Consuming Alcohol Quotes

We are all in search of feeling more connected to reality—to other people, the times we live in, the natural world, our character, and our own uniqueness. Our culture increasingly tends to separate us from these realities in various ways. We indulge in drugs or alcohol, or engage in dangerous sports or risky behavior, just to wake ourselves up from the sleep of our daily existence and feel a heightened sense of connection to reality. In the end, however, the most satisfying and powerful way to feel this connection is through creative activity. Engaged in the creative process we feel more alive than ever, because we are making something and not merely consuming, Masters of the small reality we create. In doing this work, we are in fact creating ourselves.

A wound not fully felt consumes from the inside. We must run very hard if we want to stay one step ahead of this pain. Exhausted, we try to bury it with drugs, alcohol, overwork, television, physical activity. We are a very creative species—we can use just about anything to anesthetize ourselves. But in doing so, we also remove ourselves from feeling the joy.

No alcohol, Riley." She nodded at the screen. "How are you liking the twenty-first century?" Riley burped. "The Take That are most melodic. And God bless Harry Potter is all I can say. If not for him, all of London would have been consumed by the dark arts.

Ideally, alcohol should be consumed in private. I dislike going to the pub, becoming jolly and ending up talking to people I would rather see injected with bleach.

Janx Spirit : Janx Spirit is a rather potent alcoholic beverage, and is used heavily in drinking games that are played in the hyperspace ports that serve the madranite mining belts in the star system of Orion Beta. The game is not unlike the Earth game called Indian Wrestling, and is played like this: Two contestants sit at either side of a table, with a glass in front of each of them. Between them would be placed a bottle of Janx Spirit — as immortalized in that ancient Orion mining song : “Oh don’t give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit No, don’t you give me no more of that Old Janx Spirit For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die Won’t you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit” Each of the two contestants would then concentrate their will on the bottle and attempt to tip it and pour spirit into the glass of his opponent – who would then have to drink it. The bottle would then be refilled. The game would be played again. And again. Once you started to lose you would probably keep losing, because one of the effects of Janx spirit is to depress telepsychic power. As soon as a predetermined quantity had been consumed, the final loser would have to perform a forfeit, which was usually obscenely biological.

To be certain you're consuming the real deal, look carefully at the label. W-h-i-s-k-e-y indicates the heavenly liquid from the Emerald Isle. Without the "e," it's from Scotland or some other godforsaken place.

People consuming even moderate amounts of alcohol in the afternoon and/or evening are thus depriving themselves of dream sleep.

We shouldn’t want to force anyone to read, just as little as we should want to force people to go to the movies, listen to music, have sex, or consume alcoholic beverages. Literature doesn’t belong in a secondary school. No, it belongs more on the list of things I just mentioned. The list that includes sex and drugs, all the things that give us pleasure without any external coercion. A required reading list? How dare we!

The happiest people on earth worked hard for their fulfillment. They didn’t just have the most peak experiences, they had devoted their lives to having these experiences, often, as Csikszentmihalyi explained in his 1996 book Creativity, going to extreme lengths to seek them out: It was clear from talking to them, that what kept them motivated was the quality of the experience they felt when they were involved with the activity. The feeling didn’t come when they were relaxing, when they were taking drugs or alcohol, or when they were consuming the expensive privileges of wealth. Rather, it often involved painful, risky, difficult activities that stretched the person’s capacity and involved an element of novelty and discovery.

Oh my God,’ she said. ‘I need a drink.’ I was not sure why she was sharing this information with someone she had known for only forty-six minutes. I planned to consume some alcohol myself when I arrived home but saw no reason to inform Julie.

It wasn't some Puritan thing. Straight-edge was asking adherents to take control of their lives, not to be blind consumers, and not to be tricked into thinking that drinking and drugs were cool since in fact they were the tools of a previous generation

Given that the pre-frontal cortex is a key to our success as a species, consuming any amount of alcohol or other intoxicant seems really stupid.

We love to protect alcohol and our right to consume it, and to vilify people who can’t handle it. We venerate the substance; we demonize those who get sick from using it.

It was clear from talking to them, that what kept them motivated was the quality of the experience they felt when they were involved with the activity. The feeling didn’t come when they were relaxing, when they were taking drugs or alcohol, or when they were consuming the expensive privileges of wealth. Rather, it often involved painful, risky, difficult activities that stretched the person’s capacity and involved an element of novelty and discovery.

social media addict? This is a very real problem—so much so that researchers from Norway developed a new instrument to measure Facebook addiction called the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale.[3] Social media has become as ubiquitous as television in our everyday lives, and this research shows that multitasking social media can be as addictive as drugs, alcohol, and chemical substance abuse. A large number of friends on social media networks may appear impressive, but according to a new report, the more social circles a person is linked to, the more likely the social media will be a source of stress.[4] It can also have a detrimental effect on consumer well-being because milkshake-multitasking interferes with clear thinking and decision-making, which lowers self-control and leads to rash, impulsive buying and poor eating decisions. Greater social media use is associated with a higher body mass index, increased binge eating, a lower credit score, and higher levels of credit card debt for consumers with many close friends in their social network—all caused by a lack of self-control.[5] We Can Become Shallow

5. Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I vow to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I vow to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films, and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion in myself and in society by practicing a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society.

Loving someone is like getting addicted to alcohol; you don’t start consuming it because you want to, but because you need to. Once you begin, it’s tough to stop, and by the time you stop, you aren’t the same as before.

Imagine a person who enjoys alcohol, perhaps a bit too much. He has a quick three or four drinks. His blood alcohol level spikes sharply. This can be extremely exhilarating, particularly for someone who has a genetic predisposition to alcoholism.23 But it only occurs while blood alcohol levels are actively rising, and that only continues if the drinker keeps drinking. When he stops, not only does his blood alcohol level plateau and then start to sink, but his body begins to produce a variety of toxins, as it metabolizes the ethanol already consumed. He also starts to experience alcohol withdrawal, as the anxiety systems that were suppressed during intoxication start to hyper-respond. A hangover is alcohol withdrawal (which quite frequently kills withdrawing alcoholics), and it starts all too soon after drinking ceases. To continue the warm glow, and stave off the unpleasant aftermath, the drinker may just continue to drink, until all the liquor in his house is consumed, the bars are closed and his money is spent. The next day, the drinker wakes up, badly hungover. So far, this is just unfortunate. The real trouble starts when he discovers that his hangover can be “cured” with a few more drinks the morning after. Such a cure is, of course, temporary. It merely pushes the withdrawal symptoms a bit further into the future. But that might be what is required, in the short term, if the misery is sufficiently acute. So now he has learned to drink to cure his hangover. When the medication causes the disease, a positive feedback loop has been established.

Being me is a job — is labour so time-consuming and expensive that I have to have a second job just to support it. So that I can drink, I have to get drink and that isn’t something people give away and then there’s drink that I need because I have drunk and the other drink I have to keep around because, sooner or later, I will drink it. That’s a full-time occupation: that’s like being a miner, or a nurse.

All of the Indians must have tragic features: tragic noses, eyes, and arms. Their hands and fingers must be tragic when they reach for tragic food. The hero must be a half-breed, half white and half Indian, preferably from a horse culture. He should often weep alone. That is mandatory. If the hero is an Indian woman, she is beautiful. She must be slender and in love with a white man. But if she loves an Indian man then he must be a half-breed, preferably from a horse culture. If the Indian woman loves a white man, then he has to be so white that we can see the blue veins running through his skin like rivers. When the Indian woman steps out of her dress, the white man gasps at the endless beauty of her brown skin. She should be compared to nature: brown hills, mountains, fertile valleys, dewy grass, wind, and clear water. If she is compared to murky water, however, then she must have a secret. Indians always have secrets, which are carefully and slowly revealed. Yet Indian secrets can be disclosed suddenly, like a storm. Indian men, of course, are storms. The should destroy the lives of any white women who choose to love them. All white women love Indian men. That is always the case. White women feign disgust at the savage in blue jeans and T-shirt, but secretly lust after him. White women dream about half-breed Indian men from horse cultures. Indian men are horses, smelling wild and gamey. When the Indian man unbuttons his pants, the white woman should think of topsoil. There must be one murder, one suicide, one attempted rape. Alcohol should be consumed. Cars must be driven at high speeds. Indians must see visions. White people can have the same visions if they are in love with Indians. If a white person loves an Indian then the white person is Indian by proximity. White people must carry an Indian deep inside themselves. Those interior Indians are half-breed and obviously from horse cultures. If the interior Indian is male then he must be a warrior, especially if he is inside a white man. If the interior Indian is female, then she must be a healer, especially if she is inside a white woman. Sometimes there are complications. An Indian man can be hidden inside a white woman. An Indian woman can be hidden inside a white man. In these rare instances, everybody is a half-breed struggling to learn more about his or her horse culture. There must be redemption, of course, and sins must be forgiven. For this, we need children. A white child and an Indian child, gender not important, should express deep affection in a childlike way. In the Great American Indian novel, when it is finally written, all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts.

