Salvia addiction?

Ben for God's sake don't try it, why would you want to take something that is a hallucinogenic. This stuff is very similar to mescaline (which I tried in the 70's) and your really going to mess with your brain cells on this one!! You have already stated you have an addictive personality....your playing with fire. Stick to a beer or two, forget the pot,pills,salvia,etc.....Take care Ben and please behave!!

i personally do not believe salvia is physically or mentally addictive, in fact i think it may even have anti addictive properties in that once you try it and realize how terrifying it is, you wont want to go near it ever again. however, its always possible that some deragned individual could become addicted. anyway, i must ask you, why are you trying this powerful drug? salvia rips your soul from your body and tears your reality to shreads. i believe that such experiences are extremely damaging from a spiritual standpoint.

Of course it is up to you what you choose to do. I have experimented with salvia and did not find it to be addictive, but that is only me. This is coming from someone who believes that cannabis is highly habit-forming and addictive.

As with anything in life, you need to weigh the pro's and con's and make the decision that best suits your highest goals for yourself. If you are seriously considering it, you should do your research first. It is important to have someone with you to keep you from harm during your trip.

Truth be told, this is probably not the best forum to get unbiased information about psychoactive plant materials. Our bias here is obvious: we are people who either have quit, are quitting, or are thinking about quitting various substances.

The final word must be to follow your own inner voice.

Truth be told, this is probably not the best forum to get unbiased information about psychoactive plant materials. Our bias here is obvious: we are people who either have quit, are quitting, or are thinking about quitting various substances.

this is most certainly true (that we are biased), however don't you think that in fact that may make this one of the best places to get your drug information? i mean its much worse to put too much sugar in your tea than not enough. so by getting information from those who have been addicted/harmed by drugs, one ensures they will be will informed of the risks and i think that when comtemplating taking drugs, the risks should be your foremost consideration. had i come here to get my drug information (and i honeslty wish i had stumbled upon this forum a few years earlier) its quite possible i would never have become addicted to cannabis. you see, when i started smoking cannabis i went to a marijuana forum and asked a bunch of STONERS whether i was smoking too much. they assured me that it wasn't addictive and it was just fine to toke up everyday. now my life is ruined because i followed their advice.

note: i am not trying to blame my entire cannabis addiction on those people who lead me to believe it was not harmful, i did begin to realize it was harming me at some point during my addiction. however, i can say with quite a bit of certainty that i had believed that marijuana was a very addictive and harmful drug when i began using it, i would never have allowed myself to use it as often as i did. the whole reason i became addicted was because i believed marijuana was basically harmless and smoking it all the time wasn't really that big of a deal. thats part of the reason i am so bitter toward pro drug individuals. i feel as if other drug addicts at least have the consolation of knowing what they were getting into and what they were doing to themselves when they began using those drugs. i honestly thought marijuana was good for me and "expanding my mind" when i got addicted to it.

but im getting way off topic here, so back to salvia. a full blown salvia experience is so intense there is absolutely no way you could prepare for it and no way you could know what you were getting into. my advice is simply to put the drugs down and explore all the different things life has to offer, for normal, sober people. if you need to alter your mind, have a couple of beers. beer is honestly far more enjoyable than salvia.

and flowerchild, i dont think salvia is like mescaline. its not like normal psychedelcis, its way more intense, dissociative and short lasting. id be interested to know what your experience with mescaline was like though.

I swear this site like a truth serum. I am worried about Ben, he is so young and in spite of what he reads on this site, he still wants to experiment with drugs. I never tried salvia, but yes I tried mescaline once, that was enough!! I was with a bunch of girlfriends from school. It was the summer after graduating from high school, so that would be 1974. I had only smoked pot a few times with them, and the joints that day were laced with mesc. Our one friends parents were out of town, so we had the house to ourselves. I remember enjoying it at first, colors so intense, objects so beautiful, all of us laughing our donkey*s off. It was a high like no other. Then I made the mistake of looking in a mirror. I can still vividly remember what it was like to see your face literally melting like wax from a candle. That is the strongest memory of that psychedelic experience I have. I still get goose bumps when I think about that. I totally freaked out and for the rest of the high I swore I would never have normal consciousness again. I don't know how long they tried to calm me down. Reassuring me that everything was and will be okay. I was curled up, in the corner, praying that it would end. I never tried it again, and even though this sound so stupid, I was pissed at them for weeks, even though I agreed to join in. I think I was more mad that all of them enjoyed it and I had such a bad experience with it. Ben I really want you to keep reading everyone's stories and think before you try anything other then alcohol. We are all trying to save you from getting addicted and messing up your mind. You have your entire future ahead of you. Learn from our mistakes. Please don't mess with your mind, it could Fu*k up the rest of your life. Modus, I'm still praying that your mental health is restored soon. I so worry about your state of mind, sometimes when I read what you write, I am concerned about the depression your dealing with. Take care everyone, talk to you later. Love and peace to all. Flower

