Visceral Vices.
I feel no shame; I feel no vice.
A vice is a behaviour. An external choice to do something repeatedly because the serotonin boost is so intense (and fleeting), like smoking a joint or drinking a whiskey routinely before bed, that you find it almost impossible to reject.
We use the term vice colloquially and often as an umbrella encompassing a variety of behaviours from mostly harmless to destructive, so its meaning can get lost in translation. But generally, when someone speaks of their respective vice(s), it is not necessarily positive. Albeit accepted by the listener based on understanding or camaraderie.
Some people consider watching family guy a vice, cheese a vice when they are borderline allergic to dairy, and some feel a lunchtime cigarette a vice. See what I mean? There is no correlation between behaviours, no linear space in which they fall; they are random and without reason. So what makes them all a vice? Shame.
The behaviour, in some way, generates feelings of shame.
While some people might watch family guy and never talk about it as a vice, they just watch the show; others only share this behaviour with certain people because they feel guilty. The subject matter is abrasive, and the humour can sometimes be offensive and lazy because it relies on hurting someone else or banking off of traumatic experiences. But, just because you like the show and find it amusing doesn’t mean you are an innately horrible person who believes awful things about people. It just means you like dark humour. Tomato, tomato.
You feel shameful or guilty, and because you judge yourself in this light, you assume other people will too. So basically, any behaviour that generates shame or guilt within you, but you can’t stop yourself from indulging in, is a vice. It is an internal process. Which is where the first part of the title of this article comes into play.
Visceral relates to deep inward feelings rather than intellect. The negative feelings generated from indulging in your vice are not necessarily related to the behaviour being outwardly wrong or you being bad for doing it; instead, it is a belief you carry about what the behaviour says about you.
Beliefs are tricky. How they manifest within someone is often a winding, bumpy, gruesome road, especially the negative ones. They affect how we see ourselves within the world and how we perceive others. They affect our judgement and decision-making. They vary from malleable to rooted within our core.
When someone tries to stifle a vice, they have meshed a behaviour they’ve perceived as negative (based on their beliefs) with any other regular behaviour.
I don’t see my morning coffee as a vice, but I do see my afternoon coffee as a vice. I know I have a handle on my coffee intake, and it brings me joy when the early hours of the day can be dreadful. I feel no shame; I feel no vice. I don’t see an evening glass of wine as a vice, but I do see an evening joint as a vice. The latter is a winding road of guilt and shame woven into me by the overall stigma of enjoying Cannabis.
Think about how often drinking is ingrained into your everyday. It is practically encouraged in western society. Marketing campaigns, media, and music all bank on everyone accepting alcohol into their lives. Alcohol is seen as the collectively accepted vice in how casually it appears on our products. Have you ever walked into one of those random gift shops and seen those sets of glasses that have one labelled “Before work” and the other “After Work,” or better yet, “Mom Juice.”
On a near daily basis, in my office, I hear the words, “I need to go home and pour myself a drink,” and nobody bats an eye, and it is certainly not referred to as a vice (maybe only sarcastically).
Marijuana, however, would sooner whither than be so collectively accepted. I use this example because I am not a drinker. I hate drinking. It makes me feel like shit. Weed, on the other hand, produces a much more positive effect. So, that would be my go-to when it comes to evening cap-offs. But even typing that sends my stomachs into knots in ways that writing about drinking never has and never will.
Those knots have been tightly pulled together by years of stigma around the magical plant.
Yet, no matter how beloved by a large majority of the population, drinking has only ever caused me pain. It is a poison, and a class 1 carcinogen, whereas Cannabis (especially if you consume it via edibles) has yet to be conclusively classified as carcinogenic at all. (Graves et al. 2020). The research is still young, with Cannabis being freshly legalized in Canada. Still, you’ll never see a doctor prescribing a bottle of vodka for therapeutic effects. In contrast, Cannabis is often prescribed to cancer patients, people with chronic pain conditions, eating disorders, mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety, and even people going through narcotic withdrawal.
In addition to its growing medical use, it is also emerging as one of the preferred recreational substances. This means you don’t have to be broken and bleeding to access or enjoy it; you can buy it the same way you can buy a case of beer.
This is not an educational article on substances, though I would be happy to write one. I provide evidence like this as I know things always settle better when they are based on something reputable.
This is to show you the stark contrast between evidence. Alcohol is socially good, scientifically bad; Cannabis is socially bad, scientifically not so much.
It is only a vice because of my visceral reaction, and I am still trying to figure out whether or not it should remain a vice or if I should just enjoy what I enjoy and abandon the shame. Tell me what you make of this proposition, of visceral vices.
If we untied our knots, would we find that some of the things we have considered unavoidable negative behaviours are actually regular weightless choices among the thousands we make daily? Or would we believe in our shame?