Which has more caffeine--tea or coffee? Maybe it is a reflection of our constant struggle to ward off sleep, or simply the desire for that scintillating buzz that comes from a good cup of Joe. In the United States, more than 80 percent of people consume caffeine in one form or another every day. Worldwide it is the most popular drug, far ahead of nicotine and alcohol. Some anthropologists speculate that its use may date as far back as the Stone Age.

Humor, drama, romance, whatever genre of entertainment you create or consume is only effective if it is challenging to your sensibilities. When the sexuality of seeing a woman’s ankles became trumped by her calf, society changed. When the calf was later trumped by a woman offering shots of alcohol from her vagina on Rock of Love, society changed again. My hope for this world is that we can soon run out of shocking body parts and can finally see the humor in our ætheric bodies.

There, there, best to bring it all up,' she said. My memory was in shreds. Imagine a photograph cut into narrow strips then jumbled up. Everything is there, but you can't see the whole picture and even the strips have no bearing on reality. I did know I had consumed a large amount of alcohol. But I must have done something crazier than just being found drunk to have a nurse sitting by my bed. I thought it would be a good idea to say something and planned it for several seconds. 'She's all right,' I said. 'Who is?' asked the nurse. 'Alice. I'm all right now.' As I spoke I wondered if I had said something wrong. didn't sound like me. There were so many voices muttering in the background it was hard to tell.

...we are simply not well adapted, evolutionarily, to be able to consume alcohol safety outside of the traditional context of ritual and social controls.

I’d have thought he was kidding about the bacon if I hadn’t seen Major Xiaolang’s dragoo consume bacon like an alcoholic would a fine brandy.

It is absurd and dangerous to imagine that God would have approved and encouraged the moderate use of a substance which intoxicates our organism, irrespective of the amount consumed.

Bob neither smoked nor drank. In public or at professional events, if he felt he had to consume alcohol, he would sometimes order one drink and nurse it for the duration of the event.

A glass or two of red wine may be good for your heart but not for your microbiome. Studies show that just one drink per day in women and two in men can induce dysbiosis and bacterial overgrowth. Levels of good bacteria like Lactobacillus fall, while potential pathogens rise, leading to an increase in toxins and other chemicals that can cause inflammation, damage the liver, and increase permeability of the gut. Most of the overgrowth happens in the small intestine and can lead to malnourishment because the excess bacteria consume the nutrients that the small intestine would normally absorb. Some studies report an incidence of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) in alcoholics that’s three times that of the general population.

…alcohol was not consumed by teenagers because of its palatable qualities. It was consumed because it was a useful tool to make you cooler and funnier and less of a socially awkward mess.

The ceremonial differentiation of the dietary is best seen in the use of intoxicating beverages and narcotics. If these articles of consumption are costly, they are felt to be noble and honorific. Therefore the base classes, primarily the women, practice an enforced continence with respect to these stimulants, except in countries where they are obtainable at a very low cost. From archaic times down through all the length of the patriarchal regime it has been the office of the women to prepare and administer these luxuries, and it has been the perquisite of the men of gentle birth and breeding to consume them. Drunkenness and the other pathological consequences of the free use of stimulants therefore tend in their turn to become honorific, as being a mark, at the second remove, of the superior status of those who are able to afford the indulgence. Infirmities induced by over-indulgence are among some peoples freely recognised as manly attributes. It has even happened that the name for certain diseased conditions of the body arising from such an origin has passed into everyday speech as a synonym for "noble" or "gentle". It is only at a relatively early stage of culture that the symptoms of expensive vice are conventionally accepted as marks of a superior status, and so tend to become virtues and command the deference of the community; but the reputability that attaches to certain expensive vices long retains so much of its force as to appreciably lesson the disapprobation visited upon the men of the wealthy or noble class for any excessive indulgence. The same invidious distinction adds force to the current disapproval of any indulgence of this kind on the part of women, minors, and inferiors. This invidious traditional distinction has not lost its force even among the more advanced peoples of today. Where the example set by the leisure class retains its imperative force in the regulation of the conventionalities, it is observable that the women still in great measure practise the same traditional continence with regard to stimulants.

In the eleventh century obese English king William the Conqueror took to bed and consumed nothing but alcohol to shed pounds, a practice many of his countrymen seem to continue to this day.

To begin with, there is an almost compulsive promiscuity associated with homosexual behavior. 75% of homosexual men have more than 100 sexual partners during their lifetime. More than half of these partners are strangers. Only 8% of homosexual men and 7% of homosexual women ever have relationships lasting more than three years. Nobody knows the reason for this strange, obsessive promiscuity. It may be that homosexuals are trying to satisfy a deep psychological need by sexual encounters, and it just is not fulfilling. Male homosexuals average over 20 partners a year. According to Dr. Schmidt, The number of homosexual men who experience anything like lifelong fidelity becomes, statistically speaking, almost meaningless. Promiscuity among homosexual men is not a mere stereotype, and it is not merely the majority experience—it is virtually the only experience. Lifelong faithfulness is almost non-existent in the homosexual experience. Associated with this compulsive promiscuity is widespread drug use by homosexuals to heighten their sexual experiences. Homosexuals in general are three times as likely to be problem drinkers as the general population. Studies show that 47% of male homosexuals have a history of alcohol abuse and 51% have a history of drug abuse. There is a direct correlation between the number of partners and the amount of drugs consumed. Moreover, according to Schmidt, “There is overwhelming evidence that certain mental disorders occur with much higher frequency among homosexuals.” For example, 40% of homosexual men have a history of major depression. That compares with only 3% for men in general. Similarly 37% of female homosexuals have a history of depression. This leads in turn to heightened suicide rates. Homosexuals are three times as likely to contemplate suicide as the general population. In fact homosexual men have an attempted suicide rate six times that of heterosexual men, and homosexual women attempt suicide twice as often as heterosexual women. Nor are depression and suicide the only problems. Studies show that homosexuals are much more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexual men. Whatever the causes of these disorders, the fact remains that anyone contemplating a homosexual lifestyle should have no illusions about what he is getting into. Another well-kept secret is how physically dangerous homosexual behavior is.

Teenage drinking has been declining since 1999, but students vastly overestimate their classmates' use of alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes. For example, a study conducted at a Midwestern high school when teenage alcohol use was peaking found that students believed that 92% of their peers Frank alcohol and 85% smoked cigarettes. When researchers surveyed the school to unearth the actual statistics, they learned that 47% of students had consumed alcohol and 17% smoked.

What happens when you hit your daughter. First, she will bond to you out of fear, mistakenly thinking she has done something wrong, and if she can just manage to not do it again or somehow please you, you might not hit her or anyone else anymore. She will even think you will love her properly if she can earn your approval. She won't realize this is impossible. Then she will either do that with every man she comes within 100 feet of for the rest of her life or until she learns not to - this will take much doing - or she will despise them with such vehemence that she can barely stomach one around. Sometimes she will do a combination of both of those things, working herself into a pattern of push and pull - I love you, I hate you, I need you, I don't need anyone - that will drive her a little crazy. She won't understand at first, if ever, why she only attracts other masochists. Whatever numbing agent she's picked for herself - she will probably try drugs, drink too much alcohol, starve herself or binge and purge, maybe cut herself, act out sexually - in fact, she may do all of those things - that continues to help kill her spirit and dulls her enough to keep her participating in living like a maniac will be consumed to varying degrees depending on need. She will be more likely to commit suicide than if you hadn't abused her. She will give herself away and will mistake admiration and infatuation and sometimes even abuse for love.

We are supposed to consume alcohol and enjoy it, but we're not supposed to become alcoholics. Imagine if this were the same with cocaine. Imagine we grew up watching our parents snort lines at dinner, celebrations, sporting events, brunches, and funerals. We'd sometimes (or often) see our parents coked out of our minds the way we sometimes (or often) see them drunk. We'd witness them coming down after a cocaine binge the way we see them recovering from a hangover. Kiosks at Disneyland would see it so our parents could make it through a day of fun, our mom's book club would be one big blow-fest and instead of "mommy juice" it would be called "mommy powder" There'd be coke-tasting parties in Napa and cocaine cellars in fancy people's homes, and everyone we know (including our pastors, nurses, teachers, coaches, bosses) would snort it. The message we'd pick up as kids could be Cocaine is great, and one day you'll get to try it, too! Just don't become addicted to it or take it too far. Try it; use it responsibly. Don't become a cocaine-oholic though. Now, I'm sure you're thinking. That's insane, everyone knows cocaine is far more addicting than alcohol and far more dangerous. Except, it's not...The point is not that alcohol is worse than cocaine. The point is that we have a really clear understanding that cocaine is toxic and addictive. We know there's no safe amount of it, no such thing as "moderate" cocaine use; we know it can hook us and rob us of everything we care about...We know we are better off not tangling with it at all.

