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Alcohol - Entheogen of the masses

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Sadhaka said:
gobalswg said:
Yes, alcohol has it's purpose but just because someone notices his evil side because of it, it doesn't make it an entheogen. Alcohol makes it easier to behave in an immoral, corrupted way. It makes lots of people aggressive, horny and making stupid things while psychedelics almost always make me more reserved, chilled out and detached. Aggression, pointless sex without love and other such acts are very unappealing to me while on psychedelics. I feel wiser on them, more moral. While alcohol... well... it makes things easy and it has its uses but come on! I even feel repulsed when trying to drink on psychedelics.
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Couldn't agree more. This is my experience.

It's more like an ensatangen :p
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Alcohol is an interesting one. It has different connotations to different people. It has a lot to do with how a person acts while drunk, too. I don't have a problem with alcohol. I can drink largish amounts of it and not act like a douchebag, where as my partner has a little bit too much and becomes uncontrollable, emotional etc. I drink very rarely, but I enjoy it when I do. I can drink on psychedelics and enjoy it also. I think this is my approach to it, alcohol as never 'controlled' me.

Two of my most memorable experiences on psychedelics included drinking alcohol. Once, while on mushrooms, I shared a bottle of nice red wine with my partner after the peak and it was very nice and warming.

Another time, while on LSD I decided to bust out a bottle of maker's mark bourbon, and ended up drinking three quarters of the bottle. I wasn't in danger of alcohol poisoning, I'm a big guy. It was weird because I didn't feel drunk, my motor control was fine. I had a nice warm glow and everything felt fine. It was fun, but not an entheogenic experience. I was doing it to have a good time, and I achieved my goal. Doesn't mean it's a bad thing.
 
DMTripper said:
It's more like an ensatangen :p
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Lol!

Well, I have had experiences of euphoria while inebriated from alcohol, usually in combination with another vile drug called nicotine. These states were extremely pleasurable for the minutes they lasted and I remember even having tiny feelings of insights occasionally.
Aside from passing out with my heals over my head lying in my vomit I have never done anything totally stupid while drunk, however I can't remember ever doing anything totally brilliant on it either; or thought.

Can it be used? Sure. Do I think there is a net benefit that outweighs the net-downside? No. Not for me at least. Would I want to prohibit its use? No.

I feel alcohol is a vacant substance, for me it lacks this ability to get you in touch with deeper sides of yourself but rather pushes you energetically more to the surface. Plus it has horrible physical side effects which I can notice after even one beer. Personally I don't understand anymore why anyone would want to use it. It just almost seems immoral to me to drink with respect to my spiritual responsibility. But people are different. So some might find thy physical side effects negligible and feel some kind of positive enhancement or positive inhibition from it that gives them something that helps them in their development. Even if it's just for relaxing. But IMO there are better alternatives most of the times.

That being said, I hear alcohol is great for extraction/solution of alkaloids, for disinfecting and cleaning and as a fuel...

:)
 
In my life, alcohol has been the entheogenic straw man I suppose. It was put before me, so I could knock it down, and move on to bigger and better things in life.
 
I'm not dogmatic. It's a bit shameful but most of posts that I've recently published on this site were written under the influence of the devil's drink. Said that, I was promoted ultra-fast, so yes, alcohol has some advantages :D
 
I'm one of those lucky (no really!) people whose bodies just can't handle alcohol, so I'm at no risk of becoming an alcoholic. Getting it out of my life and quitting it entirely was an easy decision for me to make, because it makes me absolutely feel like death.

I've had a few really bad experiences with it, including one that resulted in months of agony and the loss of fifteen pounds (not to mention a colonoscopy! :shock: ) due to injuries to my digestive tract from a night of drinking. On top of that, I find that after drinking, even just a little, I crash and feel pretty depressed. Any insights I think I'm having while drunk are completely cancelled out by the horrible feeling that I'm poisoning my mind and body.

Can it have entheogenic merit? I suppose, in the proper context, but I at least do not have the proper cultural support to find anything spiritual in it. If I was brought up in a culture where it was seen and used as an entheogen, maybe it would be possible, but that's not the case.

DMTripper put it very well, it's a vacant substance. These days I try to take only substances that uplift consciousness, never ones that dull it. Be good to your body and it'll be good to you!
 
Beelzebozo said:
Can it have entheogenic merit? I suppose, in the proper context, but I at least do not have the proper cultural support to find anything divine in it.
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In a proper context even excrements can be psychedelic. And I mean it very seriously.
 
soulfood said:
It's only the devils drink if it doesn't taste good.

Otherwise...

it's my drink :)
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Who says Satan has no taste? With the long list of "sins" that afford one a passage to hell I would say Lucifer looks quite nice right about now..
 
Sadhaka said:
Beelzebozo said:
Can it have entheogenic merit? I suppose, in the proper context, but I at least do not have the proper cultural support to find anything divine in it.
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In a proper context even excrements can be psychedelic. And I mean it very seriously.
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Amanita muscaria urine anyone? 😉
 
Apparently certain greeks used to feed their children psilocybin mushrooms, then collect their urine to feed to the elders because apparently it was purer. WAY TO USE YOUR CHILD AS A FILTRATION SYSTEM.

But seriously, Beezlebozo makes a good point. His (I'm assuming here, sorry) body does not handle alcohol, therefore it will never be an entheogen for him. I can drink large amounts of alcohol and not make a complete fool of myself, so sometimes I can use it entheogenically. I am an OP drinker - Other people's. So, usually I'm hanging out with my friends who drink high quality booze and we just sit around and have a good time. Just this act of sharing drinks with friends and all becoming loosened up together can provide me with insights about myself and others. Then I start mixing double shots and end up passing out... But that's the good old human nature reasserting itself.
 
