OK this post has nothing to do with ham, I just didn’t want to write the word ‘harm’. This isn’t a big rant or a dark self harm story, though don’t worry.
Basically, right, I went to some festivals recently … I know. If you’re an introvert, you’ll know what a big/horrific deal this is! Exhausting.
Anyway, I did. And what I found was that there were an extraordinary proportion of people getting high on those nitrous/balloon things which are currently a legal high in the UK. And drunkenness and general debauchery, obviously.
But I was really struck by the nitro balloon thing – it was everywhere. Like, EVERYWHERE. Now, in my thirties, I am old and wise obviously, and have had the very sad experience of knowing friends literally lose their IQ and motor skills to addictions to legal things like this fashionable balloon bollocks, so I personally avoid shit like this (I have plenty of non-motor-skill-limiting addictions thank you very much), and I just find it so sad that people are sort of happy to sleep-walk into such an obvious method of self harm, especially under the false/temporary banner of a high.
It’ll always be something: in the 80s it was glue sniffing, in the 90s it was Alco-pops …
Admittedly in my teens & 20s I did a fair amount of substance abuse and testing my limits etc etc, and I’m not going to judge people for exploring who they are / what their bodies can do WAHEY IT GOES IN WAHOO!!! OH MY GOD I AM DRUNKT I CANNOT SEE WAHEYYY!! But I find it really sad when people basically choose to get hooked on bullshit that literally wrecks their bodies and their minds. Legal or not, the point is humans know some stuff is addictive and damaging, and we do it anyway?! Wtf are we like, eh??
It’s obvious with something like Heroin – you only need to watch Trainspotting to go “Oh, there’s a link between a certain substance and a lifestyle of absolute poverty, violence and misery. Hmm, maybe I won’t do that then. Also I no longer want to live in Glasgow” … but we’re not so good at spotting the more subtle equivalents. We’re not so good at choosing the more subtle highs that won’t damage us in the long term.
Lyrics from Psycho by System of a Down:
“Psycho, groupie, cocaine, crazy, Psycho, groupie, coke
Makes you high
Makes you hide
Do you really want to think and stop
Stop your eyes from flowing
[…]
So you want the world to stop
Rushing to watch your spirit fully drop
From the time you were a Psycho …”
Yep. We seem to get stuck in the mindset that says “I know I’ve got issues but I cannot face/solve them, I will instead find a fast-track to forgetting everything, because I need a high”. We all do this, it seems a part of the human condition to seek balance and aim high when painfully aware of the lows, but it’s one we can be completely ruled / enslaved by if we choose to let it. Choose to get on that slope to addiction. Choose escalatingly violent porn perpetrated against suspiciously young looking Ukranian girls … no I’m sure they’re not being trafficked … Choose Netflix box sets … Choose a belly full of whipped cream and a bank account ruled by payday loans companies … Choose a sixty inch flatscreen OLED tv and never go outside … Choose silence, isolation and a place to put all that turmoil. Choose blind insulation from the awkwardness of life. Choose ‘stuff’, filling our cupboards and shelves with crap. Choose death.
I dunno. I think we all need to hear the message that there is another way. That we can choose life. We can choose to face our deepest and most intimate fears. That we can, with the help of others, learn not to solve them but to live free of them. Not to erase the mistakes or traumas of the past but to live free from them (and with them) and have a fresh start. And in travelling this path we find stuff that previously enslaved us no longer has the control it used to.
Spoiler alert: this is the overall story arc of the entire Lithium and OHB comic series.
Yes, I have written an entire network of comics to bring the reader to that single point.
We are worthy of fresh starts, and we can live free. You, and me.
👍
OK this post has nothing to do with ham, I just didn’t want to write the word ‘harm’. This isn’t a big rant or a dark self harm story, though don’t worry.
