Before SHTF I tried marijuana one or two times, and my alcohol experiences were connected to parties just like young folks everywhere around world.

In our political system people who used drugs of any kind were strictly separated from normal way of life, so in our city circle of folks who used any kind of drugs were stigmatized and definitely outsiders.

Nobody really talked about these people. So normal folks knew there are drug users, but what kind of people and drugs and any other details were not known much. Those kind of folks were just wrong kind of people and thats it. Period. That was before the war and total collapse of normal society.

My first contact with drugs during the collapse

When SHTF, I went with my friend to some guy because word was that someone sees him going out from military storage in the first days of chaos with few RPG. So we just want to check the guy and see can we trade something for that weapon.

After hours of finding right connections with people and digging trough the rumors we finally find the house of the guy. Man who brought us there went first in front of the house to call him, and he tell to me and my friend to take cover somewhere until he is done negotiating, because guy inside is heavily armed (from military storage) and he usually shoots first and then checks the remains of who was outside.

Finally we were cleared to go inside house. First floor looked like big animal fight with other big animal. Fight must have went on for few days. Everything was upside down, and common things were mixed with strange things. So you could see refrigerator taken upside down with bullet holes, and next to that there was traffic light severed from pylon.

First floor was not in use, guy made something like medieval fortress from his house. Second floor was in use and we climbed up there trough the hole in ceiling and some kind of navy stairs (ropes). His stairway was burned down.

We did not make any kind of trade for that RPGs because he fired all of that as he said. But I saw 5-6 full trash bags in one of the corner, and I asked him what is that? He said:“check it, be my guest“ .

Every bag was full of marijuana. There was small mountain of it. I never before saw so much of that stuff in one place.

I guess guy was dealer before the war, instinctively I was paralyzed, flashbacks of police, jail, courts, and folks point at you went trough my head. Man noticed that and laughs to me and say “do not worry, just take it and smoke it, that sh!t is our smallest problem now“. He was right and I was there to get a RPG but in shock in seeing drugs.

Why drugs matter during long term survival

I make myself unpopular here. Sorry, I just say what I experienced. Reality is not all clean and good or politically correct.

First I have to say we talk about long term survival scenario here. Few days of fearing for your life is problem, few weeks is crap, few months and more can easily take all will for survival from you and leave you empty.

It is hard to imagine and I never saw one of the “TV survival experts” do anything really long term.

Nobody who is sane probably does. I didn’t choose, I was thrown into this.

When the world breaks down around you, you want things to be normal. Even if you had bad life before in normal times it will feel like paradise to nightmare that happens outside or around you when you fight for your survival.

I do not do any drugs (besides coffee) and think drugs is for weak people… but if life slaps you around like it is hard to imagine, everyone becomes weak at some point.

So during the war marijuana was used to disconnect from horrors around you. When you find yourself with few friends in some safe building, basement, and if you have few cans of food, someone brings guitar and few bottles of alcohol and marijuana, you can start to feel an hour or two like nothing is wrong, people do not get shot outside, women do not scream in distance, peace is there again, at least for few hours, and for that small group of friends.

And when someone pass you small jar with hash „bubbles“ you can imagine almost that Jim Morrison came alive that night in that particular basement, in that small and unimportant city in Balkans, in the middle of civil war, and that he is gonna spend that night with you discussing about ridiculousness of life, and then play „The end“ song.

It also had some sort of therapeutic importance. When one of the member of our friends group died, we sit with someone close to him, for example with his brother and drink and smoke for a while, until he gets „numb“ from drugs. Only then we could tell him news about his brother. Everybody did that.

I can say that normal folks (something closest to today understanding of normal average folks) did not drink or smoke marijuana because they were curious what is like, or because they want something different. They did it in order to survive everyday life in new world.

You might think now, I never would do this. It is against my principle. When you see everything breaking down around you a lot of what you think now is principle falls away too.

So very soon some things that were wrong in normal times became natural. Folks started to smoke marijuana, even people who never heard for that, or even people who thought that is completely wrong to use it.

People started to trade for seeds, dealing advice how to grow it, dry it, what parts are best and son on. I am talking here about people who did not have clue about anything about that just few weeks before. Few weeks before it was completely wrong to know about these things.

