Recapturing high times

I just got back from 12 days in Europe, a few of which were spent in Amsterdam.

A former weed enthusiast in my 20s, I was anxious to partake in some of what the city had to offer in the way of legal marijuana—and I did and it was wonderful.




Prior to Amsterdam, while I had fun on the trip, I was experiencing too much stress and annoyance from family members. They were really getting to me. As I'm sure many moms feel, being on vacation with these people was no vacation. Their unending needs were still there, only in an unfamiliar place and more difficult to fulfill. That, coupled with the nagging idea that I shouldn't always have to be catering to other people's needs and asking myself why does it have to be this way...put me in some funky moods along the way. But not in Amsterdam.

Pretty quickly after settling in to the hotel and making a falafel stop, I insisted on breaking away on my own to do what I needed to do. My husband actually put up resistance. "Why do you need to do drugs the minute you get here?" And on and on. I was thinking, you, you are the reason I need to do drugs the minute I get here—ha ha!

The way he called marijuana "drugs" was offputting to me. I view it as more of a good, strong beer, but with a mental and spiritual vibe that goes beyond a drink. We watch Breaking Bad, I've seen plenty of "drugs are so bad/addicts are so sad" movies and such and marijuana is just not the same. It's not a gateway, unless you are thinking it is a gateway to "heaven," or, to letting one see and feel life on another plane for a while and a gateway to self-discovery—if used properly. It's not physically addicting, after all, and not particularly harmful to the body. Alcohol is more harmful and by now most of us have heard potential dangers of caffeine and sugar, too, but, I digress.

Admittedly, the way I used it in my younger years was probably not the best. A near daily habit to escape the drudgery of life it should not be. One should change their life. But, it's not always so easy. Dan Savage brilliantly discusses pot use in Skipping Towards Gomorrah (the chapter on sloth). He observes how Americans work more than any other nation's people, are more productive—and smoke more pot. "...pot not only doesn't have a negative impact on the productivity of the American worker, but [it] also makes it possible for the American worker...to be as productive as we are..." He further explains, "While the workweek shrinks and vacation time grows for European workers, the amount of time Americans spend at work continues to grow...How do we work like crazy without going crazy...I think pot has a lot to do with it. It's just a hunch..." Savage cites studies that have shown marijuana interferes with the ability to judge correctly the passage of time. "In other words, pot slows stuff down—way, way down," he writes.

And indeed, I was taking notes while I was high in Amsterdam, trying to figure out how I'd recapture the good feelings I was experiencing without actually having weed at home, and I noted that I run at too high and idle and I need something to slow me down. I need help relaxing. Marijuana is a damn good shortcut.

It's not a shortcut I have regular access to at home, though, and while I could probably track some down, my husband is very much against it and reminds me it is not legal. I even explain to him I would not smoke every day. I wouldn't want to anymore at my age. There's too much to do! (Ha ha) I would like to get high maybe once a quarter. I feel like what happened in Amsterdam served as a bit of a vision quest for me. I know that's not the exact right term, as a vision quest involves deprivation and solitude in the wilderness and I was basically rambling along through a bustling city high for three days (via one carefully toked joint and 4 space cakes over time). But what I mean is that it took me out of myself for a long enough time where I was able to see things in new ways, make notes and observations about what I need "in real life" and just kind of do a re-set. I can respect my husband not wanting me to do something that is illegal and maybe risking our home and life. I think it is extremely unfortunate and wrong that marijuana is illegal, however. (Savage cites a great article by National Review's Richard Lowry in his book.) I won't say that if I had easy access I wouldn't partake, though. A little civil disobedience.

What's important now, though, is doing the work to achieve the things I learned while I was high. Yes, that's right, it does involve more work. I recently read this fascinating article in the New York Times highlighting a series of fascinating commonalities in medical conditions among humans and animals—and the section on addiction and animals "getting high" was particularly interesting. The article says:

Foraging, stalking prey, hoarding food, searching for and finding a desirable mate, and nest building are all examples of activities that greatly enhance an animal’s chances of survival and reproduction, or what biologists call fitness. Animals are rewarded with pleasurable, positive sensations for these important life-sustaining undertakings. Pleasure rewards behaviors that help us survive.

Conversely, unpleasant feelings like fear and isolation indicate to animals that they are in survival-threatening situations. Anxiety makes them careful. Fear keeps them out of harm’s way.

And one thing creates, controls and shapes these sensations, whether positive or negative: a cacophonous chemical conversation in the brains and nervous systems of animals. Time-melting opioids, reality-revving dopamine, boundary-softening oxytocin, appetite-enhancing cannabinoids and a multitude of other neurohormones reward behavior.

We humans get drug rewards for life-sustaining activities just as animals do. We simply call those activities by different names: Shopping. Accumulating wealth. Dating. House hunting. Interior decorating. Cooking.

When these behaviors have been studied in humans, they are associated with rises in the release of certain natural chemicals, including dopamine and opiates.

The key point is that behaviors are the triggers. Do something that evolution has favored, and you get a hit. Don’t do it, and you don’t get your fix.

And this is precisely why drugs can so brutally derail lives. Ingesting, inhaling or injecting intoxicants — in concentrations far higher than our bodies were designed to reward us with — overwhelms a system carefully calibrated over millions of years. These substances hijack our internal mechanisms. They remove the need for the animal to input a behavior, before receiving a chemical dose. In other words, pharmaceuticals and street drugs offer a false fast track to reward — a shortcut to the sensation that we’re doing something beneficial.

This is a critical nuance for understanding addiction. With access to external drugs, the animal isn’t required to “work” first — to forage, flee, socialize or protect. Instead, he goes straight to reward. The chemicals provide a false signal to the animal’s brain that his fitness has improved, although it has not actually changed at all.

Why go through a half-hour of awkward small talk at an office party when a martini or two can trick your brain into thinking you’ve already done some social bonding? Drugs tell users’ brains that they’ve just done an important, fitness-enhancing task.

Ultimately, however, the powerful urge to use and reuse is provided by brain biology that evolved because it maximized survival. Seen this way, we’re all born addicts. Substance addiction and behavioral addiction are linked. Their common language is in the shared neurocircuitry that rewards fitness-promoting behaviors.

Consider the most common behavioral addictions from an evolutionary perspective. Sex. Binge eating. Exercise. Working. They are exceedingly fitness enhancing.

I know that's a long portion to quote, but I thought it was really good. I like marijuana—a lot. But, I do recognize the "shortcut" aspect of a drug and it's value in careful use over habitual use that might put someone in a loop of forever "shortcutting" and never growing or fulfilling real, true "fitness enhancing."

So, I must now dig into my notes from being high and look into practices for day to day life that can help me feel the calmness, the love and peace, the sense that everything was OK, that I felt in Amsterdam. (They are probably not "Shopping. Accumulating wealth. Dating. House hunting. Interior decorating. Cooking." as that article notes and more likely sex, exercise, mediation and maybe some ritualistic grooming (?)—more on all coming soon, and I'll further explain the last one...

Still, the quarterly smoke would be nice.