intoxication

"There is always a need for intoxication: China has opium, Islam has hashish, the West has woman." -Andre Malraux, French novelist

 

"My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication-it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness-it is all that I have-and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all my peers have as well." -Franz Kafka

 

"The vine bears three kinds of grapes: the first of pleasure, the second of intoxication, the third of disgust." -Diogenes, Greek philosopher

 

 

I know my tolerance for alcohol is low. I've been made slightly tipsy from one beer; I know my alcohol limits and I don't cross-the-line.

I have never been drunk on spirits but I wouldn't say that means I have never experienced intoxication. There are things that can intoxicate a person that have nothing to do with fermentation and distilleries.

The word intoxicate originates from the Latin toxicum meaning poison. (Found that interesting though it makes sense.) Intoxicate is defined by Websters as: (a) to excite or stupefy by alcohol or a drug especially to the point where physical and mental control is markedly diminished (b) to excite or elate to the point of enthusiasm or frenzy.

Articulating wants is hard for me, maybe because to want something is to admit that it matters, but I am allowing myself one here now: I want to be the cause, the source, of another's intoxication - no alcohol required. If there is any such thing as "safe intoxication" - an intoxication of pure wellness - bottoms up.