Whenever I felt bad, or way too bad, or got some chance to sit with my friends I smoked marijuana. Older folks smoked it, grandpas smoked it. Joints made from newspapers, jars full of hashish, or bottle smoking.

It was so much of that stuff that even did not have some big value, I mean you could trade it but it was not very valuable because lots of folks grow it. When it is not illegal then it is completely other thing. When I told Jay while recording my course about this he was surprised. Seems like not many people knew that so many people start growing marijuana during the war but this stuff was everywhere.

Lots of the folks had it for few joints in their pockets always.

It was a pain medication too, when my cousin took out his infected tooth with electrical pliers, all of the „medicines“ he had were couple of joints before procedure, and half liter of heavy alcohol. Alcohol was for his wound and his stomach too.

Whatever you think about alcohol and drugs, you need to understand that they were important in that time, and they gonna be important again.

Hard drugs

Gangs still had access to them but of course, most of the real drug addicts, heavy drug addicts disappeared very soon. It was bad time for detoxification from heavy drugs when you had not time to stay in bed and throw up all day.

Of course people did some stupid and wrong things under these drugs too.

It was not time when you just can go out and drink and party. You needed to be alert most of the time.

It was wrong to drink a lot or get high before some hard jobs, like going out to find and trade things, because you just needed to be completely ready for anything. Anything that clouded your judgment and reflexes was wrong, and very dangerous.

I knew a guy who go out in wrong moment and gets shot in head, just because he thought that he hearing some music from the distance, his favorite song or something like that. He smoke too much, yes.

With all urban myths about how alcohol can keep you warm, or can give you more strength of course wrong things happened.

But for me, in some moments when it was very hard for me, alcohol and marijuana helped me to go trough some things. For all of you who still resolutely say that you are not gonna use alcohol or / and marijuana, just try to be prepared for a fact that those two things gonna be important when SHTF.

Don’t do drugs of course, but just like painkillers, some things have its place when things get really hard no matter if legal or illegal. Even if you can not imagine some things, part of being better prepared then next human who has to deal with same situation is to have a more flexible mind. To be ready for whatever gets thrown in your way.

As you know, soft drugs are controversial topic right now, especially in the US. Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana, legalization can cut cartel profits but maybe also create more smokers. What are your thoughts about marijuana?

Today most people drink alcohol because they want to get away sometimes from hard reality or just to have some short good time. Another simple reason many people drink in my country is they have been scared, or they just can not take it any more.

Why did drugs become more important during the war?

In hard times people experience lot of different emotions. Fear, courage, anxiety, crazyness or not logical bravery and so on. Fighting to survive was also new feeling for most. People needed something to melt all that together, thats why drugs were so important.

When you are inside your head in complete chaos, so many different emotions, using drugs to get away from everything to get one feeling that you know, even if feeling is not real and just you taking something, it is relief. It feels like you get to place you are familiar with in world that is full of chaos and suffering.

Alcohol becomes your very good friend, it became mine too. It was ticket to short ride somewhere else from very bad reality. Everybody drink or (and) smoke marijuana in that time, but more about marijuana in next post.

Alcohol

Alcohol has many good sides. It is useful for hygiene or to trade or give as present.

It was not very valuable compared to some other items, but you could go out with few liters and almost always find something to trade and possibility to trade at all mattered often more than having something with high value but only few people want / need it.

Lot of things needed to be suppressed in that time, so alcohol was something like emergency vent, preventing folks from exploding.

Somebody used it to laugh in situation where there is no too much reason to laugh, other people used it to cry out some things they were holding back.

One of the guys from my street became completely other person when he was drunk.

He was big scary looking man, very hairy man like some kind of Neandertal man, and usually nobody wants to argue with him when he was sober, even when he was not armed.

He had a hands like small shovels and whatever weapon he hold, it looked somehow small in his hands. Anyway kind of guy who you wanna have on your side, not on other side.

But whenever he drank, I mean whenever he got really drunk / wasted he turned in some kind of „unknown poet“. He was all about „cruel life“ and sad stories and crying. At first few times for us it looked funny for us, and we cry from laughing and kidding him.

But after some time it becomes spooky and sad even for us to look at that big man crying like a baby and whining about everything. But no doubt it helped him to get some things from his mind out.

But actually we all use alcohol for that, some of us cried and other laugh. We all used it for venting. To get some order in our chaotic mind and let things out.