What's appealing about salvia to me is that it's legal, and the high only lasts about five minutes. Honestly, I only plan on using this once in my entire life so that's why I was asking you guys about its addictiveness. But after reading a few of you guys' stories I'm definetly having second thoughts. If it's anything but 100% pleasurable I don't want to try it. Can salvia really "tear your reality to shreds" if it lasts only five minutes? I was assuming it was much tamer and less dangerous than say lsd or mescaline, because those drugs cause a high lasting many many hours.

first of all, i wouldn't call the effects of salvia a "high". its one of the most hellish things i have ever experienced, in fact during part of the trip i believed i had died and gone to hell. anyway, i too thought "well if it only lasts 5-10 minutes im sure i can handle it whatever it is" but what it is merely 5-10 minutes earth time can seem like an eternity to you because your sense of time is created in entirely within youir mind. have you read the erowid reports for salvia? there are people who say that from their point of view, the trip lasted years or even lifetimes. during my experience, i had no sense of time at all. i had no sense of who i was or what i was. i will try to recount some of what i remmeber for you.

ok, this is very hard to do because oddly enough i have at least 2 different memories of how my trip began and no matter how hard i try i cannot fit in them in a chronological order which makes sense. first memory: i was smoking my pipe and i suddenly felt as if i was in a bad dream. everywhere i looked things began to grow evil elfish looking appearances. my pipe felt like the gateway to another dimension and i thought one of my fingers was a person beckoning me to join him there. i decided to go in. i closed my eyes and went some place very deep inside myself but to my shock and horror, there was nothing in this other dimension, it was only blackness and i had been tricked. i instantly died and lost of sense of who or what i was. i lost all sense of what people are or the earth is and totally forgot everything i ever knew. the next thing i remember i was in some hell realm, everything was pure suffering, it was absolutely hopeless and everything you could possibly do try to make it better only made it worse. i was alone there, without a body and it seemed as if i was going to be stuck there forever. next thing i was remember, i was in another dimension or realm, which ive concluded was the astral plain based on some spriritual books ive read. there were many disembodied souls here and some other larger entities which resembled large boats or barges (throughout this whole time all i wanted for the experience to end ). i began to realize i was attatched to some gigantic wheel along with many other souls and there was a light somewhere up ahead which the wheel was turning toward. i sensed something important would happen when the light got around to me. i was right because when it did, i was instantly transported back into my body earth body although i still had no idea who i was. for the next part of the trip i struggled with notions such as "what am i?" "what is a person?" "is everything is just an illusion" "why didnt anyone tell me it was like this?" "when i get back, the government will be after me because now i know too much" and "im going to tell everyone life is just an illusion and change the world".

it was like going back all the way to the beginning and slowly becomming aware again. for example i remember my whole reality consisted of the floor and two objects on the floor but i could not identify these objects. i was unable to think and had no conceptions. things simply were as they were and there was absolutely no questioning. gradually as i gained more awareness these objects began to take shape. one of the objects was my pipe but i could not identify it as a pipe, i did not know what a pipe was and i had no recollection of having taken a drug or any conception as to what a drug was or even what i was. at this point i felt my ego comming back but it was horribly squashed and mishapen and entering into it was excruciatingly painful, i believed i would never return to normal again. then as my ego reconstructed and the illusion of life was finally complete i cried out "I AM" as i realized i was the soul who was supposed to fit in this ego which before seemed like some sort of cumbersome object. but i was aware that life is a grand illusion set up to seem real. at the time i believed it was created by someone who wished to fool us but now i believe life was created by God for us to enjoy.

anyway, here is my second memory of the same trip which oddly enough contains very different events. on this memory, i smoked the salvia and then time stopped. my mind and my thoughts and everything literally froze. i tried to think "oh sh**, what have i done? i am in way over my head" but i didnt even have time to complete that thought. reality then became 2 dimensional just hanging out in a big black void of nothingness (once again, you will have to imagine how utterly horrifying this experience was). some memories of my earth life flashed before me and i realeazed it was all a mental construction, like a dream. it was all composed of "mind stuff" and not actual real physical objects. i also remember feeling like we take life way too seriously because its not really real in the way we think. i was also keenly aware that life had a creator and it there was absolutely no doubt about this whatsoever. life was designed with intent and purpose and set up for us to work through. it was an illusion which had to be nearly flawless in order to fool us. (once again, i now believe God created life not because he wanted to fool us but because he wished for us to enjoy his creation and grow in awareness).

