experiments done decades ago, where some ghoulish experimenters inserted electrodes into what they thought might be the pleasure centers of rats' brains and let them press a lever to energise the electrode. (We humans can be such monsters!) The idea was that they were dosing themselves with pure pleasure. The poor damn rats ended up dying because they neglected to eat and drink, endlessly pressing the lever. That always stuck in my mind. But even more horrifying is that the experimenters were wrong; they weren't pleasure centers, but were to do with compulsion. So these poor little guys were trapped in an endless cycle of compulsive behavior. Nevertheless the concept of substituting fake pleasure for real pleasure is still a valid one. Real pleasure aims to make you better able to live (even if it doesn't always work out for the best). Fake pleasure is not related to life at all, and can much more easily easily get in the way of it.

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that's pretty messed up about the rats. interesting though. yes, our society is very wrapped up in fake pleasures though, even aside from drugs. our materialistic yearnings, which many attribute to a 'pleasure', will eventually cause more misery. getting that camero you always wanted will only create more worry and attachment. be it just the natural unstoppable decay of the physical or an often inevitable scratch or accident. this is a very basic premise of buddhism. attachment makes real happiness unattainable.

regarding drug use though, i know many pot heads who need to be high each and every day to "feel normal", as they say. they say without pot, they are too stressed and don't feel right. but life is stressful! lol. they avoid actually dealing with life and it's problems by running to a drug which makes them feel that life is different. but avoiding reality is not helpful and just creates more stress when one is thrust back into it. it is very sad to me that some people's lives are this way. in buddhism, real happiness is attained by dedicating yourself to others and helping them find their happiness. self-centered happiness is too fleeting so the goal is to realize the connection between everyone and everything so that eventually, others happiness does become your own. most problems arise from the illusion that it is us vs. them and a need to establish your own superiority.

fyi, i'm not there yet, haha. but i try! i'm currently in the state where i still very much act on impulse, but i know enough to contemplate my actions afterward and try to do better in the future.

since you seem interested, i'll give you a small overview of the ten worlds. basically, the philosophy is that we live in an ever shifting state of 10 worlds/life states.

these are: hell, hunger, animality, anger, humanity/tranquility, rapture/heaven, learning, realization, bodhisattva, and buddha.

the first 6 are called the lower life states because any human beings can experience these without much effort. they do not help much for self improvement. on the other hand, the last 4 require effort and are considered positive life states. however, it is said that all of these exist within us simultaneously. buddha exists in hell, realization in anger, etc. so no matter what life state you are currently in, the potential for greater is still there. it is also said that even though they are referred to as the "lower 6", that does not mean that there is no good in the bad. going through "hell" is often needed to develop empathy for others experiencing the same situation. "anger" can be redirected toward an oppressive force for the betterment of society. even the fleeting emotion of "rapture/heaven" can give us a renewed sense of purpose at times.

this concept is also used to attribute to the shifting nature, like we were talking about before. i read one book that described it in this way:

imagine that there are two people driving up a mountain. storm clouds begin to form and a light rain develops.
the first person feels the mountain is menacing. the sky then begins to darken and even worse! now it's raining! he is depressed and feels on edge.
the second person, however, is thoroughly enjoying the scenery. the mountain is beautiful and majestic in his mind. he sees the birds flying and the interesting mountain animals. then it begins to rain and he notices the interesting cloud formations. he enjoys the sound of the light pitter patter of rain on the windows and feels at peace, happy to experience this moment.

these are two completely different interpretations of the same event. it is obvious that it is not the external forces causing these feelings, although we often attribute it to them. but rather, it is the external giving rise to the "feelings" already within us. it is actually our nature, something within us, that is shaping our view of the world. once you realize it is not the external, but the internal, then you realize that your emotions/feelings/interpretations are not out of your hands. this concept helped me a lot with my depression. i still become depressed, but i realize now that i am actually in control. i may not be able to affect everything that goes on in the world, but i can affect the way that it affects me.

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"Ending opiates was a snap..."
That's fricking amazing. I've had at least one friend die from doing just that. Maybe more, cause heroin addicts can be very hard to track.
I'm sure you're right, the fact that you weren't all that into it has got to make a difference.
You do seem to enjoy your coffee even if you question why and I doubt it seems like its causing much havoc so it's got to be harder to make a case for quitting that.

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Your friend probably didn't die from heroin withdrawal, they probably overdosed on something else they used to take away the symptoms of withdrawal. I know you can die from alcohol withdrawal, but I'm pretty sure you can't die from heroin withdrawal.

There are two things that keep me using caffeine. I need to leave a window of 3 days for the headaches and sore skin and joints that I get from the withdrawal, and I value the little lift the drink gives me (even though I know it is probably simply alleviating the longer term caffeine-induced tiredness).

At this stage I am on track to giving caffeine up next week. Hopefully there will not be any visitors next Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

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Well that's possible, however you can die from heroin withdrawal. Really. I think it depends largely on how long term the addiction is and how healthy the person is. And whether they have access to proper medical care.
Thankfully not everyone does have to die for it, but some can and do although with good medical care they probably wouldn't have.

Hokay, that makes me sad, moving on.

Good luck on your caffeine thing.
Perhaps you should put a sign on your door, or let people know to leave you be for those days.
My man when he gave up cigarettes for the last time, he'd figured out he needed to go away for at least 3 days. And he did that, and it was good.

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It should be pretty easy for me. I've done it before. I'm a bit of a hermit, so unless someone makes a surprise visit, which is very rare, I should be able to sleep and read my way through it. The trick is not to have to stay up nights to meet deadlines like I've had to do before... and ending up on the caffeine again.

Your guy sounds like he's smart and considerate. Good strategy -- eases the load on you and him.

I know a lovely person who tries to escape when the stress of weaning off drink and smokes gets too bad. Unfortunately she visits another nice person who drinks and smokes. Oops.

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It took my man a few tries to get that right, but yes, he's smart, he figured it out.

Good luck with your plan. :)

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For well over a decade I had a major panic attack problem, generally triggered by odd heartbeats, and plagued the ER people a lot, thinking I was on the point of death. Then one day I got a bigger arrhythmia, and they did a full investigation, and the consultant suggested coming right off caffeine. (I already knew that 4 or more cups a day was too much, but thought I was OK with 2.) I tried it -- a couple of weeks of feeling a bit grouchy and maybe slightly slow, but... the arrhythmias and panic attacks disappeared almost completely. I still get a few, but around 1% of what I used to (i.e. average rate from at least one a day to a few per year). It really has transformed my life.

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