First:  Admin, if you want to move this topic, then I apologise as it's the first time I've created a topic and was overwhelmed with the options.
Second:  These are not my words, I'm just pasting for information, we can discuss later if anyone is interested.

So here goes:

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Get a rat and put it in a cage and give it two water bottles. One is just water, and one is water laced with either heroin or cocaine. If you do that, the rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself very quickly, right, within a couple of weeks. So there you go. It’s our theory of addiction.
 

Bruce comes along in the ’70s and said, “Well, hang on a minute. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It’s got nothing to do. Let’s try this a little bit differently.” So Bruce built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything your rat about town could want, it’s got in Rat Park. It’s got lovely food. It’s got sex. It’s got loads of other rats to be friends with. It’s got loads of colored balls. Everything your rat could want. And they’ve got both the water bottles. They’ve got the drugged water and the normal water. But here’s the fascinating thing. In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use any of it. None of them ever overdose. None of them ever use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction. There’s a really interesting human example I’ll tell you about in a minute, but what Bruce says shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. So the right-wing theory is it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard. The left-wing theory is it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment.
 

We’ve created a society where significant numbers of our fellow citizens cannot bear to be present in their lives without being drugged, right? We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for a lot of people, much more like that first cage than it is like the bonded, connected cages that we need.

The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of our society, is geared towards making us connect with things not people. If you are not a good consumer capitalist citizen, if you’re spending your time bonding with the people around you and not buying stuff—in fact, we are trained from a very young age to focus our hopes and our dreams and our ambitions on things we can buy and consume. And drug addiction is really a subset of that.
~ Johann Hari

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So, can any farang see this behaviour in themselves?  I know I can.  Lack of stimulation.

 

Maybe i grt it wrong, but your writing this on thaivisa, is like a hint that Thailand is the big ultimate rat park?

haha

 

But to many farang rats want it both.

To be high while being at the ultimate rat park.

why? lol

I never really got that,

why farang come to Thailand and do drugs and the same trouble stuff as at home really..

when theres so much you could explore and experience,  its actually wasting a good chance to get off the juices without the big trauma IMO 

 

Hmm, if I understand your question correctly then I'd say no.

I'll make this next bit up, but I know at least some of it applies to myself:

I lived in UK, worked hard, had Friday nights out, and maybe a soft Sunday, then worked some more.  I never had issues with substance abuse (even now I think I'm moderate, but every opinion is different).

I come here and what can I do?  I see lot's of pretty, exotic (or that's how it looked at the time) think it's an adventure, then eventually talk to farang and hear stories and get jaded.  I try to show that it's different (yeah we've all heard that one by now), and I'm trying so hard to accommodate, and if I don't accommodate I'm isolated.  I think I want to give them the gift of missing me (or maybe they won't at all, but I wouldn't be here to know anyhow)....but if I do that I'm not coming back, and I want them to see the writing on the wall before that happens.  Pay for this, that, "I never got a letter back, more fool me...", money money, plastic Bhuddism/Anamism, you don't understand Thai, how many Thais help farang?  50/50?  80/20 99/1 - I'm not that bothered so long as I'm happy... I mean that's all that I really want - for me and mine to be happy (and that includes my farang friends who are few, but much more solid than most other farang I've met, and even Thais which I kind of accept, but they're not the ones that rip me off, it's the farangs that do that).  No matter, I can regenerate and excel again.

I just pasted the text to see the rat model and how a connected group has no need of substances really (even if they partake sometimes - it's not a need, just an enjoyable excursion sometimes).

In short, I think all of us have it all really really wrong and it needs some input and discussion before taking a stance.

[Edit]:  I feel like I'm living in an empty cage sometimes.  Not always, but for sure sometimes.  Meaning, Understanding.  Scrap that they just want my achievement tokens without achieving.

 

Edited March 8, 20197 yr by Shiver

well, it is similar to many other addictions or habits.  The person for whatever reason has little interest or desire or opportunity to do other more positive things.  So they gamble, drink to failure, do drugs, etc.  Granted some things really are chemically addictive and extremely hard to break out of.  But I have seen successful people lose their monies, businesses, relationships by gambling, and in one case, their lives. 

Many people buy stuff so that they can better bond with people around them, the two are not mutually exclusive. In Thailand, no money, no honey!

 

This needs to be transferred to the new age ball-ocks section.

Edited March 8, 20197 yr by AlexRich

12 minutes ago, AlexRich said:

In Thailand, no money, no honey!

I thought that we had agreed that in Thailand it is now "no Farang, no money".

I never tried drugs. Why? Because maybe I would like it. So it's better not to get used to it.

 

Reading the news from all over the world everyday I am not surprised that lots of people can handle it better if they are filled up with drugs.

9 hours ago, Shiver said:

These are not my words, I'm just pasting for information, we can discuss later if anyone is interested.

It's just a behaviour working theory you read by people when studying up on psychiatric social work. 

5 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I never tried drugs. Why? Because maybe I would like it. So it's better not to get used to it.

 

Reading the news from all over the world everyday I am not surprised that lots of people can handle it better if they are filled up with drugs.

Same here.  Two things spring to mind that I've never tried because I know I would destroy myself.  Cocaine and Big Bikes.

Both look like a lot of fun, but there's that threshold between being meek and mild, then turning into a junkie (adrenalin or otherwise).  Even on mountain bikes and snowboards I was always the one that would push it just a little further, even though I'm usually one of the quieter more anxious people in other settings.

Good post but what the post fails to address is the "social engineering" that has taken place through the media, educational institutions etc. that has been dividing not uniting people...

28 minutes ago, tlandtday said:

Good post but what the post fails to address is the "social engineering" that has taken place through the media, educational institutions etc. that has been dividing not uniting people...

Was that not always there? Now it's just more obvious and probably faster and with more participants like some time ago.

17 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I never tried drugs. Why? Because maybe I would like it. So it's better not to get used to it.

 

Reading the news from all over the world everyday I am not surprised that lots of people can handle it better if they are filled up with drugs.

Perhaps start a thread in the Puritans sub forum. ' Does sex lead to dancing?'

10 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Was that not always there? Now it's just more obvious and probably faster and with more participants like some time ago.

I'm sure there are posters still confused why the letter from their pen pal in 1962 hasn't arrived yet.

If it's any consolation the people using modern 

communications now will not recognise their world in twenty ears.

The dissemination per one million people over time is an interesting Google search. Up until the invention of the printing press it wa fairly stable. Since then the curve has gone logarithmic.

Unfortunately knowledge gets shared as the same rate as bullshit.

11 hours ago, emptypockets said:

I'm sure there are posters still confused why the letter from their pen pal in 1962 hasn't arrived yet.

If it's any consolation the people using modern 

communications now will not recognise their world in twenty ears.

The dissemination per one million people over time is an interesting Google search. Up until the invention of the printing press it wa fairly stable. Since then the curve has gone logarithmic.

Unfortunately knowledge gets shared as the same rate as bullshit.

I sent a message in a bottle as a teenager circa 1986.  No return to sender though.

You sound like the kind of dude I could really enjoy a conversation with.  If you're ever in Udon then you have an invite to our restaurant on my tab.