at some point these 2 memories of the trip must intersect, since it was all one trip and so im going to skip ahead to where i was i back in my body and the trip ended. when it ended, i felt so confused i actually forgot entirely that i had taken the trip for a minute or two. then it all came back to me and it was all too much. i went to bed and fell alseep. the next day i was still so confused and i felt as if life was totally meaningless, or some illusion set up to fool us by forces unknown but there was simply no way to commonicate this so i decided to just push the whole thing out of my head and get high on marijuana.

anyway, thats what my experience with salvia was like. all in all it lasted about 10 minutes earth time but for me, i could not even tell you how much time had passed. i would never recommend that anyone take this drug and i will never use it again. it literally rips reality away from you and i dont beleive it is at all healthy. if theres one thing you can get from reading this, its how thankful and appreciative you should be to have a mind that works the way it should and the opportunity to experience life on earth.

God I know from what you have written in the past that you are suffering mentally from your past drug use, But your writing and the way you describe and put your thoughts out there are absolutely amazing. You need to take all our thoughts and comments, blend it with your own writing skills, and publish a book to help people get through addictions. You know how I said that things in life happen for a reason, maybe this is why you are going through such torment. Sorry I'm tired, had a long day, so maybe I'm not making sense. Anyway this was ment to be a compliment, again your story/experience was amazing to read. Now to Ben. Do you really think this would be a nice trip to go on?? Do you really want to take the chance of messing with your mind and spirit? Ben you take the time to read our posts,please think about what your going to put in your body! Take care everyone. Love and peace. Goodnight, Flower

WOW, I read your story Modus Ponens and I was absolutely horrified. I admit, before a week ago I never even heard of salvia. Then I did a little more research online and I can tell you didn't just make that up to scare. Thank god I posted this on here, I really would have used this drug next week sometime if I hadn't read you guys' stories. In fact, I already have 5g of salvia in my room right now. Before coming here, I was expecting an experience slightly more intense than marijuana, pleasant, relaxing, and happy. But what you described sounds just horrifying. Salvia seems worse than any other drug I've heard about, how in the hell is it legal in the US? I'm really glad I created this topic. Thanks guys, take care.

salvia is legal because for one, its not similar to any known illegal substances so it cannot be made illegal under the chemcials analogds act and for two, because 90% of the people who try salvia are so frightened by it that they never use it again there are basically no known cases of addiction or problems due to salvia use. in the united states its actually difficult to make a substance illegal. however, i believe there are a few states which have outlawed it and it probably will not be legal for that much longer.

TVshow214: You need to give some serious thought to the subject of journalistic integrity. If you start out looking for evidence that salvia is addictive, you will find it, because that's what you are looking for. It's called confirmation bias. I'm not saying that it is necessarily safe either- however, if in fact it is not safe then you will *not* have to say anything misleading because the evidence will be irrefutable. If the evidence is hazy or inconclusive, however, I have a feeling that rather than admit so you are going to drum up a program based on fear, uncertainty, and doubt and end up doing a moral disservice to your viewers. The truth on its own, the simple, unaduterated, unbiased, pure, exact truth, should be interesting enough. Anything else is absolutely shameful.

I have seen it before. I remember seeing an expose on salvia on some news channel where they brought in a person with all kinds of wires attached to his head who had supposedly smoked salvia shortly beforehand. (Although they had him smoke it offstage, and there was a notable cut in the video- which makes me wonder if he actually had even smoked the stuff on the same day, or at all.) They had stated before that they were going to record his brainwaves, and they did have some squiggly lines projected on a screen- implying that these were the waves of the subject in real time. But when they pointed at the waves they said that these were an illustration of the *typical* patterns of someone under the influence of *any* kind of psychoactive drug. Which meant, the wires on the guy's head were almost certainly props, and furthermore, the illustrations in question might not have been an actual EEG at all! Now you tell me why playing fast and loose with the truth in that way is ever, ever acceptable. It is not. Ever. Don't do it. The truth will set you free.

To be very honest... I really didn't like the high of that stuff. It was kinda claustrofobic, confusing and overly crap.

The get the high you have to suck up like half a gram of that stuff through a pipe. Much work really and little results in my opinion.

Alltho I have a addictive personality I really don't want to smoke that stuff anymore.

[quote="Ben12345"]If it's anything but 100% pleasurable I don't want to try it. quote]

Few things are 100% pleasurable

It may be legal for now, but this stuff can make you go a little crazy, LSD, Mushrooms, and now this.

If you have an addictive personality you can get addicted to something even if it is not an addictive substance. Stay away from it if you can, and if you can't be careful, and hopefully all goes well.

BE CAREFUL, and the decision will always be yours!