Whoever did not cry then, cried later when everything ended. Nobody could run away from that.

Before you start talking about bad examples and bad influence of alcohol I must say that we used it also for hygiene a lot. In most of the situations for common folks first aid items meant alcohol and some clean rugs. So it was common to use it for disinfection and cleaning of wounds, cuts scrapes etc.

Also if you have to eat something quick with your hands, quickest and sometimes only way was to clean your hands with alcohol.

Whatever you think about alcohol, about how dangerous it is for man, society etc. you must understand that when SHTF it is gonna be very important because of so many reasons, and good idea is to have it, no matter if you drink or not.

People here drink a lot, when somebody is born and when someone died, and in every possible occasion in the middle of those two events, so when SHTF people want to have some kind of connection with „normal“ time. Alcohol was easiest way to get that connection.

This is also something to think about when you stock items for trade. What is most common “comfort items” in your area or culture? Coffee? Cigarettes? In Asia maybe soy sauce or chili. These things will be good for trading.

My uncle was a heavy drinker in that time, every day he drank in order to get himself to function in that hard new world. It helped him to hold his mind together and survive. And he was good. He did his part of job great and we all could rely on him in every moment.

But without alcohol he became useless and ruined, so he just had to drink. After everything ended he stopped with drinking almost completely, but that could not save him from losing one of his kidney, and getting some serious liver condition.

Not to mention PTSD. Things catch up, if you numb yourself with drugs or not.

Everyone paid for that time sooner or later. So for folks who drink a lot in that time alcohol was not golden solution, but it was one of the easiest solution to go trough all little bit easier.

I drink beer or two, from time to time, the years when I waste myself in order to feel better about some things are behind me, but I still have lot of alcohol in my storage, and try always to keep numbers of stored alcohol rising.

With bottle of alcohol you can make a good friend from possible enemy. Of course you need some good attitude, I’ve seen that many times.

Once I got myself in fight with guy over some tree that needed to be taken down in the back of my house for firewood and we could not agree is it belonging to me or him (it was on public property) and in the middle of pulling out our knives he lost his small bottle from his pocket. I asked him then „look man, lets drink few rounds from that thing and have some kind of agreement, it is better then to use knifes“ and we did that.

How are you stocked up with alcohol? What role does alcohol play in your preparations and how do you plan to use it? Just write in comments.

Looking at survival survey results it seems a lot of people have to see where they put their money. Into preps or have to spend it on things for everyday living. I know how this feels and live like that the last decades.

After war I left city with two plastic bags full of random belongings. No documents and nothing else. I was refugee. But lucky that I was able to stay with family on countryside.

I never really thought, ok now I prepare or anything. I simply wanted to have all sorts of things I did not have during my SHTF year. So preparing came naturally to me. No surprise. First it was all about weapons. Whenever I had money I bought ammunition, rifles and guns.

When I got my own place and job again I started to get other preps. Economic has ever been bad since war. Sometimes we get paid, sometimes not, sometimes late. So I never had much extra money but even when I got paid, I made plan what I need for next month and what not and then spend most of money on buying things in bulk. For example I drive every few weeks to tankstop half hour away to buy 200 liters of gas. They have it cheaper and give discount. Buying in bulk is not only cheaper I get rid of my money and have things instead. That matters for me.

From other blog posts you also might know I do not value money much and never have after my SHTF year. You can’t eat money and when I do not get paid, or not paid in time I simply live of my preps.

People help when preparing on a budget

Interesting thing might be that my area is at brink of collapse again and has been for some time. We have 40% unemployed people so black market and exchanging things is normal. People do not have money so they exchange whatever they have. I might need new jacket but have knife I don’t want anymore and call a few people and get what I want. 

Most of my friends have same or similar life philosophy, actually it is the matter of choosing right people to hang with them, so I do not have friends who find meaning of life in buying big LCD TV or having fancy car. It is more about having friends with who you can go into the woods for few days with very few things to check how it is like, or to discuss with them how we can get from point A to point B fast and safe when SHTF for example.

We meet for coffee or a few beer and plan this. It is our hobby and has been ever since war. We laugh and have good time, we fear little because we know what to expect and are prepared.

