Cycling
From accounts of addiction - or at least the progress towards addiction - I've read, people do use uppers and downers to counteract each others' effects, often to meet social or work obligations or conceal their drug-taking. Addictions to multiple substances are common, though later in the disease I suspect the behaviour gets disorganized, as people with addictions take mixtures of substances in their efforts to just feel normal. (My addiction lecturer mapped out a continuum whereby people start by taking drugs to get high, and as the disease advances and their brain chemistry alters, began to need them just to feel normal - quite apart from any underlying mood disorder or psychosis.)

I also remember reading that the response to alcohol is culturally determined, and that some rather ugly behaviours we are accustomed to accepting as due to alcohol are not seen in some other cultures. Alcohol decreases judgement, so the people who think they can drive while drunk are wrong. I can't remember the figure for % of road accidents in which alcohol is a factor - but it is greater than 50%. And then 85% of people believe they are better drivers than average.
posted by Anonymous at 07:57   comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments