The difference is, a pocket knife is useful. A rifle is useful. Jim Beam can be nice, but it isn't useful to sit around and drink and smoke. It's useful to woodcarve. How about this, "Men smoke weed and drink 40s of OE". That isn't so romantic in your mind, I think. But to me, it's more or less the same. AKA, it's totally fine to do, but it doesn't make you a better person to be a weed-smoker.
Lol, yeah, until you're a type who's problematic with the booze but does it anyways so as not to be seen unmanly or be ostracized. "Men do...". I don't know, maybe I'm skewed, because to me, I think booze is a drug, and I don't judge drugs. So to me, a guy chewing on a Xanax is as bad as a guy sipping on Jim Beam, which is to say, not that bad in and of itself. There is no extra class or romanticization of the Jim as opposed to the pill. Hit the same receptors in the brain, GABA.
I'm certainly not manly for chomping on a pill. In fact, some would say I'm the opposite, for needing an anxiety med. "Just have a liquid Xanax, like a man!".
Just to be clear I have not one ounce of judgement or contempt for you. I used to smoke, dip in class when I couldn't smoke, charge my vape in class, and do class reports while holding a water bottle full of liquor. This was 2012 high school, so it's not some old times gone thing. It's just....I remember what it was like to do all of that, I remember how fucked my gums were, I remember all the terrible things I did because of liquor, and before I touched drugs like opioids or benzos, I romanticized alcohol over them, like it was better. It was not, from experience. Clean now off of everything we speak of.
Not everyone is like me, though! Some, MANY, enjoy a nice chaw and a beer or three after work. Some enjoy a pill. Nowadays, I enjoy me some coffee, still a drug, and cannabis, still a drug, but not one that hits the GABA receptors (very addictive/stupid-making drugs hit GABA. Namely booze, GHB and benzos). In short, you ain't more of a man because you drink, smoke or chaw.
Basically, I judge no vices, because I used to be the master of vice before I reached age 20 and have been on God's doorstep, too. But, they don't make you manly. Yeah, yeah, the Humphrey Bogart dangling ciggie looks cool. I prefer Clint Eastwood's .44 or MacGyver. Those were problem-solvers. Sure, I can privately fetishize opioids and those slick, pharmacy-robbin dealers in Drugstore Cowboys, you can fetishize old cowboys cuttin' chaws off and drinking a dram of sippin' whiskey after a day that reads like a Bruce Springsteen song "Ohhh, heee's workin...", but they are just that, fetishizations. Which is all cool if we admit it. It ain't useful behavior, but I would never judge anyone for it, same as I wouldn't judge you for any other pill, potion or powder you chose or chose not to take. I hope you take no offense and my point is made clear, am not trying to kill Americana, I think it's cool too, just can't put tobacco and a knife on the same level.
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