#harm reduction

3 weeks 3 days today!!

i'm sorry you weren't set up for success when it comes to trying to drink in moderation. it sounds like you don't really have a good sense of what moderation even looks like for you yet. and i get being worried because from what you've said here, it might take some work and introspection to understand where your habits could lead into dependency. you don't wanna be ricocheting between fear and seduction. that's dysregulated behavior.

drinking to take the edge off is pretty normal, even if doing it consistently isn't super good for your body. drinking to get wasted, especially if that's what you're craving every time you drink no matter how much you watch your intake, can be a sign of deeper issues. if you are concerned by your own thoughts about alcohol, like the sneaking shots thing, definitely pay attention to that. that is a data point that already stands out to you. be kind to yourself even if you don't like your own behavior, and maybe ask for help from the friends you go out with if they seem capable of understanding where you're coming from. guilt and trauma thrive in isolation and silence, which tends to lead to more substance use. if your friends can do beer instead of shots around you or plan hang outs where you don't drink on occasion or just talk to you about what's eating you on the day to day, i think that would be a thousand times easier than trying to figure all this shit out while the people around you are triggering you without realizing it

if you aren't in talk therapy, you might want to look into that so you can unpack the stresses in your life and history that make numbing out appealing. easier said than done sometimes in terms of access, but with or without a counselor, my basic recommendation is to dig deep and see where you can support your mental well-being in other ways, too. look up breathwork to soothe the vagus nerve, massage, meditation, yin yoga, maybe even fidget toys!

hello, my anonymous friend! thanks for the ask.

it's a little hard to tell if you're asking in your own interest or someone else's so i'll do my best to speak in generalities. but, i'd say that the threshold is pretty individual. "normal" and "healthy" are not necessarily the same thing. drinking to black out at parties is pretty normal in english-speaking cultures. doesn't mean it's healthy to do it regularly! however, i don't personally believe that the disease model of addressing addiction is a very good one. even if the evidence were unequivocally pointing to genetic factors, from what i've seen doing work with community members who struggle with addiction, a lot of it stems from trauma. i definitely think that's where more queer people lean on substances. addressing those traumas is the best way to prevent addictive behaviors rather than policing substances themselves, you know? might be good to read about harm reduction philosophy if you want to know more about that!

i absolutely think it's fair to question your relationship with alcohol every once in a while just to take stock, too! to my understanding, it becomes an issue of dependency when you feel like you need alcohol in order to accomplish something, even if it's just in one area of your life. if you can't make a move on somebody unless you've got a shot in you, or you feel like you need to hide how much or how often you drink, or if it feels irritating to be sober, that's a good clue that alcohol has become a maladaptive coping mechanism.

I’m gonna make a PSA announcement and youse are gonna listen

I amn’t gonna ramble about how bad recreational drugs are like I wanted to. Youse have heard it enough. Alotta people in this community do drugs. This is a fact and I can’t do anything about it.

PLEASE be careful where you get your drugs from. So many drugs are laced with or have fentanyl in them. You can’t tell if there’s fentanyl in something. Even a little pinch can KILL you. It is very cheap to produce and is used as a filler. They can charge you the same amount if it were all the drug you asked for but they’re making alot more off of this compared to if they just gave you what you asked for. Even if you think you can trust this guy, maybe (just maybe) you can’t. Even the person who’s selling you it may not know that there’s fentanyl in it. Fentanyl is used in the medical field on patients who are dieing and are in alot of main. They know the patient isn’t gonna live, so they give them fentanyl so they can pass away peacefully. They’re already gonna die so the fentanyl isn’t gonna do anything that wasn’t already gonna happen.

I’m assuming you’re not dieing and don’t wanna die. Be careful where you get these things from. Everything is laced these days. You don’t have to stop doing these things but just PLEASE be careful.

There’s always a news story on the tv about someone getting there usual drugs from a dealer and those drugs had fentanyl in them and the person died from it. That person didnt want to die but they did. They didnt know there was fentanyl in it and they died from that.

Please be careful

please.

I feel like it would be irresponsible for me to post abt these without that disclaimer that they are one of the more unsafe drugs atm aside from opiates. I guess most ppl who see this stuff will know already but like. Idk. Its for anyone who maybe stumbles across here and isnt aware.