Addiction and Recovery: An Experiment

November 30, 2009 in Thoughts on Life with 3 Comments

Today marks my ninth day clean from a two year opiate addiction. For two years of my life, I’ve been spending extraordinary amounts of time in the bathroom, extraordinary amounts of money on just one thing, and much more time counting, adding, calculating, waiting. Will I have enough to get me through until my next paycheck? Will I have to borrow money? How much is left in this bag? When did I take my last dose? If I take more now will I run out and get sick? Suddenly, I don’t have to worry about these things any more. It’s an incredible relief to not have to live your life around doses of a chemical. For once, I can tell which feelings are natural to who I am, and which were caused by the chemicals I was taking. I’m actually very grateful, because if it weren’t for a legal herb called kratom, I would have never been able to come off my 240 mg/day oxycodone habit. In spite of my success, however, the battle is not yet over.

For one, although my regular withdrawal symptoms have ended, I am now facing what is known as post-acute withdrawal. That is, I have intense periods of restlessness that come and go throughout the day, bad muscle aches that come and go, and intense cravings that come and go. The restlessness, to me, is the worst of all. I feel like I can’t focus on anything.

General knowledge has it that addiction is a chronic neurological disease, and that the addict needs to develop a recovery regimen after quitting his or her drug of choice. It is almost always believed or at least implied that recovery is a life-long process. Thus, a non-active addict is always a “recovering” addict, and never a “recovered” or “ex”-addict. Continue Reading…

November is National Epilepsy Awareness Month

November 16, 2009 in Thoughts on Life with 1 Comment

Despite afflicting over 1% of the population — that is, 3,000,000 Americans and 50,000,000 people worldwide — epilepsy is still relatively unknown to the average person. When most people think of epilepsy, they think of a person flailing around on the ground involuntarily. This type of seizure, known as a “tonic clonic” or “grand mal” seizure, is one form that epilepsy can take, however it does not represent the majority of what epileptics go through.

The truth is, epilepsy is not a single disorder; it is a category of seizure disorders which can take many different forms. It is very common for people with epilepsy to have seizures which are not noticeable to other people. Absence seizures, simple partial seizures, and complex partial seizures may all go unnoticed. A seizure may be as simple as smelling something that isn’t there or having some strange emotions. Partial seizures may cause hallucinatory experiences, loss of the ability to speak, inability to walk, complete loss of awareness, or simple loss of awareness of the world around the patient while a single, intense, and terrible emotion dominates the entire perception of this person. Imagine losing all of your senses and only perceiving intense fear for what feels like an eternity.

Although there are medications to treat epilepsy, 30% of epileptics will be unable to achieve seizure control with any form of treatment. Those who do manage to achieve control of their seizures are in for a lifetime of terrible medication side effects, including hair loss, sedation, inability to sleep, emotional outbursts, or any number of other things — depending of course on the medication or (unfortunately, very frequently required) combination thereof.
Continue Reading…

Is Life Sacred?

November 9, 2009 in Anarchism/Politics with 1 Comment

I am quite baffled lately by the number of individuals who claim to think in a rational manner, yet are not bothered by their severe cognitive dissonance.

Such individuals will make the claim that abortion is wrong on the grounds that life is sacred, and then turn around and support the death penalty. If the taking of anything resembling life (e.g. a fetus) in any case (e.g. the mother will die if it is not aborted) is wrong, then why is capital punishment okay?

This statement, in particular, troubled me:

Agreed…that is what is wrong with our legal system, we know they did it, just kill them already. Insane? who cares, they won’t be productive citizens anyway so why keep them alive in a prison for 40yrs?

Continue Reading…

Gay Marriage

November 6, 2009 in Anarchism/Politics, Sexuality, Thoughts on Life with 0 Comments

As time goes on, it seems a number of people are finally conceding to the idea that gays should be allowed to have equal legal rights regarding partnerships as heterosexual couples. This is definitely a step forward from the (unfortunately, still prevalent) dark age idea that homosexual relationships simply do not work, are unnatural, or are damaging to families. It is argued that gays do not honour commitment in relationships, yet everywhere I look, I see gay couples who have been together 12, 20, 40 years. Sure, there are plenty of gays who have “one nighters” or short term relationships, but how is that *any* different in the heterosexual population? If the public perception indicates that gays do not have long-term relationships, it is only because that same public is hostile enough that it either drives apart those relationships or forces them out of the public view.

Even with the progress which has been made in this arena, we still have a number of bigots insisting that, even with full equal rights, we assign a name such as “domestic partnership” or something equally ridiculous to a legally-bound homosexual relationship. The argument is that marriage is a traditional institution between a man and a woman, and usually this argument is accompanied by a phrase such as: “. . .and I’ll be damned if these f**king neo-liberals corrupt the word to fit their agenda!”