There are various reasons why an individual might habitually consume large quantities of alcohol, but they all effectively boil down to the same thing. Five years ago, my business partner was a happy drunk. Three years later, he had become a moody drunk. And by the last summer, he was fumbling at the knob of the door to alcoholism. As with most habitual drinkers, he was nice-enough, regular-if-not-exactly-sharp kind of guy. He thought so too. That's why he drank. Because it seemed that with alcohol in his syste, he could more fully embody this idea of being that kind of guy.

It is only now that we can, following Khoury, speak of a Global Standard Eater, because it is only now that humans have come to eat in such startlingly similar ways. Perhaps the biggest change is in the quantities that we eat – around 500 calories on average more per day than our equivalents in the 1960s (from 2,237 calories in 1961 to 2,756 calories in 2009). The Global Standard Eater consumes a whole lot more of almost everything than most eaters of the past. From the 1960s, we started to eat more refined grains and more fat, we drank more alcohol and, quite simply, we ate much more food.

*And to keep her immune system strong she followed Dr. Goodhue's advice to abstain from alcohol, get plenty of fresh air and exercise, and consume a nourishing diet, low in salt. Page 144 "Fear is good. In the right degree it prevents us from making fools of ourselves. But in the wrong measure it prevents us from fully living. Fear is our boon companion but never our master.". Page 204 "I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death ... Is the true measure of the Divine within us." . . . "I used to wonder, why did God give children leprosy? Now I believe: God doesn't give anyone leprosy. He gives us, if we choose to use it, the spirit to live with leprosy, and with the imminence of death. Because it is in our own mortality that we are most Divine.". Page 307 **"With wonder and a growing absence of fear she realized, I am more than I was an hour ago.". Page 372 **my favorite!

Because the English do not consume significantly more alcohol than other European peoples, this booziness must be something to do with the way in which they drink. George Steiner once told me, ‘You’d never find Sartre in an English café for two reasons. A: No Sartre. B: No café.’ He is right. The collapse of British imperial power produced no explosion of creative thought to match that of Vienna in the dying days of the Habsburg Empire – Freud, Brahms, Mahler and Klimt and the rest – and one of the reasons may perhaps be to do with the lack of a café society. Marxism was a café phenomenon until it gained power.

The modern food and drug industry has converted a significant portion of the world’s people to a new religion—a massive cult of pleasure seekers who consume coffee, cigarettes, soft drinks, candy, chocolate, alcohol, processed foods, fast foods, and concentrated dairy fat (cheese) in a self-indulgent orgy of destructive behavior.

Rule #2. Drink plenty of water and don’t drink your calories. Your brain is 80 percent water. Anything that dehydrates it, such as too much caffeine or alcohol, decreases your thinking and impairs your judgment. Make sure you get plenty of water every day. To know you are drinking enough water for your brain, a good general rule is to consume half your weight

So when you say that no religion is intrinsically peaceful or warlike, and that every scripture must be interpreted, I think you run into problems, because many of these texts aren’t all that elastic. They aren’t susceptible to just any interpretation, and they commit their adherents to specific beliefs and practices. You can’t say, for instance, that Islam recommends eating bacon and drinking alcohol. And even if you could find some way of reading the Qur’an that would permit those things, you can’t say that its central message is that a devout Muslim should consume as much bacon and alcohol as humanly possible. Nor can one say that the central message of Islam is pacifism. (However, one can say that about Jainism. All religions are not the same.) One simply cannot say that the central message of the Qur’an is respect for women as the moral and political equals of men. To the contrary, one can say that under Islam, the central message is that women are second-class citizens and the property of the men in their lives. I want to be clear that when I used terms such as “pretense” and “intellectual dishonesty” when we first met, I wasn’t casting judgment on you personally. Simply living with the moderate’s dilemma may be the only way forward, because the alternative would be to radically edit these books. I’m not such an idealist as to imagine that will happen.

There’s no getting around the fact that alcohol is very damaging to your system. The majority of alcohol consumed is metabolized by the liver. The rest of your body’s functions can become greatly impaired while the majority of your energy is focused on helping the liver process the alcohol. This in turn causes free radicals, free fatty acids, and LDL (bad cholesterol) numbers to soar. Insulin resistance, liver inflammation, and accelerated aging are some of the many side effects that occur with consistent abuse.

Communism was a distinct possibility until the coup of 1989’.2 Yet it was obvious to any attentive visitor to the Soviet Union that something was amiss with the planned economy. Consumer goods were of dismal quality and in chronically short supply. In antiquated factories, pilfering, alcohol abuse and absenteeism were rife. It is hard to believe that any amount of computing power would have saved such a fundamentally flawed system. For the majority of Soviet citizens, the resulting mood of demoralization did not translate into political activity – just into fatalism and yet more black humour.

Problem 7-4 Can used cooking oil or grease, such as that from a deep-fat fryer or a frying pan, be poured into the fuel tank of a diesel-powered vehicle and consumed as biodiesel? […] Solution 7-4 Absolutely not! Demised cooking oil or grease must be processed as shown in Figure 7-4 [page 125, a process that involves methyl alcohol and sulfur] before it can be used as biodiesel. This should be obvious in the case of bacon grease, which solidifies near room temperature. But it is true even of fats that remain liquid at relatively low temperatures, such as corn oil, canola oil, or even soybean oil.

The men will take turns consuming the brain, dipped in alcohol or swallowed with cloves of garlic from a porcelain plate, all while the monkey kicks beneath them. The fishing rod cast and cast but never hitting water. The men believe the meal will rid them of impotence, that the more the monkey rages, the stronger the cure. They are doing this for the future of their genes—for the sake of sons and daughters. They wipe their mouths with napkins printed with sunflowers that soon grow brown, then start to tear—soaked. After, at night, the men will come home renewed, their stomachs full, and press themselves against their wives

In the Western world, 10 percent of adults are alcoholics, 70 percent drink copious amounts of caffeine, 20 percent are addicted to tobacco, and more than 10 percent rely on antidepressants. Throw in the other legal and illegal drugs, and it is safe to say that each day, 98 percent of us ingest at least one mood-altering substance in our endless search for a better state of mind. Of course, many of us are multisubstance users, for instance, consuming caffeine in the morning and alcohol at night. One addictive substance counters the negative effects of the other in the classic, endless loop of Western chemical mood adjustment.

There’s something purely foolish about attending any large gathering of men and women without benefit of some kind of philter or magic dust to blind you and weaken your critical faculties. I don’t mean to make a big deal out of sobriety, by the way. Of all the modes of human consciousness available to the modern consumer I consider it to be the most overrated. I stopped drinking not because I had a drinking problem, although I suppose I may have, but because alcohol had mysteriously become so poisonous to my body that one night half a bottle of George Dickel stopped my heart for almost twenty seconds (it turned out I was allergic to the stuff).

The modern food and drug industry has converted a significant portion of the world’s people to a new religion—a massive cult of pleasure seekers who consume coffee, cigarettes, soft drinks, candy, chocolate, alcohol, processed foods, fast foods, and concentrated dairy fat (cheese) in a self-indulgent orgy of destructive behavior. When the inevitable results of such bad habits appear—pain, suffering, sickness, and disease—the addicted cult members drag themselves to physicians and demand drugs to alleviate their pain, mask their symptoms, and cure their diseases. These revelers become so drunk on their addictive behavior and the accompanying addictive thinking that they can no longer tell the difference between health and health care.

They were flying back from a big show in London, the whole roster on the plane. The story goes that much alcohol was consumed and things quickly got uncomfortable: Hennig and Scott Hall went wild with some shaving cream; Dustin Rhodes awkwardly serenaded his ex-wife, Terri; the legendary wrestler turned booker Michael “P.S.” Hayes got punched out by JBL and later, after he had fallen asleep, had his ponytail chopped off by Sean Waltman; Ric Flair paraded in front of a flight attendant in nothing but his sequined ring robe; and, to top it all off, Hennig challenged collegiate wrestling star (and WWE golden boy) Brock Lesnar to a Greco-Roman wrestling match that ended when Lesnar tackled Hennig into the exit door, and they were pulled apart just before they jeopardized the flight.

People who haven’t found their sacred cause just drift from one thing to another. They may be consumed by a sudden passion and enthusiasm for something, believing they have at last found their sacred cause, but the feeling doesn’t last, and soon they move on to the next thing. Some people of this kind simply never find their sacred cause and end up as the ultimate cynics, skeptics, nihilists and atheists. They are totally embittered and negative, and frequently heavy users of alcohol and drugs to numb their pain. Nothing is more important than finding your sacred cause. You are lost without it. When you have assumed a sacred cause, you at last feel aligned with your soul itself. You feel real, valid, authentic, true and right, no longer fake, phoney, fraudulent, false and wrong.