People with who you hang out have influence on you, either you like it or not, so you just have to choose with who you are gonna spend your time. Most of my friends are also exchanging / trading stuff, so it is easier for me to live without money and more with preps.

My guess is if there is slow collapse your country who is now better will come down to this level of where my country is, first before complete economic collapse.

In this state of half collapse I live in I just take safe route and that is having things. So what I write might be future advice for when time has come for your country. I just share how I prepare with my limited budget.

I can trade things now and if total collapse happens I still have more valuable things than worthless money. During collapse those with 1000 $ but broken shoes will pay 1000 $ for a new pair. Just not sure if I would sell because I can not wear those paper notes.

Friends with grey market traders

Another thing that helps is to get right connections. It helps to know some people who work in darker grey areas. People who sell stuff that “fell from a truck” are those who exchange and hustle for living and will be first who become big traders once SHTF. Their job does not change much, just more customers.

Now you may or may not approve this what i say, but consider knowing people from this “grey” area of life as a perfect part of preparing for future SHTF event. Those people is not your local drug dealer who is also on drugs, but more business people who focus on “lost and found” things.

If your country is far away from having trading people like this, look out for them once things get rougher. They will emerge fast. When they are there it is more than time to exchange money and have things instead.

Even now in normal time when i want to buy something, i always look for the word on the street where i can buy something good and cheap. If you have little you have to make things happen, somehow.

If I want military type bag, I always ask few people that I know have good info about that kind of stuff. They can point me to the guy who has that stuff for me. I do not ask too much questions, I do not want to know where that comes from, it is cheap, it is good, I have far greater things to worry about. If I had money I have guy who can sell me tuna cans, in bigger amounts, I mean 400-500 cans, almost in half price. How? Don t know, I do not wanna know.

There is the people here for buying anything, and I think it is similar everywhere i mean for most of the things there is the folks who are selling that, cheaper.

Jay who lives in Thailand went to supermarket manager to make his own deal and saved a lot. How supermarket manager could give him good prices like that? Nobody wants to know. If you do not know grey guys your local supermarket manager might be the go to guy.

How far you wanna go with buying some things from some grey people is up to you. I do not suggest anything when it comes to that. Each and everyone of us have to decide about that.

You may like this way or you may not. If you are poor or have to make difficult choices when buying preps it is form of survival already. When SHTF there will be way more difficult choices and you will laugh about this.

Find those people who trade things now

Even in good times (which are still bad times here compared to most other countries) I can get what I want with exchanging stuff. Pay good attention to when things become more valuable or better investments than money.

If I buy 4 pairs of boots that I know I will use and get them cheaper now, I do this. I live like this for years now but your country might not be there yet, but know time will come.

Money is good, money is great actually, but do not get caught up in situation like in the middle of the night with 1000 $ in your wallet, and S. has just hit the fan, and your 1000 $ is worth 10 cans of food, yesterday it was worth 400 cans, but…

We all expect that we gonna recognize signs, have time.. but we actually can be suprised, all of us. Looking at some alternative media sites I’m not sure if they promote truth or themselves more.

In the end we prepare to be safer and that is something you have to do today, not tomorrow.

Don’t prepare, save money

I know from forums that some people have problem justifying spending money on preps because other family member believe collapse can not happen or the government will provide.

This was never problem for me because all family knows preparing is only smart thing to do. Still you do not have to prepare for collapse officially. I save money by buying in bulk and also save gas by not making that many trips. Also saves my time because we do not have to leave house that often for buying things.

We are slaves of money, modern way of life is doing that to us, and it is hard sometimes to prepare but all of life is full of hard choices and making right choices today might safe one of your family members life tomorrow.

Not being a sheep today

Another good advice I think is that you have to not be one of the herd. Having new iPod might be a must have, but I do not care. It might be easy to say for me because priorities have changed a lot but I do not need most things media of advertisement tries to tell me I need.

You can start having survival mindset today. Those who think they need big LCD TV or latest iPod will have even bigger challenge once times get tougher and they are left with little or nothing.

There are many ways to do this. In this article I explain mine (my 6 months supply list is in course area).

What are your ways of preparing and staying within budget?

Most of us put a lot of thought and resources into being prepared. For many it is a real lifestyle and not just a hobby.

We invite you to participate in the Global State of Preparedness Survey that will offer a snapshot of how prepared people are right now and will give you an idea how prepared you are as compared to others.

