Amerika

Why do people in America smoke so much marijuana? One answer is that life is boring or ugly, but another is that trauma from early life sets people back by a few decades and they stay stoned in order to deal with the confusion.

Science tells us now how marijuana intensifies abuse experiences:

The results showed that individuals who survived childhood trauma, particularly those exposed to physical and emotional abuse, tended to have much more severe paranoia symptoms as adults. Participants exposed to bullying, sexual abuse, household discord (such as parents constantly fighting), and neglect as children also exhibited severe paranoia symptoms.

The researchers also found that individuals exposed to childhood trauma were more likely to consume high quantities of THC. As expected, heavy cannabis use amplified paranoia symptoms across the board in a dose-dependent manner—meaning the more THC a person consumed, the worse their paranoia became.

Crucially, the statistical models revealed a specific interaction between THC consumption and two types of trauma: emotional abuse and household discord. The researchers found that consuming cannabis significantly amplified paranoia in individuals who had survived these specific traumas, suggesting that THC exacerbates the hyper-vigilance and mistrust already instilled by chaotic or emotionally abusive childhood environments.

In a country where our future is one of doom by diversity, most people grow up with trauma, or at least their parents are traumatized and weird and the kids grow up disturbed as a result. Not surprisingly many turn to self-medication.

Self-medication takes another form, too, through alcohol which is often used by grown-up lonely or traumatized children:

As children and teenagers navigate critical periods of brain development, social contact helps shape their neural circuits. Environmental stressors during this sensitive window can disrupt normal developmental trajectories. Experiencing isolation or neglect during youth can elevate the risk of mood disorders and substance use issues in adulthood.

The ventral pallidum is a small cluster of cells resting deep within the brain. It acts as a central hub for assessing the value of different experiences. The region helps an individual weigh whether a stimulus is rewarding and worth pursuing or aversive and worth avoiding.

Cells in the ventral pallidum receive constant chemical signals from other parts of the brain. One of the primary messenger chemicals they receive is dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps the brain recognize and learn from rewarding events.

The conventional narrative that they drink to obliterate consciousness seems to miss the point to me; with drugs or alcohol, you have something providing joy that is not yourself but also is not society. You are feeling good despite circumstances and will choose that for your own mental health.

We get a brief insight into this condition with rewards processing as handled by psychedelics:

People suffering from depression often experience a blunted capacity to process rewards. When they win something or receive positive feedback, their brains do not react as strongly as the brains of healthy individuals. This reduced emotional processing can sap motivation and make it difficult to learn from mistakes or adapt behavior effectively.

While the participants played the game, the scalp sensors tracked the specific electrical patterns as the volunteers digested their performance. The scientists were particularly interested in the prolonged emotional wave, which typically occurs a fraction of a second after a person receives negative feedback compared to positive feedback. In healthy brains, experiencing a monetary loss triggers a robust electrical response that dwarfs the usual response to winning.

Without the influence of the active drug, individuals with worse depressive moods showed a smaller electrical response to losing the game. Their capacity to process the emotional sting of a missed reward appeared stunted, fitting the classic profile of depressive blunting.

Intoxication blunts negative feedback, allowing positive feedback to compete, where otherwise the abusive, traumatized, and depressed person is tuned in to the negative feedback in order to avoid being surprised by it, making them fatalistic and melancholy.

Getting out of one’s own head through psychedelic experience seems to provide positive benefits:

A new observational study published in Psychedelic Medicine found that individuals who reported more adverse events during their early years showed greater reductions in anxiety and larger boosts in overall well-being after attending psychedelic retreats compared to those with fewer childhood traumas.

Individuals with a heavy burden of childhood trauma frequently show elevated levels of general anxiety and lower overall mental well-being. They also tend to exhibit a psychological trait known as experiential avoidance, which is a defense mechanism where a person attempts to suppress, ignore, or escape from difficult thoughts, painful memories, and uncomfortable physical sensations.

The study also revealed an association between childhood trauma and the specific nature of the drug induced experience. The researchers found a positive correlation between adverse childhood experiences and both mystical and emotional breakthrough experiences. Participants with more traumatic backgrounds were generally more likely to have a strong sense of spiritual unity and a deep emotional release during their psychedelic session.

In this case, the intoxicant simply suppresses the elevated levels of general anxiety (leading to) lower overall mental well-being. The intoxicant is a Narrative in itself, and this extracts the person from their doom loop and allows them to decompensate and find a new story of their lives.

In addition, the increased complexity of having to process reality under psychedelics translates to increased awareness of the world outside their feedback loop of fatalism and pessimism, allowing positive thoughts to compete again.

Some think consciousness itself is triggered by complexity. With enough processing going on in the brain, it starts to model reality and through that, models itself (much as the Upanishads suggest the early universe did to itself). Consciousness arises from calculation.

Interestingly, this takes a different path than AI/LLMs, which model statistical likelihood and then analyze that into rationalizations. They are similar to AutoCorrect or PageRank, assuming that popularity is correct, and building a consciousness model of that.

Some would say Leftism is the same!

In any case, childhood trauma also leads to interesting sexual behaviors based on the need to escape negative loops:

Securely attached individuals feel comfortable with closeness and trust. They generally expect others to be supportive. In contrast, insecure attachment generally falls into three specific categories. Preoccupied individuals constantly seek approval and fear abandonment, dismissive individuals avoid closeness because they prefer extreme independence and do not trust others, and fearful individuals desire emotional intimacy but pull away to avoid being hurt.

Attachment patterns also aligned with specific sexual roles. The dismissive attachment style was positively associated with engaging in and enjoying dominant behaviors. People who avoid emotional closeness to protect themselves from vulnerability might feel safer when they are in complete command of a physical situation.

On the other hand, the preoccupied attachment style was associated with adopting a submissive position. Individuals who frequently seek external validation might find fulfillment in relinquishing control. Following the strict rules set by a dominant partner could provide a desired sense of temporary approval and relational structure.

For the isolated person, abuse is belonging, so many go back to that by promiscuously seeking social approval. Others simply withdraw in order to avoid ever having to trust another person again or go halfway but then retreat. These reflect the pathologies of their childhoods.

What this tells us is that if an entire society experienced childhood trauma and loneliness, for example by being told it was being ethnically replaced and it was good, you might expect them to wander around in a haze of intoxication and sexual masochism.

Tags: abuse, alcoholic, BDSM, loneliness, LSD, marijuana, mental health, psychedelics, slaves and masters, trauma