I Don't Need Drugs

I was reading the comments to an NPR story, "Comedian Faces His Addictions To Food And Alcohol" about comedian Jamie Kilstein (http://www.npr.org/2013/10/20/236950670/comedian-faces-his-addictions-to-food-and-alcohol) when I came across Jim Fetter's comment about addiction: 

"Well the alcohol I don't understand, because I never could acquire a taste for something that would operate my automobile."

I hadn't thought of it that way.  My usual response to the question as to why I don't drink is one of the following:

1. Drinking is for grown-ups.
2. It all tastes like Nyquil to me.
3. I never acquired a taste for it.
4. I'm too cheap.
5. I make money being the designated driver.

Now I can add that I try not to imbibe anything flammable.

I don't need drugs or alcohol.  My brain is addled enough.  (My neighbor and I have a standing joke.  In response to one of us saying something loopy, the other will pretend to examine the speaker's eyes, shrug and say, "Dunno.  The pupils aren't dilated.)

As an undergraduate I lived with the hippies and associated with the drug users.  I can honestly say that I didn't use drugs but I got to share their paranoia.

Some time in grad school I realized that I'd distanced myself from the scene when it dawned on me that I didn't recognize the names of the drugs being tossed about.  Not only that, I didn't want to know.  A fellow grad student claimed to have stopped smoking pot because he didn't have any free time.  And, if he had the free time, he said, he had other stuff which needed doing anyway.  (Life's a bummer.)