Alcohol vs. Marijuana (By Peter Lagios)

Normally I refrain from drinking alcohol of any kind. The illness I suffer from, does not allow me to drink even 1-2 (12 oz) beers without being severely compromised and worsening the condition. I used to be a very severe binge drinker who would sometimes wake up and count up to 24 beer cans next to my computer terminal drinking from 5pm to 3am. I’m no lightweight when it came to alcohol.

However, probably because of the severe drinking, my body succumbed to a mysterious illness that befell me April of 2010. It caused me to have abnormal balance and motor functioning, inflammation of C6/C7 vertebrae (pushing into my spinal cord), difficulty breathing, photo-light sensitivity, and aspergillus niger to begin growing out of my fingernail beds. My eyes were always bloodshot and I had severe ringing in my ears with extreme lethargy / fatigue.

For the past year and half I have been battling this un-diagnosed illness. Extensive lab testing in Las Vegas and Mayo Clinic has come up with no answers. Do I have mold poisoning from my water damaged house? Do I have Fibromyalgia? Do I have some strange Leukemia or immune system disorder? It’s unclear…and I eventually gave up looking for answers. With personal fasting, spa / sauna therapy, vegan raw foods diet, yoga and exercise…I managed to recover from the worst of it pretty much on my own. However I do admit that in the worst phases of it, while I was hooked up to IV’s in hospital, the nebulizer breathing treatments, albuterol inhalers, Allegra-D, and Sporanox may have provided some assistance. But the incompetency in medical treatment I received despite the exorbitant costs submitted to my Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield plan out of Nevada is a whole other blog entirely.

I want to return to the alcohol vs. ganja debate I titled this under.

When I became sick, my drinking ended immediately. I have not drank alcohol like I did for the past eighteen months with only a few exceptions…just to test out whether or not I could without becoming incredibly sick. Each time I drank 1-2 beers I noticed my medical condition worsen so I immediately quit.

Monday night however, rare and special news beset my friend whom I was hanging with. He found out his mother was diagnosed with a very bad disease. It was devastating news and everyone gathered around the campfire felt the intensity of emotions. I succumbed and grabbed a beer from the carton…and even lit up a cigarette.

Probably 7-9 beers and about 7 cigarettes later, I found myself intoxicated and unable to drive home at 5am. I crashed in my car and drove myself home about 4 hours later…numb and very hungover. Every motion I made seemed like there was a 1 second delay behind it. Like witnessing your own slow-motion.

The next day, I was extremely sick…unable to leave the house, facing difficulty breathing, erratic heart-rate, extreme numbness (parasthesia), ringing in the ears, difficulty staying up yet unable to sleep, and a general feeling that I was going to die quickly. It sucked, and I was trapped in a horrible zombified limbo. My thoughts were very negative and punishing, and it seemed like the world was crashing in on me. At some points I was only able to crawl on the floor, and I collapsed a few times on the bedroom and living room floors. I had known the feeling of hangover before, but with my illness amplifying the situation, I couldn’t be so sure that I wouldn’t have died right then and there.

Now, 2 days later I am just beginning to pull out of the condition, although my chest is still tight, and I’m having trouble breathing still to a minimal degree.

Alcohol caused this. The effects of alcohol.

While first drinking it was a steady loss of inhibition and new found freedom, willing to chat and try things you normally wouldn’t be doing…the high told you to “live in the moment”, and talk about ideas with such confidence and planning you’d think you were going to start the very next day with your new found friends. But the low is another story. The downside to alcohol once the body begins processing it, the doldrums associated with that processing, prevents any of the night’s previous splendor and excitement from ever happening. The reality of the anesthesia known as alcohol sets in. It is nothing but a cheap poison that sickens and degrades the human body. The period of high and enjoyment (2-3 hours) dwarfed compared to the period of low and recovery (2-3 days).

Yet this is a society approved legal drug huh? -A drug that incapacitates you to drive your motor vehicle and causes a person to sometimes piss and crap his pants, and crawl on their hands and knees, puking in the toilet. This is the great night out the beer commercials depict on TV? -With all the hot chicks and cool times?

Give me a break. Lies…all LIES.

Now let’s review our little known friend marijuana.

I want to caveat by saying I have only smoked marijuana a handful of times in the last 10 years. It’s just not readily available to me, and I never seek it out. One time I’d say about 3 months ago, it was available and the environmental conditions were right, so I smoked a hit. Here’s what happened.

I drew in a very long and large hit of what’s considered really good weed. I held it in for 30 seconds before barely expelling any smoke…so I knew I had got a good dose. I kept it at one dose and sat back on the couch and watched TV. No, this was not at my house…so if you are law enforcement reading this ñ I DON’T KEEP WEED!

I sunk back in the couch and watched Bob Ross painting on IPTV. He was doing a dark stormy mountain winter scene with a little cottage. My thoughts became super condensed and focused onto what he was doing. I barely moved, and after a period of nervousness I became immersed into the world of art and knew nothing else but what was right in front of me. The only thing that bugged me was the age spots on his hands, and I wished they would have used make up to cover them up, since the camera was always focused on his hands. It bugged me to a certain degree…but I did like his tone and manner, and I found his program to be a very relaxing, pleasant way to spend a buzz.

After about an hour, I was able to move around, although the world outside of Bob Ross’s painting seemed like nowhere I wanted to be. But once I got up, I looked out and saw my car, and I realized that I too had some cool things in my life, and could create and do something artistic. A plan developed in my mind. I wanted to drive to Hobby Lobby and find something artistic to do with the rest of the afternoon. It sent a shiver of excitement in me, and I made my way out to the west end of Mason City.

I drove just as cool and slow as I always do. I was enjoying all the attention and smiles from people around me as they snapped photos and gave me the thumbs up and laughed. My car was out of the ordinary, and now that I was stoned…I thought how cool I really was…and am. A phrase came into my head which I had a strong urging to make a bumper sticker out of: I AM VERY STONED, AND I AM VERY COOL. It made me feel good about things, and my life.

I walked around Hobby Lobby and looked at about everything you could see…so many projects and great things to do. Each time I stood before something, it was like I was doing it…oil paints, gem stones for inlay, X-acto knives and balsa wood, acrylics, airbrushing supplies…stickers. So many cool things. I enjoyed the fantasy of it so much that I ended up not doing any of it. I walked out of the store and continued on my way. I don’t consider it any kind of apathy that prevented me from settling on something…more like it was a wanting to make sure that any new projects were researched and done the right way. It was a controlled kind of careful.

I felt like my medical condition lightened up on me…my brain waves were calmer, cooler…it was like taking an Ativan benzodiazepim, that lasted ALL DAY. The content of my thoughts was promising, uplifting, hopeful. I was a cool guy, and I did matter in this world. I slept great and had colorful vivid dreams. I even felt some of the effects the next day. All in all about 3 days I stayed in this calm, cool, state of being. And this was from ONE HIT of really good weed.

Now you can go back yourself and read the section on alcohol and what it did to me when I drank the 7-9 beers, and compare it with the section of when I smoked a hit of really good marijuana. I’ll let you come to your own conclusions. All I did in this article was provide you with an accurate, honest account of 2 times within the last 3 months of when I drank alcohol and when I smoked the plant known as marijuana.

Peter Lagios

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Postscript: Now some people would say how un-smart of it is for me to be writing such a candid confession on a public forum…but I want to encourage more people to come forward with their accounts of marijuana and how it has helped their lives. It’s the NOT COMING FORWARD and remaining underground which has caused the plant to remain illegal in the first place. Write anonymously if you must, but legalization will never occur, unless honest truthful accounts of what the plant really does come forward into the public domain.

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