the recreational drug culture I came up under encouraged/required someone not off-their-shit to be the minder/babysitter to help with dark moods, fixation, and mediate interactions with the outside world.
it was somewhat of a chore for that person, but it rotated and I didn’t mind being that person usually. I definitely appreciated it when I was off my shit, but wanted something from a store or someone wanted to take a ride to somewhere to see something cool, like a lake or other natural feature.
some among us were ultra lax about it and honestly, the pattern of poor impulse control would emerge over the decades. I could probably stand to be more relaxed, but they definitely could have benefitted from more circumspect behavior. DUIs, etc.
I sort of understand now there are facets to recreational drug use… a solo attempt to escape isolation and a ritual of communal experience. they don’t always overlap.
people are always going to be leery of someone clearly “on drugs” having a walkabout in public unattended, because there’s an expectation of mismatched perception. it sucks the stakes are so elevated in the US. in all honesty, the policy of a minder was probably mostly driven by the desire to not have one’s trip fucked by a cop interaction.
I feel like a good example of this system is in the book/movie Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas. As messed up as Hunter and his lawyer got, they seem to alternate who is more fucked up and who is more functional, such that at no point is one of them left alone to completely spiral out. For example, Hunter convinces his lawyer not to kill himself in the bathtub, and his lawyer looks after Hunter when he takes too much adrenochrome. And as a person who once lost his mind on mushrooms on a busy street, the fact that armed thugs are the ones who show up when a person is acting erratically doesn’t help anything.
the recreational drug culture I came up under encouraged/required someone not off-their-shit to be the minder/babysitter to help with dark moods, fixation, and mediate interactions with the outside world.
it was somewhat of a chore for that person, but it rotated and I didn’t mind being that person usually. I definitely appreciated it when I was off my shit, but wanted something from a store or someone wanted to take a ride to somewhere to see something cool, like a lake or other natural feature.
some among us were ultra lax about it and honestly, the pattern of poor impulse control would emerge over the decades. I could probably stand to be more relaxed, but they definitely could have benefitted from more circumspect behavior. DUIs, etc.
I sort of understand now there are facets to recreational drug use… a solo attempt to escape isolation and a ritual of communal experience. they don’t always overlap.
people are always going to be leery of someone clearly “on drugs” having a walkabout in public unattended, because there’s an expectation of mismatched perception. it sucks the stakes are so elevated in the US. in all honesty, the policy of a minder was probably mostly driven by the desire to not have one’s trip fucked by a cop interaction.
I feel like a good example of this system is in the book/movie Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas. As messed up as Hunter and his lawyer got, they seem to alternate who is more fucked up and who is more functional, such that at no point is one of them left alone to completely spiral out. For example, Hunter convinces his lawyer not to kill himself in the bathtub, and his lawyer looks after Hunter when he takes too much adrenochrome. And as a person who once lost his mind on mushrooms on a busy street, the fact that armed thugs are the ones who show up when a person is acting erratically doesn’t help anything.