Pubs, Ceremonies, and the States We Sanction
©️ Sophie Lewis|Shadowborn
Would you sooner give your kid a pint or a handful of mushrooms?
I already know how people react to that question.
They don’t think.
Their body does.
And that recoil is the point.
Because before anyone’s brain kicks in, their body already knows which answer they’re supposed to give. Pint = normal. Mushrooms = dangerous. End of discussion. No nuance. No pause.
And that, right there, is fucking wild.
Because we live in a culture absolutely drenched in alcohol. It’s everywhere. Pubs on every corner. Alcohol at weddings, funerals, birthdays, barbecues, football matches, Christmas morning. Jokes about “needing a drink” to survive parenting, work, marriage, life.
Kids grow up watching adults drink to cope. To celebrate. To grieve. To relax. To numb. They hear it constantly: I need a drink, I deserve a drink, God, I’m gagging for a drink. We laugh about it. We bond over it. We treat it like water with vibes.
But call it what it actually is (a psychoactive substance that alters consciousness, lowers inhibition, increases aggression, fuels addiction, wrecks families) and suddenly people get uncomfortable.
Alcohol is allowed because it’s familiar.
Not because it’s safe.
Now compare that with psychedelics.
Suddenly everyone’s a fucking neuroscientist. Suddenly it’s what about developing brains, what about psychological harm, what about responsibility. All valid concerns, but funny how they only seem to apply to one substance.
No one asks those questions when a 14-year-old is necking cider in a park.
No one panics when teenagers are socialised into binge drinking culture.
No one calls that “experimental”.
We just shrug and say it’s what kids do.
So when I ask “pint or mushrooms”, I’m not asking because I want to give children drugs. I’m asking because I want to expose the lie we’re all living inside.
Because here’s the thing no one wants to admit:
Pubs are rituals.
They are structured spaces where people gather at set times, perform learned behaviours, ingest a substance together, and enter an altered state of consciousness that society not only allows, but celebrates.
We just refuse to call it that because if we did, we’d have to admit we’ve built an entire culture around sanctioned dissociation.
Alcohol doesn’t make you look inward. It doesn’t ask questions. It doesn’t surface buried shit unless it explodes sideways into rage, tears, or violence, and even then, we excuse it with they were drunk.
That’s the appeal.
Alcohol numbs.
Alcohol smooths.
Alcohol keeps people functional enough to go back to work on Monday.
Psychedelics, on the other hand, are terrifying to this culture not because they’re inherently dangerous, but because they don’t numb. They expose.
They bring up grief, trauma, meaning, fear, connection, the stuff we’ve spent generations teaching people to suppress. They don’t fit neatly into capitalism, productivity, or control.
And that’s why they’re taboo.
I’m not saying children should take psychedelics. Developing minds need stability, not intensity for its own sake.
But here’s what we ARE doing: immersing children in numbing culture whilst refusing to give them any language for inner experience at all.
We don’t teach emotional literacy.
We don’t teach how to sit with discomfort.
We don’t teach how to understand altered states, even the ones we openly encourage.
We just hand people alcohol and say don’t think too much about it.
So when people lose their minds at the mushrooms part of the question, what they’re really saying is:
Don’t touch consciousness.
Don’t question how we cope.
Don’t point out that this whole thing is upside down.
And before anyone says I’m making this up: yes, ceremonial frameworks for this exist. They’ve existed for thousands of years.
Mazatec veladas in Mexico. Mushroom ceremonies held by curanderas who spend lifetimes learning the songs, the prayers, the container.
Amazonian ayahuasca traditions where apprentices study for years before they ever drink. Learning icaros. Understanding the plants. Being taught that consciousness is not a toy.
Peyote ceremonies in Native American Church traditions. Structured. Sacred. Held by elders who know what they’re doing.
In every single one: preparation. Guidance. Meaning. Reverence.
The substance is never the point. The container is everything.
We could have learned from that.
Instead we built Wetherspoons.
Because if we were actually honest, we’d have to admit something deeply uncomfortable:
We didn’t remove rituals.
We replaced them with pubs.
We didn’t eliminate altered states.
We chose the one that keeps people quiet.
And now we’re raising generations who are anxious, dissociated, addicted, overstimulated, spiritually starved, and acting like it’s a mystery.
So no, this isn’t about choosing mushrooms over a pint.
It’s about asking why numbing is communal, normalised, and legal, whilst depth is feared, forbidden, and pathologised.
And if that question makes people angry?
Good.
It should.
Because the culture that taught us to laugh about needing a drink to survive life doesn’t get to pretend it’s protecting children from harm.
