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by danford 4284 days ago
Well I know I can't be the only person who had to look this up:

>Teetotalism refers to either the practice of, or the promotion of, complete personal abstinence from alcoholic beverages.

I mean, I kind of inferred, but this is my first time hearing the term.

Anyway, I only drink on special occasion or when I go out to a fancy restaurant. Other than that it's copious amounts of marijuana.

3 comments

A while ago I was listening to some podcast discussion on beneficial "drugs" and some of the problems of classifying things as drugs, harmful or beneficial.

In any case, 'even alcohol can teach you some things" came up. It got me thinking. Most people experience (or semi-knowingly exhibit) reduced inhibition. If you're able to pay attention and observe, experiencing reduced inhibition has a side effect of shedding light on the existence and the nature of your inhibitions otherwise. It's interesting. It's not a 'nature of compassion' type of enlightenment, but potentially interesting nonetheless.

There's a resurgence of interest in psychedelic spiritual practices. The use of drugs in religious or cultural context is extremely ancient, possibly predating fully modern humans. But alcohol is also a part of that tradition. In fact, the use of alcohol in religious ceremony survives and is widespread in Christianity, Judaism and many other religions.

Ketamine is addictive and potentially harmful in several ways. Many are adamant that it's interesting and beneficial as well. I'm not sure those statements are competitive.

I can relate to that. The first few times I smoked weed, I noticed I was able to listen to music much more deeply. Somehow, it taught me how to appreciate music in a different way.
I think grass changes (or enhances) the way we make connections and associations. That's got all sorts of interactions with art. The "Woah! Dude. Have you ever thought.." cliche has a deeper, less silly version too.

Context is limited to the associations you make and a lot of meaning is dependent on context. It's a fairly good approximation for perspective another cliche way of describing the effects. If feel like I should say "mind expanding" just for completion's sake.

Speaking of associations, I'm remembering years ago hearing some old recording of Christopher Hitchens furiously defending Salman Rushdie and even more furiously attacking the apologists and appeasers. He apologized for all the cliches he was forced to use. Freedom is indivisible. Fascism means War. etc.

Cliches are easy and cheap but sometimes they contain a simple version of an insight, hidden behind a kind of cliche blindness. There's a reason they keep getting rediscovered.

Anyway.. Dude have you ever really listened to yellow submarine? I mean really listened? Dude...

I definitely learned a lot by drinking. Quite a few times, I went into a meditative state, where I was observing the way I feel/think/act while being drunk. Or I would go over the events that happened, before I got completely sober (and forgot most of what happened). I think I'm much more honest and open because of it (not always a good thing, but it's aligned with my principles and I like living like that). I don't drink that much any more.
I learned a TON from booze. But at some point it stopped helping and started hurting. Dunzo.
I haven't seen the term before too. It's etymology is interesting: 1830s, from total, the reduplicated tee being an intensifier – “T-total” (see https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/teetotal).
> from total, the reduplicated tee being an intensifier – “T-total”

Interesting. I wonder if there are other words formed in this same way. (Can't think of any.)

UPDATE: I could not find any other such words in the more traditional dictionaries. But Urban Dictionary has some informal usages that follow that pattern:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=a-alike

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gee-gawker

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=p-pissed

That seems like we need a follow up poll then - do you smoke weed! The discussion resulting from "do you smoke weed but not drink alcohol" might be interesting too?
Why leave it at that? Why not ask everyone if they do amphetamine daily or just once a week?
Ahem

"After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month.[17] Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence, mathematics had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine use."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s#Personality

It's important to remember this, quoting from another HN comment [1]:

> Erdős was a heavy user of many other stimulants (like coffee), but only started to use antidepressants and then amphetamines in 1971 when he was 58 after his mother died. He was already established as a first rate mathematician (he should have won the Fields Medal), and using amphetamines to work 19 hours a day was his way of coping with the death of his mother.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8316764

Is Twitter's management team on HN? That could skew the results...
Would be interesting to see a poll on smoking weed, I would say a lot of people who do smoke weed would not drink alcohol that often, if none at all.
They've been done before.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=509614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8021822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7594543

Search Google with "site:news.ycombinator.com marijuana ask hn" and variations thereof.

Awesome thanks!