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Not being a sober elitist or anything [I haven't found being clean even half as fun as being high/inebriated/both YET] but thus far, having put in just over eight months of strenuous emotional work avoiding relapse temptations, the only substance abusers I really find tolerable in masses are stoners. I've nothing against alcohol [beside the fact that I no longer consume it], but being sober around a gang of drunk people makes it near impossible not to feel left out and be tempted to join in the festivities. And being clean around a roomful of people on hard drugs it's hard not to desire what they're feeling. Those kinds of substances put people on a whole different level of consciousness which makes it extremely difficult to hang and empathize when I'm still stuck on Earth. Stoners, conversely, have a very naturally welcoming fun-loving peaceful aura about them at all times it seems. They're still on Earth with you, but are significantly more creative with their thoughts and expressions, thus making them ideal for amusing social company. Surprisingly weed is perhaps the only substance I really miss this far on, I don't even give two shits about the rest of the drug spectrum [though a drop of champagne or a sip of beer on occasion I could also see as being nice in the semi-distant future]. Mainly preferring the company of stoners nowadays--insulating my shrunken social world with their fragrantly attractive exhales and decorating it with their kaleidoscopic bongs--I miss marijuana but I don't fiend it. Somehow satisfaction can stem merely from hanging around the smokers and participation isn't even necessary. A feeling of genuine companionship is possible under any circumstance when in the company of potheads, and ostracization doesn't seem to be in their vocabulary which is humble and comforting. I mean, I do miss clubbing but sober clubbing is an unbearably uncomfortable oxymoron. I'd much rather be chilling on a couch listening to weird instruments stream from a stoner's Pandora station in the aural background while the social foreground is taken up by commentary on far-fetched philosophies and pseudo-scientific theories.

..or something like that.

Jeffrey Shagawat

Otto Ferraren

Mystic Bounce

Madlib