I’ve kept a tally of the alcohol Ellie’s consumed—three martinis at the dinner reception and four whiskeys neat at the pub. She downs a fifth one like water. “You’re a Viking!” Henry encourages her. “Vikings!!!” Ellie shouts. When the Prince calls the bartender for another, I push my way through the crowd to Henry. “She’s had enough,” I tell him quietly. “She’s fine.” He waves his hand at the air. “She’s just a girl,” I insist. Ellie takes exception, poking my arm with her finger and slurring. “Hey! I resent that. I’m a matter adult. Mattur. Ma-ture.” She tilts her head, gasping. “Oh my God, I just realized that except for one letter, mature and manure are the same word! That’s so weird.” I turn back to Prince Henry. “Like I said . . . more than enough.” He leans across the bar towards Ellie, holding up two fingers. “Ellie, how many fingers do you see?” Ellie squints and strains, until finally she grabs Henry’s hand and holds it still. “Four.” “Brilliant answer!” “Was I right?” Ellie asks hopefully. “No—if you’d gotten it right, I’d be really concerned.” Then he bangs the bar with his palm. “Another round!” That’s when Ellie slides clear off her stool. I catch her before she hits the floor, but just barely. And then I glare at Henry. “Mmm . . . perhaps we have reached our quota for the evening.” He puts his hand on Ellie’s arm, lifting his chin a little as he says, “It’s always important to be able to actually walk out of the pub on our own two feet. Dignity and all that.” Ellie’s head lolls on her neck until she rests it on my shoulder, her puffs of breath brushing my throat. “M’kay

This is even more puzzling than the Asian flushing gene’s failure to sweep through the world. As Tomáš Masaryk saw clearly, a culture that spends entire evenings consuming liquid neurotoxins—created at great expense and to the detriment of nutritious food production—should be at an enormous disadvantage compared to cultural groups that eschew intoxicants altogether. Such groups exist, and have for quite some time. Perhaps the most salient example is the Islamic world, which produced Ibn Fadlan. Prohibition was not a feature of the earliest period of Islam, but according to one hadith, or tradition, it was the consequence of a particular dinner at which companions of Mohammed became too inebriated to properly say their prayers. In any case, by the end of the Prophetic era in 632 CE, a complete ban on alcohol was settled Islamic law. It cannot be denied that, in the cultural evolution game, Islam has been extremely successful.

As with previous “drug crises,” the opioid problem is not really about opioids. It’s mainly about cultural, social, and environmental factors such as racism, draconian drug laws, and diverting attention away from the real causes of crime and suffering. As you’ll discover throughout this book, there’s nothing terribly unique about the pharmacology of opioids that makes these drugs particularly dangerous or addictive. People have safely consumed them for centuries. And, trust me, people will continue to do so, long after the media’s faddish focus has faded, because these chemicals work. Fatal overdose is a real risk, but the odds of this occurring have been overstated. It is certainly possible to die after taking too much of a single opioid drug, but such deaths account for only about a quarter of the thousands of opioid-related deaths. Contaminated opioid drugs and opioids combined with another downer (e.g., alcohol or a nerve-pain medication) cause many of these deaths.

The Fifth Mindfulness Training Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivating good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society, by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I am committed to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films, and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future generations. I shall work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion in myself and in society by practicing a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society.

We have been removed from the environment within which we evolved and with which we are uniquely designed to interact. Now we interact and coevolve with only the grosser, more monolithic, human-made commercial forms which remain available within our new laboratory-space station. Because we live inside the new environment, we are not aware that any tradeoff has been made. We have had to sacrifice the billions of small, detailed, multispectral experiences—emotional, physical, instinctive, sensual, intuitive and mental—that were appropriate and necessary for humans interacting with natural environments. Like the Micronesian islander in Chapter Four trapped between two modes of experience, we have found that functioning on an earlier multidimensional level has become not only useless but counterproductive. If we remained so attuned to the varieties of snowflakes that we could find fifty-six varieties as the Eskimo can; or to dreams so that we could find hundreds of distinct patterns as the Senoi Indians can; or to the minute altitude strata, inch by inch above the ground, occupied by entirely different species of flying insects as the California Indians once could; all this sensitivity would cripple any attempt to get along in the modern world. None of it would get us jobs, which gets us money, which in turn gets us food, housing, transportation, products, or entertainment, which are the fulfillments presently available in our new world. We have had to re-create ourselves to fit. We have had to reshape our very personalities to be competitive, aggressive, mentally fast, charming and manipulative. These qualities succeed in today’s world and offer survival and some measure of satisfaction within the cycle of work-consume, work-consume, work-consume. As for any dormant anxieties or unreconstructed internal wilderness, these may be smoothed over by compulsive working, compulsive eating, compulsive buying, compulsive sex, and then our brands of soma: alcohol, Librium, Valium, Thorazine, marijuana and television.

Graedon was sick of waiting for the FDA’s test results. He spoke with experts about what could produce the symptoms that patients were reporting. He even reached out for help to independent laboratories. Tod Cooperman, the president of ConsumerLab in White Plains, New York, was quick to join his cause. ConsumerLab tested the 300-milligram dose of Teva’s Budeprion XL against that of GSK’s Wellbutrin XL. The results revealed the likely source of patient distress: the generic dumped four times as much active ingredient during the first two hours as the brand name did. Graedon compared the effect to guzzling alcohol. “If you sip a glass of wine over the course of two or three hours, you’re not going to feel drunk,” he explained. “But if you drink the whole thing in fifteen minutes, you’re getting too much too fast.” The Graedons believed that this “dose dumping” explained why many patients were experiencing signs of overdose, such as headaches and anxiety, followed by symptoms of withdrawal, including renewed depression and suicidal thoughts. Teva flatly rejected the ConsumerLab report and claimed that the independent laboratory’s testing method was “inappropriate.” The FDA was silent.

The Cycle of Addiction (What Keeps Us Stuck) The cycle of addiction, the second part of the Two-Part Problem, is a response to what’s happening at the root—that brings with it its own set of problems. Addiction is essentially a symptom of those root issues that becomes its own “disease”—when we use any substance or behavior to manage our underlying pain, and use it repeatedly, we enter into a cycle, or a feedback loop. To understand what the cycle of addiction is, or in the case of alcohol what would be classified as Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), we need to look at how alcohol dependence is formed. When we consume alcohol, our body reacts to the substance by releasing artificially high levels of dopamine. Dopamine is the neurochemical of wanting and motivation, and it lives in the midbrain—the part of our brain that is tasked with ensuring our survival. Typically, our midbrain releases dopamine when we encounter something that keeps us alive or that aids in procreation, like when we eat a piece of chocolate or have good sex. Dopamine is released in order to tell our brain that some activity or substance is good for survival, and the higher the levels of dopamine that are released, the more we are programmed to repeat the activity. When dopamine floods into the brain, it sends a signal that the activity is good for survival, and in order to make sure we repeat the behavior, our brain releases another neurochemical called glutamate to lock in the memory of the event, so that we are wired to do it again.

Are you interested in medical marijuana but have no idea what it is? In recent years, there is a growing cry for the legalization of cannabis because of its proven health benefits. Read on as we try to look into the basics of the drug, what it really does to the human body, and how it can benefit you. Keep in mind that medical marijuana is not for everyone, so it’s important that you know how you’re going to be using it before you actually use it. What is Marijuana? Most likely, everyone has heard of marijuana and know what it is. However, many people hold misconceptions of marijuana because of inaccurate news and reporting, which has led to the drug being demonized—even when numerous studies have proven the health benefits of medical marijuana when it is used in moderation. (Even though yes, weed is also used as a recreational drug.) First and foremost, medical marijuana is a plant. The drug that we know of is made of its shredded leaves and flowers of the cannabis sativa or indica plant. Whatever its strain or form, all types of cannabis alter the mind and have some degree of psychoactivity. The plant is made of chemicals, with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) being the most powerful and causing the biggest impact on the brain. How is Medical Marijuana Used? There are several ways medical weed is used, depending on the user’s need, convenience and preference. The most common ways are in joint form, and also using bongs and vaporizers. But with its growing legalization, we’re seeing numerous forms of cannabis consumption methods being introduced (like oils, edibles, drinks and many more). ● Joint – Loose marijuana leaves are rolled into a cigarette. Sometimes, it’s mixed with tobacco to cut the intensity of the cannabis. ● Bong – This is a large water pipe that heats weed into smoke, which the user then inhales. ● Vaporizer – Working like small bongs, this is a small gadget that makes it easier to bring and use weed practically anywhere. What’s Some Common Medical Marijuana Lingo? We hear numerous terms from people when it comes to describing medical marijuana, and this list continually grows. An example of this is the growing number of marijuana nicknames which include pot, grass, reefer, Mary Jane, dope, skunk, ganja, boom, chronic and herb among many others. Below are some common marijuana terms and what they really mean. ● Bong – Water pipe that allows for weed to be inhaled ● Blunt – Hollowed-out cigar with the tobacco replaced with weed ● Hash – Mix of medical weed and tobacco ● Joint – Rolled cigarette-like way to consume medical cannabis How Does It Feel to be High? When consumed in moderation, weed’s common effects include a heightened sense of euphoria and well-being. You’ll most likely talk and laugh more. At its height, the high creates a feeling of pensive dreaminess that wears off and becomes sleepiness. In a group setting, there are commonly feelings of exaggerated physical and emotional sensitivity as well as strong feelings of camaraderie. Medical marijuana also has a direct impact on a person’s speech patterns, which will get slower. There will be an impairment in your ability to carry out conversations. Cannabis also affects short-term memory. The usual high that one gets from cannabis can last for about two hours; when you overindulge, it can last for up to 12 hours. Is Using Medical Marijuana Safe? Medical cannabis is scientifically proven to be safer compared to alcohol or nicotine. Marijuana is slowly being legalized around the world because of its numerous health benefits, particularly among people suffering from mental illness like depression, anxiety and stress. It also has physical benefits, like helping in managing pain and the treatment of glaucoma and cancer.

