My Experience of Various Addictions

I seem to become addicted very easily including ciagarettes, alcohol, marijuana, coffee, music and sex if it was available. Music has been the least destructive addiction I have experienced, expensive, but not destructive per se. I've managed to escape alcohol and marijuana and never get close to those two ever, but I would be climbing the walls without cigarettes and coffee. Addiction is said to be genetic, so if one of your relatives has a problem you are probably at a greater risk if you have those genes. There is no cure per se, just abstinence. My father was an alcoholic, who couldn't stop. He was unwilling to give it up completely although he would admit he was an alcoholic. The impact of addiction on a family is really quite profound. The drinker is essentially absent from the family. In addiction you develop an extremely intense relationship with a substance, which is much stronger than any human relationship. It's a chemical thing. The substance has a way of touching your heart in a way that no human can. The most popular treatment for alcoholism, Alcoholics Anonymous, involves developing a relationship in God as you understand it to be, and putting your faith in God to help you overcome the cravings and excuses you have for drinking. Even then a percentage of people drink to their death, unable to substitute a relationship more meaningful, or more powerful than the relationship they have with alcohol. It's a tragic human achilles heel, that some people are more genetically vulnerable to than others.
I think the genetic foundation to alcoholism is true for other addictions as well, and that to some degree, people can be more vulnerable to a variety of addictions, and that is something they will have to deal with to lead happy lives. I have never overcome my addictions, I have simply adapted to them. I hit bottom with alcohol and marijuana, which are destructive and expensive. Marijuana is particularly attractive to me and I still dream about getting stoned 17 years since my last high and almost 30 years since I was smoking marijuana daily. Hitting bottom is the turning point where you become so scared of a substance you're abjectly afraid of it. That can happen when you run completely out of money, when you've lost all your personal human relationships. It seems to vary from person to person, depending presumably on how strong your genetic vulnerability is. You can be completely humiliated by your addictions and never lose your love for them. They kill people.
I don't know if I'll ever be able to give up coffee, cigarettes and music. I've tried to give up cigarettes and coffee, but I've never suceeded more than a week or so. With an addiction you consume the substance irrespective of whether it is damaging your health. The chemical pleasure is greater than the physical pain it causes. Even music has its costs, your time and your discretionary income. It doesn't surprise me that rock stars often die from drug and alcohol overdoses. Being addicted to music they were vulnerable to other addictions. Music has many good qualities to it though. It is less an isolation from human relationship and more of a spirituality because it is not a chemical like alcohol or nicotine. It is also a very strange phenonmenon. Why is music such a powerful means of communication? How can anyone explain the audience's reaction to the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964?

After being discharged from an addiction treatment program in 1990 I was attending a lot of AA meetings, aware that I didn't really fit there, feeling very defeated, desolate and lonely. One of the men suggested leaving the radio on at low volume whenever I was home alone, which was often. Seventeen years later that radio is still on most of the time I am home alone, although I now have an impressive cd and record collection which is preferrable because there are no commercials. I started listening to an oldies AM station, the local Guelph station until I knew every, and I mean every, song they played. Then I switched to FM and started buying cds when they were on sale. Music per se has been the company I keep while other people are getting drunk and stoned.

