[ExI] vaccine was: RE: damn doctors!

William Flynn Wallace foozler83 at gmail.com
Wed Dec 16 20:46:18 UTC 2020


we have been sold this big flim flam that alcoholism is a disease, rather
than a character flaw.  spike

Well. since I was a heavy drinker that some would call an alcoholic, I have
a few thoughts on that.  Alcoholism (A) is certainly a disease in the sense
that it causes many physiological problems and can kill you.  But it is not
like a disease such as a viral infection, because you are voluntarily
taking it in - with viruses you have no choice - and there are voluntary
ways to stop the A, whereas voluntary actions do not kill
viruses/bacteria/fungi.

I am completely unable to explain why I was able to stop completely and
suddenly and so many other people aren't.  I cannot tell someone how to
stop. Ditto for cigarettes. No magic wand.  But clearly it is something in
my personality that is not in the people who fail at quitting.  I will not
put a name on it.  But some people would call it character.  I never knew
that I could quit at any time, and maybe that was totally false anyway.
Maybe it was the stresses in my life bolstered by facets of my personality
that came together and enabled me to quit.  Frankly, it was easy.  Quitting
cigarettes was, physically,much harder.  Craving for nicotine was not
paralleled by craving for alcohol.  In fact the next day I felt better than
I had for many years.  So maybe it's both a disease and a character flaw,
but calling it the latter is useless, maybe even harmful, because we don't
know how to fix the flaw or even what it is.    bill w

On Wed, Dec 16, 2020 at 2:31 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
>
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> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat
> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 16, 2020 11:29 AM
> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Cc:* William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] vaccine was: RE: damn doctors!
>
>
>
> I think that you didn't really think when you wrote this:
>
>
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> Think of it this way: if it’s legal, it isn’t really drug abuse.
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> >…Oh but what about alcoholism?   A minor point, to be overlooked,
> really.  Life is good.  bill w
>
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> That one gets by on a technicality: alcohol is a non-prescription drug.
> Besides, we have been sold this big flim flam that alcoholism is a disease,
> rather than a character flaw.  So we hafta overlook it or seek treatment
> and so forth.
>
>
>
> For that matter, grass is also a non-prescription drug, but think about it
> billw: the ingredient which makes ya stoned is THC: tetrahydrocannabinol.
> OK so we give it that long Latin name, so it sounds all chemicaley and
> prescriptioney and all that.  But sheesh, it is in a weed fer cryin out
> loud.  Giving it that long name doesn’t change the matter really, because
> we can figure out the meaning by working backwards.  Tetra means “four.”
> Hydro means “water.”  Cannabinol translates from the ancient Latin as
> “stuff that is in weed.”
>
>
>
> Very simple really: tetrahydrocannabinol a big fancy word for a reefer and
> four glasses of water.  We try to make it so complicated.  Simplify your
> life, put away the weed and the alcohol, enjoy life fully sober.  Lots here
> to enjoy.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
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