It’s bitterness that drives you to alcohol or drugs or food or pornography or anything else as a method of coping with your season of suffering. When you’ve been consumed by bitterness, you develop a desire to consume anything that will get the taste out of your mouth—

People who haven’t found their sacred cause just drift from one thing to another. They may be consumed by a sudden passion and enthusiasm for something, believing they have at last found their sacred cause, but the feeling doesn’t last, and soon they move on to the next thing. Some people of this kind simply never find their sacred cause and end up as the ultimate cynics, skeptics, nihilists and atheists. They are totally embittered and negative, and frequently heavy users of alcohol and drugs to numb their pain. Nothing is more important than finding your sacred cause. You are lost without it. When you have assumed a sacred cause, you at last feel aligned with your soul itself. You feel real, valid, authentic, true and right, no longer fake, phoney, fraudulent, false and wrong.

Parasites means that which does not have its own independent life, but gets empowered, comes alive by the nearness or the existence sitting on you willingly or unwillingly. Whether you like it or not, it catches, it sits in you and gets empowered. Your muscle memories have parasites. The parasites sitting in your muscle memory is responsible for all your addictions and tiredness.These parasite can just trigger you, it can trigger the muscle memory of certain food or certain drug, alcohol, smoking, marijuana; it can trigger any of these memories and force you to consume them again. Addictions related to eating, drugs, sex, pornography or any type of addictions, is because of the parasites sitting in your muscle memory.

…American men actually engage most in hunting and fishing. The desire of men in wealthy societies to re-create the food-gathering conditions of very primitive people appears to be an appropriate comment on the power of the hunting drives discussed earlier. Not only is hunting expensive in many places – think of the European on safari in Africa – but it is also time-consuming, potentially dangerous, and frequently involves considerable personal discomfort. Men do it because it is ‘fun’. So they say, and so one must conclude from their persistent rendition of the old pattern. What is relevant from our point of view is that hunting, and frequently fishing, are group activities. A man will choose his co-hunters very carefully. Not only does the relative intimacy of the hunt demand some congeniality, but there is also danger in hunting with inept or irresponsible persons. It is a serious matter, and even class barriers which normally operate quite rigidly may be happily breached for the period of the hunt. Some research on hunters in British Columbia suggests the near-piety which accompanies the hunt; hunting is a singular and important activity. One particular group of males takes along bottles of costly Crown Royal whisky for the hunt; they drink only superior whisky on this poignant re-creation of an ancient manly skill. But when their wives join them for New Year's celebrations, they drink an ordinary whisky: the purely formal and social occasion does not, it seems, merit the symbolic tribute of outstanding whisky. Gambling is another behaviour which, like hunting and sport, provides an opportunity in countless cultures for the weaving of and participation in the web of male affiliation. Not the gambling of the London casino, where glamorous women serve drinks, or the complex hope, greed, fate-tempting ritual, and action of the shiny American palaces in Nevada, and not the hidden gambling run by racketeers. Rather, the card games in homes or small clubs, where men gather to play for manageable stakes on a friendly basis; perhaps – like Jiggs and his Maggie – to avoid their women, perhaps to seek some money, perhaps to buy the pleasant passage of time. But also to be with their friends and talk, and define, by the game, the confines of their intimate male society. Obviously females play too, both on their own and in mixed company. But there are differences which warrant investigation, in the same way that the drinking of men in groups appears to differ from heterosexual or all-female drinking; the separation of all-male bars and mixed ones is still maintained in many places despite the powerful cultural pressures against such flagrant sexual apartheid. Even in the Bowery, where disaffiliated outcast males live in ways only now becoming understood, it has been noted that, ‘There are strong indications that the heavy drinkers are more integrated and more sociable than the light. The analytical problem lies in determining whether socialization causes drinking or drinking results in sociability when there is no disapproval.’ In the gentleman's club in London, the informally segregated working man's pub in Yorkshire, the all-male taverns of Montreal, the palm-wine huts of west Africa, perhaps can be observed the enactment of a way of establishing maleness and maintaining bonds which is given an excuse and possibly facilitated by alcohol. Certainly, for what they are worth in revealing the nature of popular conception of the social role of drinking, advertisements stress the manly appeal of alcohol – particularly whisky – though it is also clear that there are ongoing changes in the socio-sexual implications of drinking. But perhaps it is hasty to regard the process of change as a process of female emancipation which will culminate in similarity of behaviour, status, and ideals of males and females. The changes are still too recent to warrant this. Also, they have been achieved under sufficiently self-conscious pressure...

Most Italians consume alcohol every day, but it’s not what we call drinking. For Americans and northern Europeans alcoholic beverages are mind-altering drugs, used as tranquilizers, sleeping potions, inhibition-looseners (“Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker”—Ogden Nash), or roads to inebriation. That is to say, to getting tipsy, high, drunk, plastered, smashed, sloshed, sozzled, soused, crocked, wrecked, juiced, stinko, tight, pie-eyed, crosseyed, shit-faced, blitzed, fried, wasted, gassed, polluted, pissed, tanked up, ripped, loaded, pickled, bombed, blasted, blooey, blotto, blind drunk, roaring drunk, dead drunk, falling down drunk, drunk as a lord, stewed to the gills, or feeling no pain—and that’s just my own personal vocabulary. Italians reach that state so infrequently that their language provides only a few tame options—ubriaco (drunk), brillo (tipsy), alticcio (high), sbronzo (drunk)—with at most perso (lost) or fradicio (rotten) tacked on for a touch of color. They don’t even have a proper word for a hangover, though if pressed they’ll come up with the stately postumi della sbornia, aftereffects of overindulgence. For Italians, wine and beer are foods. If they provide a little buzz that’s just a pleasant side benefit, improving the sparkle of the conversation. When I first traveled in Italy, parents regularly fed wine-laced water to their kids (“acquavino”), vaccinating them against later dipsomania. And at lunchtime in the cafeteria of my Nuovo Regina Margherita Hospital the docs would jostle to sit at the chaplain’s table, because he’d always bring a bottle of good country wine. Even the harder stuff fits into a culinary protocol: a seven p.m. Campari is meant to whet the appetite, and the cognac or amaro at the end of a large meal to aid digestion. Which is why, in proportion, Italy has one-tenth as many problem drinkers as America.

