So much, I don't really even know where to begin. This is probably going to be a long post.

Firstly, drugs helped me find my true passion in life. I've never found something that was able to capture my attention and interest as much as learning about drugs. Right now I'm finishing up my undergraduate in mathematics, and I'll hopefully (still waiting on responses) start graduate school in a neuroscience/pharmacology related program next year.

Secondly, drugs showed me my true potential. I suspected my whole life that I had severe ADD. The first time I tried Adderall, it was a clarity I had never experienced. It was like I had been asleep my whole life, and for the first time I was truly awake. After getting an Adderall prescription I switched my major to mathematics despite having nearly failed two math classes in a row. With the help of stimulants I became one of the best undergraduate math students at my school, which has provided me considerable variety of unique opportunities for my future.

Thirdly, drugs taught me the importance of sobriety, self-improvement, and being your best self. There were many situations where I thought that I just needed a quick fix, that I was just missing something, and once I got that one thing my problems would be solved. This was most evident in my social life.

"If only I didn't have anxiety, then I would be more popular"

"If only I could pay attention better in conversation and think of the perfect thing to say, then people would like me"

So I would drink or take phenibut to reduce social anxiety, and take stimulants to pay attention. It fixed the symptoms, but didn't give me what I wanted. It was only through taking these drugs that I saw the problem wasn't anxiety or ADD, but rather that I lacked the confidence and social skills needed to be successful in social situations, and that the only way to fix these issues was through self-improvement, building core confidence, and interacting with people sober on a more regular basis.

Finally, through drugs I saw the 'dark side' of social conditioning. Most social conditioning is good and necessary to having a functioning society. However, there are also many commonly held beliefs that are superstitious, vestigial, or downright false. After seeing the falseness of social conditioning in regard to drugs, I began to find more blatantly false and contradictory beliefs, particularly in regards to human behavior and social interactions. "The unexamined life is not worth living", and drugs showed me the importance of having a healthy skepticism towards both authority and your personal beliefs. Similarly, hanging out with dirty hippies taught me that there is such thing as being too open minded, and at a certain point it is important to accept some social conditioning as axiomatic.