The purpose of this anonymous survey is to assess priorities and strategies and create a benchmark for the future.

It will also help you to spot some issues you might have overlooked in your preparations.

We are also working with an illustrator to create an easy to understand report of the survey data we will send to you.

SURVEY IS CLOSED RIGHT NOW

Please share this with fellow preppers.

It is hard to tell what you are going to need in SHTF in your medical part of prepping. Easiest thing to say is that you gonna need everything, but actually it depends from your level of medical knowledge i guess.
for example:

• Full reanimation kit- O2 bottles, respirator (O2 powered) suction unit (O2 powered), laryngoscopes, tubes, airways, BVM s, tube holders, drugs (atropine, adrenaline, dopamine…)
• Body protection like masks (booth surgical and respirators), gowns, gloves (sterile and non sterile), lot of rubbing alcohol, hand sanitizers,paper sheets, delivery kits.
• Wound care kit- all sterile gauzes, peans, tweezers, povidone, rivanole, staples, sutures, forceps, dressings, antibiotic creams…
  Vitamins, tablets and vials for injections.
• Antibiotics full range, booth tabs and vials (Pennicilin, Gentamicin, Lincocin…) then full range iv fluids kit with NS and Glucosae, including IV systems, needles, syringes, IV catheters …
• Children antibiotics, suspensions, together with antipyretics like Voltaren supositories.
• Snake kits (horse serum), allergy shots (Urbason, Synopen…), urinal catheters…
• Drugs like Furosemide, Novalgetol, Aminophyllin, Reglan, Ranitidin, (all vials), Albuterol (inhallant).

List is going more, but important is to choose what level you want to know, then find way to learn to use things on that level. You can not know everything. Maybe you gonna choose only to have powdered things for hydration instead of IV NS.

Whatever you choose to have, keep in mind that must be as more disposable as you can. For example paper instead of fabric, or sterile plastic tweezers instead of reusable. And again from my experience most of the problems were coming in the form of vomiting and diarrhea, due to bad water, or unknown food.

Actually it is more correct to say ordinary night, because if we had some business to do outside house , we did it during the night, like trade, collecting wood, waiting for mre,s etc.

During the day we usually sleep, or doing the things inside house, yard. We waited for every rain to collect rain water from roofs in barrels,try to filter it trough gauze, boil it, then used that water for everything, other solution was to go to close river and take water, but mostly it was dangerous, at the beginning there were some effort from authority to supply streets with water with tankers, but soon that fall apart like everything else.

So another precious item became water container, plastic canister, to carry water. We did not have any water filters, or water purifying tablets, so i guess lot of diseases occurred as a result of dirty water. Connected with carrying things like water canisters or firewood people started do make all kinds of carts, most basic was cart made from plastic crate (originally used to transport bottles, beer for example) on that crate people attached small wheels from rollers, or toys, and that s it. Nothing fancy. Funny actually.

Hardest thing was to collect fire wood for cooking and heating during cold days, very soon city lost all trees, so we started to use every wood, i burned almost all my furniture, my books. We started with trips trough ruins to collect wood like door and window frames, furniture, wooden floors, parquetry.

During cold days it was a constant problem, to keep the fire. Just to mention all of my windows were broken, we just plug the holes with anything, and when you add ruined roof, holes, then you get the picture how cold can be.

You know in some of the movies of SHTF you ll see guy who is operating from his perfect house while world outside falling apart.Well everything, is falling apart, including your house, especially if you don t have knowledge to fix things in your house, or you don t have tools, so another advice, learn how things work in your house, and learn how to fix things, and especially- have tools for that.
There is nobody to call when your door lock is blown up, or to fix roof tile.

I spent few nights trying to make some system with tarps and drain pipes to collect water, i just did not have any experience with that.

Same was with almost every aspect of life, skills, it all comes to your skills how to make something, we were not prepare for that situation, so i guess when system failed to provide us with goods like food, water, medicine and any other kind of support, we just used skills to made them or acquire them.

Same is today i think,in the case of SHTF, even if we are prepared very good, sooner or later we going to exhaust our supplies, and then we gonna use our skills to made them.

I think good example is to have a big supply of food, but still know how to work in small garden. Great fortune was if somebody knew how to fix things, guns, locks, shoes, people…