THREATENING If habitual sugar or the consumption of sugar mimics continues, the metabolic nightmare can turn into a living hell. Similar to those who consume excess alcohol and develop resistance to it, the excess insulin numbs the cells of our muscles. Once this occurs, they no longer vacuum glucose or other essential nutrients from the bloodstream. Unable to gain entry into muscle cells, glucose accumulates in the blood, and cells become old prematurely. Blood gets bad, as seen by sugar levels above 115 (normal

I glanced at Darius as we were left alone together. Apparently my attempts to avoid this particular Heir were doomed to fail tonight. Darius looked over my shoulder and his face dipped into a scowl. I followed his gaze and spotted his fiancé Mildred barrelling through the crowd towards us with a frown on her face which melded her eyebrows into one bushy line. “Come on then,” Darius said hastily, leading the way to the door Xavier had taken out of the room. “Where to?” I asked in confusion. The party was in full swing and I was fairly sure we weren’t supposed to be leaving it. Not that I’d ever cared much for rules but it seemed odd that he’d gone to so much trouble to get me here just to sneak me away again. Plus it was probably a good idea for me to get the hell away from him before his toothy bride arrived and tried to snap me in half with her brawny arms. “Xavier said you want some real food,” Darius said suggestively, heading on out without bothering to make sure I was following. I hesitated. I didn’t really want to go anywhere with him but I couldn’t deny the draw I felt to him either. The champagne probably isn’t helping with that. My stomach growled impatiently and I sighed as I gave in to its demands. I snatched another glass of champagne on my way out, quickly drinking it in one gulp before hurrying after him. If alcohol was going to make this decision for me then the least I could do was make sure I consumed plenty of it. I glanced back at Darcy as I left but she was laughing at something Hamish had said and didn’t notice me. Mildred on the other hand looked like she was primed for murder and I hurried out of the room as she began to battle her way across the dance floor with me locked in her sights. Darius led me down corridors with gilded decorations at every turn. Dragons really liked their gold and it was obvious they had plenty of it to spare. “Thank you for cheering Xavier up,” Darius said as he opened the door onto a narrow corridor and led me inside. Thankfully there was no sign of Mildred catching up and I had to hope we’d lost her. A few serving staff squeezed past us carrying trays as we walked, bowing their heads as they spotted the infamous Acrux Heir. “Why did he need cheering up?” I asked curiously. “No reason.” I rolled my eyes at his back. (Tory)

I set a fast pace back towards the House and their footsteps followed close behind me, punctuated with hissed fragments of conversation as they tried to figure out what to do. As we closed in on the glass building, the boy declared that he was going to seek out Darcy and left us, his feet hitting the path at a thumping pace as he ran. I ignored them both and kept going all the way back to the House, taking the stairs two at a time before striding through the common room. I received several curious glances as we passed but most people had headed to their rooms already and the look I threw the others was enough to stop them from taking photographs or asking questions. I made it to my bedroom door before Sofia caught up to me again and she was even brave enough to grab my arm to halt me. “What?” I asked, lacing my voice with a bit of threat. Sofia blanched at my tone but didn’t back down and I found myself equally surprised and impressed by the devotion of this nothing little Fae to the girl in my arms. “Why are you taking her to your room?” she demanded. “I’ve got her bag right here with her key and-” “And while she’s in this state she could lose control again and burn the whole House down,” I replied. “I’ll have to stay with her tonight until she sleeps off the alcohol you watched her consume.” There was more than a hint of accusation in my tone but the girl didn’t even flinch this time. “And that’s all you’re going to do?” Sofia demanded. “You’re not going to play some trick on her or hurt her or...” She didn’t finish that accusation but her gaze flickered to the point where my hand was gripping Roxy’s bare thigh as I held her. “I’m not a fucking rapist,” I snapped. “I can have any girl I want in my bed any night of the week, why would I want to molest an unconscious one who hates me?” Sofia backed off instantly, seeming satisfied by whatever she’d seen in my eyes as her shoulders sagged a little. “Okay, I didn’t mean to imply...just...look after her,” she said, frowning at Roxy again with concern as she passed me her bag and backed up. I made to turn away from her then an idea occurred to me. “Wait…Sofia, right?” I asked, trying to sound vaguely friendly. It wasn’t something I attempted often and the frown she gave me said I was terrible at it. “Yes…” “I er, have this… cousin. Third cousin actually, who just emerged as a Pegasus…” “Good for her. Why are you telling me this?” she asked suspiciously. “It’s a him. He’s called…Phillip.” “Phillip?” She looked at me like no one in the world was actually called Phillip and I had to admit I’d never met one. Dammit. Why did I pick that fucking name? “Yeah. Well, as you can imagine in a family of pure blooded Dragons, Phillip isn’t coping so well with the shame of-” “Shame of what?” she asked, a clear challenge in her eyes for me to dare to finish that sentence. And in hindsight implying her Order was shameful probably wasn’t the best way to get her to help me. I shifted Roxy in my arms and sighed, wondering if I should just abandon this idea. But this girl had impressed me tonight despite her weakness and I didn’t really have anyone else to ask so I barrelled on. “I’ll level with you. Me calling your Order shameful is about the closest to a compliment he’d get from a member of my family on the subject. He’s been locked in his house, hidden away from the world, his father has actually considered killing him to conceal his true nature. He’s…alone. And he could really use someone of his Order to talk to…” My throat felt tight, I didn’t know if this was a terrible idea but Xavier had sounded so broken on the phone earlier, so desperate, I just wanted to try and help him. And maybe having another Pegasus to talk to would help him see some good in what he was. (Darius POV)

It is the lie we tell ourselves our whole lives: as soon as we get to the next meal, party, vacation, sexual encounter, as soon as we get married, get a promotion, get to the airport check-in, get through security and consume a bouquet of Auntie Anne's Cinnamon Sugar Stix, we'll feel really good...and yet the itch remains.

The insula also gives rise to empathy. People who are more sensitive to emotional cues from others have greater insula activation and score higher on tests of empathy. And the insula lights up during meditation sessions, especially when the meditator is feeling kindness and compassion. As the meditator expands his definition of connection to include other people and eventually the entire universe, he feels one with everything. In the words of a comprehensive meditation review, “the habitual reified dualities between subject and object, self and other, in-group and out-group dissipate.” As he expands the borders of his tent to infinity, massive changes occur in his brain activity. Insula Activation Benefits Increases Decreases Elevated emotional states Anger Motor control Fear Kindness Anxiety Compassion Depression Empathy Addiction Longevity Chronic pain Immunity Happiness Love Sensory enjoyment Introspection Sense of fulfillment Feelings of connectedness Focus Self-awareness As well as mediating our empathy and compassion circuits, the insula has several other functions. It collects information from a far-flung network of receptors inside our body as well as from our skin. It then stimulates feelings such as hunger that then prompt actions such as seeking food. The dark side of this mechanism is that it can stimulate cravings for drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. Addicts show increased insula activation even before consuming their drug of choice. The insula also lights up when we feel pain or even anticipate feeling pain. Meditators are more “in the moment” when it comes to physical pain, releasing it more quickly. They may also experience overwhelming cravings, as we’ll see in Chapter 5. These are positive cravings directing them toward the ecstatic states found in Bliss Brain.

Once in a while I hear a POP in my head. Possibly from the Disulfiram that Mom puts in my food... without telling me. My heart beats real fast and I cannot consume all of the booze that I intend to for a couple of days. If I die from an Aneurysm or something... This is probably why. It's not the alcohol. Tell the truth, for fuck's sake. Don't fuck with my booze, Please.

However, when it comes to unrestricted access to super-stimulating versions of natural rewards, such as junk food,[170] the answer is no,[171] although certainly not every consumer gets hooked. The reason that highly stimulating versions of food and sexual arousal can hook us – even if we’re not otherwise susceptible to addiction – is that our reward circuitry evolved to drive us toward food and sex, not drugs or alcohol. Today’s high fat[172]/sugar foods[173] have hooked far more people into destructive patterns of behaviour than have illegal drugs. 70% of American adults are overweight, 37.7% obese.

Willpower and brain capacity. Most of us are confused about what willpower really is. We tend to think some people have it in spades and that others like those with chemical and behavioral addictions are lacking in it. That's exactly how I saw myself as a person with no self-control or willpower which was not at all true. While impulse control was indeed a skill I had to hone. For instance through meditation, and mindfulness - staying present with feelings and reactions. Willpower, as in repression or inhibiting a desire. It isn’t a skill. It's a finite cognitive function known as inhibition. To understand a little bit more how willpower or inhibition works, a few pieces of information will help. First, willpower is one of five functions delegated to the prefrontal cortex or PFC. The other four functions are decision making, understanding, memorizing, and recalling. Second, it's important to know that the brain requires a crapload of energy from the body. It accounts for about 2% of our body mass and consumes about 20% of our energy. Most of our brain functions are automatic and don't require conscious processing. Like the beating of your heart, or a habit like driving a car. These automatic processes don't burn up metabolic resources. The PFC on the other hand requires a massive amount of energy or glucose to work. The same way you need energy to run a mile you need energy to make decisions or memorize facts. And this energy is not inexhaustible. We wake up every day with only so much gas in our tank to fuel our PFC. And we burn through it fairly quickly. What this means for willpower is that 1) it's a finite resource with only so much of it available to us each day and 2) it's a resource shared with other functions. Every time you solve a problem, make a decision, memorize a fact, remember something, or try not to do something, like eat that second cookie, or check your Instagram for the 14th time, you are draining your willpower reserves. Trying harder doesn't work when you've got nothing left in you to feel the effort. The thing about the Pfc is that there's no way to give it more gas. So there's no way to increase your willpower, or decision making, understanding, memorizing or recall. What you can do is approach those five functions as if they are precious resources because they are and plan your day in a way that uses them carefully. By creating more automation or habits so that you aren't using your decision making and willpower as often.