Maybe everybody just needs a hobby, something that puts them in debt and consumes ridiculous amounts of their time, something that nobody else appreciates. I don't really know why mine is my sound system. Maybe it's because I'm single and don't have any pets, or any plants to care for. I have these pieces of electronic equipment instead. Some people develop an addiction for antique furniture, others fine carpets, and while those sorts of craftsmanship are intriguing, I seem to prefer a sound system. We are called audiophiles, and we're almost all male. There are very few women who develop this obsession for the quality of sound reproduction. Some people work to pay the mortgage, some work to raise their families, and I work to pay for my sound system. You have to have something to work for and look forward to.
I slipped into audiophilia gradually. When I had a little money I bought an Onkyo receiver and multi disc CD player, and some second hand Klipsch speakers. I think I first started to slip when I started looking for speaker cable. Monster had introduced the Monster speaker cable only a couple of decades ago really, but since then the business has really blossomed. I ended up with some QED Bi wire Silver Anniversary 8', which I bought from a dealer on eBay, Oz Enterprises for $150. I love the bottom end of music. If it hasn't got those low notes the music sounds hollow to me. My father played a British song about the elusive flat bottom that audiophiles quest for that was sung by a comedy team in the 1930s. It's been an addiction for some people for some time now, and some of that old equipment still commands a very high price.
For some reason I got it into my head that I was going to make this a life long obsession. I slowly started buying pieces of equipment rationalizing that I would keep them for the rest of my life. That way they would pay for themselves before my hearing started to go and that way I could justify their cost. I decided I was going to buy one piece a year because that was all I would ever be able to afford on ODSP. I bought the Manley Stingray first. It's an integrated tube amp, designed by a woman actually, Eve Ana Manley, and made in California. Next year it was considered a Stereophile Class B integrated amp. Stereophile is a popular magazine for audiophiles that lists the world's best components as Class A, B, C, D twice a year.
The hardest decision was really the speakers because they cost the most, and they are large, heavy and difficult to move. I decided on some very used Merlin VSMs which I bought on eBay. A year later I got them upgraded them to a newer version, and again another year later to the latest version. They became a Stereophile Class A speaker a year after I purchased mine. I added two Paradigm Servo 15 subs which were Stereophile Class B subs which worked out very well but you need some kind of equalizer to flatten the bass response in the room you place them, and so I traded them for a pair of new Revel B-15s which sound much better. Even the power cords took a long time to purchase. I really like the Shunyata Power chords. I changed the wall receptacles to Shunyata Venoms receptacles, but I had to hold off on dedicated power lines because that would mean knocking a lot of holes in the wall to add the wiring. I have a Shunyata Hydra to clean up the power. Because there are a lot of pieces involved in the creation of actual sound from a recording there is a very steep learning curve to getting good sound out of your system. There are three main sources, records, cds and the radio. Each involves some amplification even before it reaches the preamp, which feeds the amp which converts the signal for the speakers.
Vacuum tubes give a really full, rich, quite exquisite amplification, but there are problems with tubes. New tubes are made only in Eastern Europe, Russia, and China, and they can't compare with NOS Telefunken, Siemens, Amperex and Mullard. NOS stands for New Old Stock. After World War Two the military stocked up and acquired huge inventories of tubes in case of war. They even used tubes in tanks for some reason. There are still a lot of NOS tubes for sale in the world, but there is a limited supply. It's really no longer possible to get NOS EL84s and the Stingray needs 8. Different piecies of equipment use different tubes.My equipment uses 6922s, 12au7s, 12ax7s, and 12at7s. These are fairly plentiful, but the better ones cost a lot. Tubes burn out too after a few years, so you end up acquiring a very expensive stash of tubes for replacements. So my advice to budding young audiophiles is think long and hard whether you really need the inconvenience and cost of tubes. I would suggest a tubed preamp and a solid state amp. That is the choice I would recommend, although I've been told that you have to spend a lot of money to get solid state to sound as good as tube amp. I didn't take my own advice either, and almost every stage of amplification in my system now with the exception of the Merlin BAM unit, and the subs is done by tubes. The amp I'm using now is the Berning zh-270, the preamp a second hand Lamm LL2 deluxe. I'm really impressed with the Lamm equipment. I've switched from JPS cabling to Purist Audio Venustas interconnects and speaker cable. I bought most of my equipment second hand through Audiogon on the internet but some pieces are new.
There is a dilemma when you start to consider your preferred source. Everybody agrees that CD's are the worst quality source, but they are very convenient. Digital music depends on the sampling rate. The modern CD manufacturers claim their sampling is below the audible threshold, but every audiophile agrees a well kept analog vinyl album will always sound better than a CD on equivalent equipment. Trouble is, it's hard to find well cared for vinyl, and it's a nuisance to take care of it by cleaning it with yet another piece of equipment, a record cleaner. Cds are convenient but you have to spend a lot of money on a CD player to come close to the old analog turntable.
I started off listening to the Q107.1 FM radio a lot, but now I've moved on to CDs and LPs. I listen to a lot of distorted guitars, what is called psychedelic rock, which is found in the 1965 to 1975 era, but I have fairly eclectic tastes. My latest discovery is "Ry Cooder". When I was in psychosis I listened to a lot of "Little Feat", and "The Who", "Led Zepplin" and "Cream". I have quite a collection of "Grateful Dead", and "Eric Clapton" I also like "Pentangle", "Bruce Cockburn", "Jesse Winchester" and other acoustic music. In my mind the "Beatles" started everything and I don't have much that predates the Beatles. I wish I knew people who could introduce me to obscure good music. There is some really good obscure music that never becomes very popular, and it's very hard to discover without knowing someone like a used record dealer. Our public library has what seems to be a completely random collection of bad music. Being as alone as I am it's very hard to discover new music. I basically have the music collection I had when I graduated from university, which is very good, but everything was recorded at least 30 years ago.
I really like the sound of my system. I spend as many hours just listening to it as I can. I like when the distorted guitars seem to take on a life of their own, like the music is from another planet, when everything touches into each other to give the music an integrated wholeness. I guess I hope that my life will some day have those qualities.
People ask me "what my interests are", and I say "music and Sci Fi". They ask me "what instrument do you play", and I say "I like to listen to music", and without any shame whatsoever. We live in such an accomplishment oriented culture. We are always pushed to accomplish more. I think this pressure to accomplish is often very destructive. I remember a university president here in Guelph who said his biggest accomplishment was marrying the right woman. I couldn't help but instantly like the guy. He had so many other accomplishments that the vast majority of us will never have.
My biggest accomplishment is going to be enjoying my life and I recognize that is going to be a difficult challenge. I know it involves compromise, no matter what time period and culture you are living in, but I don't think we have any greater purpose on this planet than to enjoy life. Your own enjoyment of life tends to be passed on to future generations. I am not optimistic about the future though. The future of humanity is volatile and unpredictable, because we are so adaptable. Uncontroled population growth, nuclear proliferation, resurgence in religious belief, and global warming together are going to have very dire consequences that we may not survive as a species.

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