I can honestly say that no alcohol has knowingly passed my lips (you have to draw a line somewhere, right?:lol: ) but from my observations, if this compound has any 'entheogenic' value then its only within a small dosage 'window'; beyond this range which varies from one individual to the next, it seems to have a disinhibiting stupefactant effect which, I suspect, could be almost achieved by the inhalation of many volatile agents (such as glue and xylene!).

I have wondered what revealing self-analytical insights are being gained by the individual who is lying unconscious on a nightclub toilet floor awash with piss and puke- apart from perhaps 'I should find myself a more civilised tool for self-exploration'....
 
Sadhaka said:
Alcohol makes it easier to behave in an immoral, corrupted way. It makes lots of people aggressive, horny and making stupid things while psychedelics almost always make me more reserved, chilled out and detached.
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I'm sorry, but I have seen as proportionate amount of people using psychedelics to justify their antisocial behavior as I have people using alcohol that way. Probably even more, as I'm surrounded by people who use alcohol responsibly, while most of the people I've met who used psychedelics were people that used drugs irresponsibly in general.
Sadhaka said:
Yes, you can prise alcohol for many things and many artists actually were alcoholics. But come one, it's not because of the substance.
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You're making an awful large presumption that these artists could have created their work when they weren't influenced with alcohol. I, for one, don't believe it. That's like saying William S. Burroughs could have created his work without his experiences with heroin. The Naked Lunch was essentially written in an opiate/hash fueled fugue.

I think Entropymancer's quote by William James strikes straight to the heart of this. Alcohol was the vehicle for said artists to touch their creative source. In Leary & Wilson's The Game of Life they explore even further into the fact that most of the early Modern artists used heavy doses of alcohol, opium and hashish.

If you want strong evidence for the entheogenic use of alcohol, just look at Edgar Allan Poe.
 
If I may quote myself regarding alcohol:

endlessness said:
Personally I find alcohol to be statistically pernicious to humans. I cannot generalize that it will be poison to every single person because thats a bold claim I can't prove, but one can show with enough data how bad it is in a general sense for society, at least as it stands (in terms of health impact/accidents/social costs).

Also, most people I know, even close friends, when they drink alcohol I really cant be around them , due to their general unconscious behavior and being unaware of consequences to actions, being obnoxious, bad breath smell, etc. Sometimes its more sometimes its less but I've learned by experience to avoid people drinking and their manifestations. So I rather avoid social situations where alcohol is involved (most.. :p)

I never ever drink alcohol, it is not for me, and I think the world would be a better place if less people would drink, and I find it completely absurd the government's stance on it, how it is a hypocritically socially acceptable 'venting' drug that causes a lot of damage but is accepted since it doesnt lead to questioning the System.

Yet another thing Im pissed about is how you can be sensored, fined or even put in jail in some places for 'gloryfying drug usage' if you try to talk about certain drugs publically, even if reasonably, and yet on TV, outdoors and advertisement we see alcohol being associated with images of fun, sex, success, being 'cool', having fun, etc. This also goes to show how hypocritical and greedy the alcohol industry is too (like all, but knowing this leads to deaths/suffering has a worse moral load imo), so this makes me not want to support the industry either. In this sense I think it would be better if people would brew/distill themselves or buy from small producers that dont advertise unscrupulously, though this would only take care of the industry concerns, I still think in general the effects of alcohol itself are more often than not harmful.

With all that being said (yes I really dont like alcohol), I think ultimately its up to each one to decide what they do. As long as they are not affecting anyone else negatively, who am I to judge this person? :)
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I do think there is evidence that some people have used it "entheogenically" but I also think gotta be careful not to use that as an excuse to justify one's own unhealthy drinking.

I agree with ragabr's points though that some people also use psychedelics negatively. Personally I see more potential in psychedelics for human and society transformation given proper use than alcohol, but I certainly dont think this means every drinking person should take psychedelics right now instead, wont propose that people are forced to do so, that psychedelics are advertised as alcohol or that alcohol is forbidden. I can only decide for my own what to do, each one has to find for themselves what is the best way.
 
I'm not saying this would happen, but would you rather see psychedelics legalized (even if they end up becoming commercial entities associated in ads with sex, fun....a blast) or would you rather they remain illegal with the hopefully more "mature" images associated with them?
 
gobalswg said:
I'm not saying this would happen, but would you rather see psychedelics legalized (even if they end up becoming commercial entities associated in ads with sex, fun....a blast) or would you rather they remain illegal with the hopefully more "mature" images associated with them?
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:lol: well personally, due to their nature, I think such advertising would be farcical at best...I mean you can only push classical psychs so far through a medium/style that's entirely contradictory to the message they present (or at least the message I get from them). So this question is kind of a non-starter to my mind. Additionally, I would suggest that they are not viewed as strictly "mature" now, nor do I think legal status affects this at all.

However, even if I humor this, the answer is yes, I would much prefer them to be legal. The public's perception doesn't affect my use of them now (and I would argue current public perception is probably worse than it would be in the scenario you present due to the lies and misinformation of the drug war) so why would public opinion affect my use in the scenario you present? So, as public opinion does not influence my use of these substances and seeing that making them illegal would remove horrendous legal consequences as well as law-induced paranoia while tripping, I see legalization/regulation as purely positive, regardless of public perspective. Does public opinion affect your use of these substances?
 
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