Three pit bulls stood facing him. His instinct told him to climb back over the fence to safety, but with all the alcohol he’d consumed, his motor skills were impaired, his gait was wobbly, and sheer terror had frozen his feet in place. Before Jamie could put his fingers through the chain-link fence to get the grip he needed to begin his climb, the dogs were on top of him. They gnawed at the flesh of his calves as if they were eating chicken wings served at a Super Bowl party.

Because we are energy imbedded in a physical body, all of our bodies ' cells are like pieces of a hologram, storing the memory of anything that has happened. So it happens that those places where energy, pain, memory, or contractions are stored will respond as the energies which aim to transform us pass through the body. It's what we feel when there are pains, jerking movements, heat, vibrations, rushes, and other phenomena that arise during and after a kundalini. Most people have connected certain of these events with the raising of the chakras, which is another term for suggesting that new possibilities arise as contraction escapes. People carry their stress in different ways, just as we live our lives in different ways, and so there may be a wide variety of reactions to this energy revolution or clearing process. If an old injury causes physical problems, it can be particularly sensitive. When our diet is poor, or our environment allows us to live where emotional energy is dangerous, this may make us more vulnerable to difficulties. If any kind of trauma has happened or there is a history of drinking or substance use, this transformation will specifically threaten the body, which is trying to clear it from the previous memories and experiences with which we are associated. If there's a psychological propensity to contract and a deep desire for control, the cycle can be very difficult due to our aversion to it. These are just a few guidelines for these and other reasons that can help you move through this experience and find inner peace. •       At times the energy will feel coarse and heavy. But it is uncommonly intense. Normally it is the anxiety that causes pain, and the attempt to stop it. If you have a lot of body movement, place yourself on the bed once or twice a day and allow the energy to move through you and clear up anything that doesn't belong to you, and anything that's in your best interest to release at that time. It will usually run for a few minutes— may be up to 20— and then stop, and you'll feel more relaxed. Especially if you work in an environment where you may pick up negative energy or other people's pain such as healing or therapeutic work, or in places where alcohol use is high or in hospitals, you need to do this. If this process involves persistent physical pain, you should have a medical evaluation. •       Find out what your body wants to eat, really. Individuals often need to make major dietary changes such as giving up intake of alcohol and recreational drugs, eliminating red meat, consuming smaller and simpler meals. If you have a recurring energy problem that is too serious, do detective work to see what could cause the problem.

This was considered to be all the more of an achievement, given the public campaign that had been waged for some time against the Scotch pie in general. This had been triggered by research revealing the total weight of Scotch pies consumed by the average adult Scot each year: fifty-six pounds. That, together with the figures for the volume of Irn-Bru drunk by that same average Scottish adult (sixteen gallons), had led to calls for health warnings to be attached to each Scotch pie. These moves had become bogged down in disagreements over the wording of the warning: there had been strong support for These pies will kill you sooner than you think, but the alarmist tone of that message had put some people off. This pie will damage your health was thought to be too similar to existing warnings for tobacco and alcohol, while Dinnae put this stuff in your gob, was thought to be too self-consciously demotic and perhaps a touch vulgar. The debate had been long and acrimonious, and as a result the initiative fizzled out. The Scotch pie continued to be sold to its consumers in rising numbers.

When Julia had first disappeared, people kept asking why she’d been at the bar, what she was doing out that late, and exactly how much alcohol she had consumed, because obviously, it was Julia’s own fault that she was abducted and most likely raped and murdered.

We are driven to consume (food, alcohol, movies, etc.) in an attempt to forget and keep those thoughts from surfacing in our conscious mind. Running away from our fear ultimately makes us suffer and makes others suffer, and our fear only grows stronger. We must be able to accept this as reality, as the truth, and not just as a logical fact.

Prohibition led to a sharp decrease in the number of Americans consuming and becoming addicted to alcohol. Rates of public drunkenness and alcohol-related liver disease decreased by half during this period in the absence of new remedies to treat addiction.

Solveig had observed a long time ago that alcohol didn’t bestow new personalities on its consumers but merely amplified the existing ones—or in Gisbert’s case, the lack of one.

the keys to longevity are diet, exercise, finding a purpose in life (an ikigai), and forming strong social ties—that is, having a broad circle of friends and good family relations. Members of these communities manage their time well in order to reduce stress, consume little meat or processed foods, and drink alcohol in moderation.1 They don’t do strenuous exercise, but they do move every day, taking walks and working in their vegetable gardens. People in the Blue Zones would rather walk than drive. Gardening, which involves daily low-intensity movement, is a practice almost all of them have in common.

Previous research showed that loud music in a restaurant caused people to consume more alcohol and soda, while slow music lead to customers ordering more and staying longer. Dr. Charles Spence, professor at Oxford University, also found that certain types of music will bring out certain flavors in the food. For example, the experience of sweetness or bitterness in the food could be increased or decreased by simply changing the background music. Sweet sounds would increase the experience of a food’s sweetness, while “bitter” sounds would increase the bitterness rating.

According to scientists who have studied the five Blue Zones, the keys to longevity are diet, exercise, finding a purpose in life (an ikigai), and forming strong social ties—that is, having a broad circle of friends and good family relations. Members of these communities manage their time well in order to reduce stress, consume little meat or processed foods, and drink alcohol in moderation.1 They don’t do strenuous exercise, but they do move every day, taking walks and working in their vegetable gardens. People in the Blue Zones would rather walk than drive. Gardening, which involves daily low-intensity movement, is a practice almost all of them have in common.

As with previous “drug crises,” the opioid problem is not really about opioids. It’s mainly about cultural, social, and environmental factors such as racism, draconian drug laws, and diverting attention away from the real causes of crime and suffering. As you’ll discover throughout this book, there’s nothing terribly unique about the pharmacology of opioids that makes these drugs particularly dangerous or addictive. People have safely consumed them for centuries. And, trust me, people will continue to do so, long after the media’s faddish focus has faded, because these chemicals work. Fatal overdose is a real risk, but the odds of this occurring have been overstated. It is certainly possible to die after taking too much of a single opioid drug, but such deaths account for only about a quarter of the thousands of opioid-related deaths. Contaminated opioid drugs and opioids combined with another downer (e.g., alcohol or a nerve-pain medication) cause many of these deaths.19 People are not dying because of opioids; they are dying because of ignorance.

A dude sitting at the bar rail started giving her that fucking bullshit “I love you” look, a look you get from dudes who are usually very near to full-on alcohol poisoning and have decided, with absolute clarity, that you are “their fucking everything.” This type of scenario could go a variety of different ways, but most times turns angry and violent. This violence wears many faces, but with these guys, it only rears its ugly head when enough alcohol has been consumed. It’s the Hyde to their sad and lonely Jekyll that they portray during the day, while they are sober and at work.

Ford’s Model T carburetors were designed to run on either gasoline, alcohol, or a blended fuel, with gasoline considered the least favorable fuel because of its low compression ratios. But Standard Oil and its lobbyists at the American Petroleum Institute instituted a malicious public information crusade to ensure that alcohol had no chance of taking off as a fuel. Between 1920 and 1933, a concerted effort was made to link alcohol fuels with the prevailing moral attitudes against alcohol of the Prohibition Era. John D. Rockefeller Sr., the churchgoing founder of Standard Oil, and his son John Jr. were both staunch supporters of Prohibition, and although they likely supported the restrictive code on moral and religious grounds, there is no doubt that the thirteen-year-long ban on producing or selling alcohol fuels helped Standard Oil protect gasoline and assert its dominance. Gasoline interests peddled the idea that every alcohol fuel station was a potential speakeasy, with Standard Oil referring to alcohol fuels as “drinkable moonshine” even though the fuel was not consumable.45 The anti-alcohol campaign continued well into the next decade and beyond.

sugar alcohols are usually less sweet. And they have calories, though many fewer than sugar, and we don’t absorb them very well. They’re easy to identify on food labels—their names end in the suffix “-ol,” for instance, mannitol, sorbitol, xylitol, and malitol. Some experts recommend consuming these instead of sugar or artificial sweeteners. But I suggest keeping them to a minimum. Sugar alcohols are imperfectly absorbed by your intestines, which can cause diarrhea, bloating, flatulence, and other forms of digestive distress. They also mess with your gut microbes and cause bacterial overgrowth. And worst of all, they keep you hooked on sweetness. But

