Hi folks,

I enjoy a little wine most evenings.  I don't use it while doing meditation.  I would just fall asleep anyway.  Having said that, however, I have meditated while in all kinds of varying mental states, half-asleep, etc.  Of course, my definition of meditation is quite wide.  For me it is an expansion of consciousness, however achieved.  The result should be positive when done correctly.

I did stop all alcohol use, etc. completely for a period of 10 years after my early 20s.  My 20s were an unstable time for me and encouraged destructive habits.  That 10 year period brought positive changes for me but also gave me a little puritanical edge.

Each to his own.  If it is a problem then you will know it.  There is always someone there to help us when we are ready.

love, blink

Marilyn, I completely agree with you. I am speaking on my own experience....for 4 years I was on an anti depressant (Paxil)....and this past spring, I finally was able to get off them completely. I had been on the maximum dose...in fact, the dose they had me up to had not even been proven safe yet for people. In those 4 years, I lost all ability to receive messages from the other side...lost all my dream contact and all pysic (how do you spell that, darn it???) Everything was gone. Just like that.
It has only started to come back to me in the past few months...and I don't know yet if I will even get it all back to the extent that I once had, which was incredible before the med's.

I find that alcohol limits my consciousness, and makes it unclear. Plus, if you look at how drunk people act, they hardly seem enlightened.

I guess it's a matter of what you're looking for. Cheap thrills, or growth.

hi Ryan...well speaking as an old worn out hippy yes we used drugs to "expand our minds" back in the 60's, but mostly the effects of expanding the mind this way are temporary as the idea was to expand your mind and also be able to remember and benefit long term from that expansion..and if the high you got from the drugs was induced chemically, it didn't produce any true spiritual growth until you could produce naturally the state of mind that a drug afforded you.
always wanted to interview Timothy Leary though, the proponent of acid. I just wonder what he thinks about using it after all this time has gone by. whether he's happy. I don't think he still takes it? I don't even take aspirin anymore, so u can see where I'm coming from.
I just think it's backwards to use the body to induce a mental or emotional or spiritual state through a chemical, when meditation, prayer or connecting with higher self can produce the same thing permanently. just takes longer but the effects last longer! love, alysia

that kinda sounds like an old wives tale..at least I hope so! ha ha! love, alysia

TIMOTHY LEARY  •  Psychologist / Writer / Outlaw

Timothy Leary was a psychologist whose research on the effects of mind-altering drugs in the early '60s led to fame as a symbol of the American counter culture movement by the end of the decade. At Harvard in 1960, Leary studied LSD's effect on volunteer grad students, and used it as psychotherapy for prison inmates. Although the grad students and prisoners liked it, university authorities didn't and Leary left Harvard in 1963. By the height of the hippie movement, he was in California telling young people to "Turn on. Tune in. Drop out." and advocating the use of LSD, which had become illegal. President Nixon called him the "most dangerous man in America," but Leary was a celebrity, hanging out with stars like Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon. Jailed in 1972 for marijuana possession, Leary escaped from jail and made it to Algiers, where he tried to get asylum from Eldridge Cleaver. Leary was eventually arrested in Afghanistan and brought back to serve time. He was released in 1976 and headed for Hollywood, and in the 1980s changed his focus from psychedelic drugs to technology. In the 1990s he was a champion of cyberculture as the future of mankind; when diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1995, Leary announced he would Webcast his final days. He died in his sleep in 1996 and his remains were launched into orbit in April of 1997, in a vial described as "the size of a lipstick holder," attached to a Spanish satellite scheduled to orbit until 2003.

By the way, I saw him speak at an anti-nuclear protest in Las Vegas in the early '90's.

Love, Mairlyn