These same bigots would likely have said, a number of years ago: “sure, women should have equal say in electing officials, but traditionally, voting is a relationship between a man and his government. When a woman does it, it needs to have a different name.”

I won’t even go into the fact that historically, marriage didn’t just refer to a union between a man and a woman, but that this union was also restricted to people of the same race, religion, and social class. I’m sure there is a “perfectly rational” justification why marriage between a same-sex couple is not okay, whereas marriage between a Buddhist and a Jew is, right?

A cursory glance at history will show that the policy of “separate but not equal” simply doesn’t work. Why are we treating marriage like it is a magical exception to this rule?

Addiction #1: Slaying Dragons

September 17, 2009 in Thoughts on Life with 0 Comments

Decided to post a slightly edited version of something I posted on a forum a few months ago. . .

As some here might know, I was addicted to oxycodone for a while, and then switched to kratom when I became fed up with my oxy addiction. I started out taking Enhanced Bali every 4 hours and now only take it twice a day, 1/4 tsp each time. I’ve been off oxy and have been using kratom for three months now. Right now I’m doing the maintenance thing, but I’ll eventually get off completely when I’m ready. Some people say you’re never ready, but that’s also what they told me when I said I’d eventually be ready to quit my 30 mg per 3 hours habit of oxy.

I have a success story from this morning I’d like to share.
Continue Reading…

iPhone 3G S – Initial Impressions

June 21, 2009 in Computing with 0 Comments

The new iPhone 3G S was released on Friday, and I was there near the front of the line to be among the first (several thousands of) people to get one. Prior to this, I had a really cheap Samsung flip-phone, and before that I had an LG version of the RAZR, on which I really loved the rotating camera — a feature that I haven’t seen since, unfortunately. That is to say, I have never had a particularly nice phone before, and because I’m going back to school for Computer Science in the fall, I figured a smartphone was just what I needed to help me stay on top of my game.
Continue Reading…

“My altar is of open brass work”

June 8, 2009 in Thelema with 1 Comment

Thought I’d do a really quick analysis of this statement from Liber AL (III:30) as I always wondered about it. A quick Google search doesn’t pull up much that really describes “open brass work,” although I’m guessing it has to do with brass plating or something of the sort. We do have this interesting reference [source]:

In the middle was an altar, bearing a brass plate, upon which were engraved the letters, A. C. R. C; and the words, Hoc Universi Compendium vivus mihi Sepulchrum fec

. . .and of course Solomon’s Vessel of Brass.

So what is brass exactly? According to Wikipedia, “Brass is any alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.”
Continue Reading…

Thelema for the Attention Deficient

May 23, 2009 in Thelema with 4 Comments

Due to the great difficulty of finding an easy to understand guide to Thelema which does not bore its readers back to whence they came, I have written this. With all due respect to Thelema 101, which does a decent job, I hope that this is something that allows for comprehension even by someone with no prior background knowledge on the subject. This is meant to be *very* general and basic, hopefully not at the expense of too much accuracy.

What is Thelema? Continue Reading…

The Tunis Comment

May 17, 2009 in Thelema with 1 Comment

This brief writeup was inspired by my OTO brethren at Pyramid Lodge yesterday, during a book discussion. Although the original idea for this interpretation is not mine, the line by line analysis that follows is. I have not come across this interpretation elsewhere online, and thus I think it is worthy of mention.

When asked about their opinion on the Tunis Comment, the Class A document found at the back of Liber CCXX, most Thelemites say something like “I ignore it, I think it was a joke” or “it was to prevent dogma” or “it was used to shut up an annoying pupil who kept asking Crowley questions” or “it is meant as a test — being Class A it represents ultimate authority, and to really be a king, you can’t let any outside authority take precedence over your own.” While these interpretations may be interesting, I will not cover them here as they are discussed at length in many places online. This interpretation sees The Comment as more of a warning than a command, contrary to the initial impression most get from reading it. Continue Reading…

How to Make Cakes of Light — A Pictoral Commentary

May 14, 2009 in Thelema with 5 Comments

I decided it was time to try making my own Cakes of Light, so as to enhance my Gnostic Mass experience and allow for performance of the Mass of the Phoenix, a daily Thelemic eucharist. At this stage in my life, I think I agree with Crowley’s emphasis on the importance of the daily consumption of a eucharist.

After checking Google, there seem to be two main recipes that can be easily found [note: I found a bunch more after writing this, by searching things like "thick leavings of red wine" and such as opposed to "cakes of light"]. I’m not sure of the origin of the first, but in depth instructions regarding it are given in Rodney Orpheus’ Abrahadabra: Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thelemic Magick (ISBN 1-57863-326-5) The second is a recipe by someone who goes by the name “Aisha.” They can be found at these locations, respectively: Continue Reading…

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