Real America, in honor of the hellhound, our beloved Bukowski You hate America, no, not at all, I love it so much that I can say obvious truths that they themselves do not want to accept. If I criticize myself all the time, why would I stop criticizing others? A poem in honor of the only sincere American, Bukowski. The myth of America tells us of the land of freedom, founded by descendants of intelligent and puritanical Europeans. It's all a load of crap, no, it's the land of slavery, my friends, not just in the sense of slavery of African descendants, but of mental slavery. Yes, the land of the alienated. Eden, created by Angels. This is all a load of crap. Real America, Real America, Strong America, came from the indigenous tribes, from the toil of blacks and the industrious mentality of descendants of Europeans, all lazy, violent and who wanted to get fat like pigs, without worrying about anything. Dirty America that produces clean America, sold in the movies. Why lazy? Well, they don't like to make a lot of effort, and this indolence produces innovation. Is that why they are so creative? Well, they are creative in order to pay well the brains of other nations who go to work there. They knew that numerous wars and constant friction were much worse than anything else and cost money. So? Well, then, let's create a land where everyone can get fat, rich and kill each other, but only as long as the general profit of society increases. Let's sell the excess food, weapons and our gourmet culture to other peoples. It worked. But let's not fool ourselves. America is Golden on the outside and dark on the inside. America is the country of weapons, drugs, fantasies and lies. Above all, lies. See, the mafias that operated there to supply the demand for alcohol, prohibited in order to maintain the pure "spirit" of the drunken bourgeoisie, were all called mafias of other nationalities. But they were all Americans. America is geography, not history or ethnicity. You are an American because of your ties to this immense land blessed by God. Is that what these bastards have done? They have turned their own pain into art and sold it to us in the movies. The weapons, yes, they have to be good and they have to kill quickly. Why? Because Americans are lazy and don't like anything that lasts long. Even wars have to be fought in other countries and if they are too exhausting, they lose their Hollywood shine, so we have to abandon Saigon. Fatness, that is another thing that best represents America. Americans are all obese. Well, at least you can't help but notice them. They are, well, heavy people, especially the Karens. I love Karens, I'm a male Karen, you know. And as for drugs, well, that's the most interesting part. It's the country that consumes them the most, why? Well, maintaining the American dream requires a lot of mescaline. Fat drug addicts with guns sticking out of their own toilets. The toilets in America must hide everything we really want to know. I will probably never get a visa there, thanks to this poem. Still, you can't deny that my writing is anthological. God bless all the Americas. Please don't blow me up, I have poetic license to write these words.

The states of withdrawal and craving from any drug are always exactly opposite to the drug’s effects. If a drug makes you feel relaxed, withdrawal and craving are experienced as anxiety and tension.” Alcohol is a depressant, so if we’re using it to relax, we’re actually netting out with more anxiety because of this A-B process—one drink leaves us more stressed, tensed, anxious, and depressed. And this effect isn’t reserved for heavy drinkers; withdrawal and craving are things we experience anytime we consume a drug. One glass is one dose.

Meanwhile, alcohol and cigarettes kill more than any other drug by far, because they are legal and widely available. Alcohol also drives arrests and incarceration more than any other single drug. Our brains are no match for the consumer and marketing culture to emerge in the last few decades. They are certainly no match for the highly potent illegal street drugs now circulating.

Know the difference between things that might not be great for you, and things that take you down and keep you stuck and bring out your worst and get in the way of your best life. Know them and stay the fuck away from them. The world is full of both terrible and good things that will make you just as happy and leave you less destroyed and consumed.

diet, exercise, finding a purpose in life (an ikigai), and forming strong social ties—that is, having a broad circle of friends and good family relations. Members of these communities manage their time well in order to reduce stress, consume little meat or processed foods, and drink alcohol in moderation.1 They don’t do strenuous exercise, but they do move every day, taking walks and working in their vegetable gardens. People in the Blue Zones would rather walk than drive. Gardening, which involves daily low-intensity

There was nothing out of the ordinary in my household, and that’s the biggest problem of them all. The normalization of habitually consuming poison to elude the unpleasantness of subsistence.

If someone has had a drink in the past month, he or she is considered a current drinker. For current drinkers there are also questions about the amount consumed. Those who report having had five or more drinks on any one occasion during the past month are termed binge drinkers. If someone has had five or more drinks on at least five occasions in the past month, he or she is categorized as a heavy drinker. WHO

The bill allows people with a weapons permit to carry loaded guns into bars, as long as they do not consume alcohol — although the bill does not say how that caveat would be enforced.

In the Western world, 10 percent of adults are alcoholics, 70 percent drink copious amounts of caffeine, 25 percent are addicted to tobacco, and more than 10 percent rely on antidepressants. Throw in the other legal and illegal mood-altering drugs and it is safe to say that each day, 98 percent of us ingest at least one mood-altering substance in our endless search for better states of mind. Of course, many of us are multi-substance users, for instance, consuming caffeine in the morning and alcohol at night. One substance counters the negative effects of the other in the classic, endless loop of Western chemical mood adjustment.

Encourage your loved one to eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly, maintain a reasonable weight, stop smoking, and consume alcohol in moderation. If you can’t get your fire fighter to cooperate, model a healthy lifestyle yourself. A new study of 4,700 couples showed that there is a strong association between the health of husbands and the health of wives. Married people tend to follow the same kinds of diets, for better or worse, or to smoke if their spouse does.

I’d like to share with you a parable: the parable of Bob the Angel. A girl was walking down a darkly lit city street late at night. A man jumped out from the shadows and attacked her, suddenly she was suffocating and disoriented as hands clasped around her neck and the force of his attack started to push her down. She tried to yell as she struggled to pull his arms from her neck while she crumpled backwards to the ground, “God . . . help me!” The next thing she remembers—just as the fear consumed her, and right as she disappeared into the misery and despair of helplessness—was a loud crash and an explosion of glass which rained down upon her and her attacker. The assailant’s lifeless body was suspended above her, held from collapsing on her by an unknown force, and then pulled away from hovering over her and dropped onto the pavement beside her. She opened her eyes in the faint shadowy light, to see black matted hair and a long, black beard framing the eyes of a man. The smell of alcohol on his breath would have knocked her out if the adrenaline was not still trilling through her veins. There he stood, God’s angel, off-kilter and drunk, with a broken whiskey bottle in his hand. “You probably shouldn’t be walking through here this late at night,” was all he said as he turned away. “Wait! What’s your name?” she asked, still stunned half sitting up on the ground. All she heard as he walked away was his trailing voice calling, “Bob’s as good as any. . . .” An angel is a messenger, and sometimes we only want letters sent in white envelopes with beautiful gold print, when sometimes a simple “no” on the back of a gum wrapper is what we are offered. Every postcard from heaven does not come with a picture of the sunset there, nor should it. If it is an answer we want, an answer we will get. As far as pretty postcards, there are many others willing to send us that. If not harps and gold-tipped wings, what then is the mark of an angel? An answer which pierces your soul, and which inspires a question that invites you to look outside of yourself and up to God. God is very objective; He wants to make us think, to engage the faculties we have been given, and to learn from the messengers he sends us. He wants us in the ark before the flood; he could come himself—or send a Noah—but most of the time he sends Bob. Bob is in you, Bob is in me, Bob is in the emotionalized, sarcastic, mocking, patronizing, proud or foolish person which points out meaningful things to us in the worst possible moments, or in the worst possible way.

2012 Andy’s Message   Young, I have clear memories of Amsterdam. Last year, I returned to the canal city for a vacation. ‘The District’ in 1968 was very different compared to 2011. This area is now a well-organized vicinity with numerous cafes, eateries and new editions to the vibrant landscape. The ban on brothels was lifted in 2000. The De Wallen activities are now actively regulated and controlled by the Dutch authorities.               Do you remember the prostitutes were predominantly Dutch, German, French and Belgian back then? Now, there are numerous Latinas, Blacks and Asians (mainly from the Philippines, the Golden Triangle and Thailand) working in the vicinity. They’re now liable for taxes.               Many coffee shops had also sprung up. Though food, alcohol, and tobacco are generally consumed outside the cafes, these establishments are licensed to sell cannabis and soft drugs.               You remember those narrow alleyways that Jabril took us down, where the sex workers sat elegantly in windows that resembled living rooms? These are now one-room cabins that prostitutes rent to offer their sexual services from behind a window or glass door; often illuminated by red lights - better known as “kamers.” ‘The District’ is now a tourist attraction…

ridding the body of the demon does not completely sever the ties between the host and the demon. Once the demon has consumed you, it is easier to return to that dark place. It is likened to being a recovering alcoholic. Every day you must resist the temptation toward anger, rage, bitterness, hate…all these things can actually feel good. Every day is another victory.

As for osteoporosis, it is caused not so much by calcium deficiency in the diet as it is by dietary factors which leach calcium from bones and teeth, especially sugar. Sugar, meat, refined starch, and alcohol all cause a constant state of acidosis in the bloodstream, and acid blood is known to dissolve calcium from bones. The best way to correct osteoporosis is to consume the non-dairy calcium-rich foods mentioned above, while simultaneously cutting down or eliminating acidifying calcium robbers from the diet. A daily supplement of 3 mg of the mineral boron also seems to help bones assimilate and retain calcium.