I’ve known people who have been addicted to some kind of street narcotic. They stopped when they got away from their bad relationship and improved their life.
It’s not about what will happen later, it’s about dealing with what is here and now, it’s a form of escapism. Not every case, mind you, but many.
Life sucks, and if you have/know/love people, and get the same in return, it sucks less. There’s a reason to keep going. People who end up addicted to harmful, hard, narcotics and other street drugs are generally in situations that they don’t know how to handle and just want to not feel the way they do now. Sometimes what they’re feeling is depression and hopelessness, or something similar. Imagine going from worried about everything, stressed out of your mind, depressed and suicidal, to complete careless bliss in minutes because you took a drug.
I’m not endorsing drug use, at all. Drugs (specifically street drugs) are not the answer. You’ll feel better while your life implodes and you won’t care that your spouse left or that you just lost your house, job and friends, because you’re so high that you can’t feel the sadness from these things happening. They’ll make you feel like a winner while you lose everything, and you’ll be blissfully ignorant of the truth. The drugs just fucked your life right up.
Bluntly, people are suffering through so much by the time they turn to drugs that they are looking for any relief for the constant pain and suffering they go through every moment of every day. They need help. They either get it from society/friends/family, or they get it from whatever drug they can score to help them get through it.
They then end up addicted and it begins a cycle of violence that is difficult to stop. They need help, friends, family, understanding, patience and time to get better, and often what they get is demeaned, kicked aside, thrown in jail, abandoned and disowned; all of which makes them go deeper into the gaping black hole of drug use.
I don’t have the answer to fix this situation. I never claimed I did, but I hope that someone reading this understands the psychology of addiction a little better after reading it. I am, by no means, a doctor or specialist. I’ve just observed the recovery first hand, and spoken to people who have gone through it. What I’ve said here is the culmination of the discussions I have had with people who have lived it. I’m certain there are other versions of this kind of story, leading to addiction (and hopefully out of it). My take away is that drugs are not a cause, they’re an effect. The cause is sometimes mental health related, or it could just be shit luck. Either way, you don’t choose to get addicted to drugs, you feel like you need to take drugs to deal with life, and addiction just happens as a consequence of that. I firmly believe in social programs for welfare/income assistance (including UBI), and social programs for drug rehab. All of which should be provided as a societal benefit. If people can get the mental and financial help they need, when they need it, I believe we can prevent a lot of people from turning to drugs to deal with their problems. We can avoid people becoming homeless and incapable of benefiting society. Reducing crime, and reducing suffering universally throughout our society.
I also believe that there’s always going to be “junkie scum” that would rather take UBI to cover the bills while they rot away at home, in what quickly becomes a drug den. I believe the people who are actual junkie scum that would do that while having free access to resources to turn their life around, is pretty small. I think that the vast majority of people want to live a life they can be proud of, and will do so if given the chance.
The core problem is that they’re not given that chance. They go right from being under their parents wing to being thrown face first in the dirt and told to pick themselves up “by their bootstraps” and figure it out, by people who hold more money than they’ll ever earn. We should be ashamed that drug use is as high as it is. To me, it indicates a massive gap in how much we actually care about our fellow humans. That somehow, if they can’t do anything that we find useful, when we find it useful for someone to do that, then they’re not worthy of living. That’s why it’s called “earning” a living, because if you don’t earn it, then you don’t deserve to live. IMO, that’s callous and cruel.
I was tossed to the rigors of society in my late teens, I won’t get into the circumstances, but I narrowly avoided getting into a situation where I would become an addict. I never realized, when I was in that situation, that I was literally a bad payday away from being homeless, jobless, junkie scum. Only for the love and support of a few, did I manage to get through the hardest of times and earn a living. Not everyone is so lucky.
I agree with everything except for when you say that you’ll feel like a winner while you loose everything. You actually know just how fucked up everything is and you feel like a fucking loser piece of shit but you can’t stop. You don’t feel like a winner. You feel like you’re losing everything and it’s extremely painful and you feel like you can’t do anything to stop it. The drugs barely make it any better eventually and then you’ve even lost that.
Yeah I’ve come to a lot of those same conclusions. And one thing I’ve struggled to convince people of is that calling addicts scum doesn’t help them quit. Yes they need to want to quit in order to quit, but they need to believe the pain of quitting will be worth it and that they deserve to be sober. I’ve never heard of someone hating themselves and being so ostracized they get sober. It’s when they find something or someone worth quitting for or decide they deserve to turn their life around.
That was awesome to read. I loved your perspective and compassion!
I’m not American, but you’d you’d make a great president, right now…
Thanks, however, I cannot be president.
I was not born in the USA, nor do I even live there. I’m Canadian and our politics and country overall is heavily influenced by what’s going on in America, so I tend to have relevant opinions on all sorts of issues that affect both countries.
It’s that good huh?
not really. first time, maybe. but it’s the law of diminishing returns.
wanna get shit done… sure. want to stay awake for days on end, fun the first time maybe.
want to not be able to function without it? naw, not as fun
These kind of MFs usually be like “Don’t do the illegal drug that will destroy your life, do the legal one! Ethanol comes under many street names, like beer, whiskey, wine, etc.”
(I’m against prohibition, I just like to point out these MFs hypocrisy, especially when the booze is kind of subsidized by the state due to it being a “national treasure”.)
especially when the booze is kind of subsidized by the state due to it being a “national treasure”.
What?! Even in Russia vodka is not subsidized.
Not directly subsidized, but definitely different treatment than other drugs thanks to successfull lobbying in Germany. Alcohol can far more easy sponsor and advertise e.g. Or the rage of the conversatives when weed got legalized (badly in comparison of course) this year, while they really like to take photos at Germany’s greatest drug convention (Oktoberfest) or get themself “elected” to Wine Queen/Beer Kind of boring region X.
Werbung für alkoholische Getränke dürfen den übermäßigen Genuss solcher Getränke nicht fördern
Advertising for alcoholic beverages must not encourage the excessive consumption of such beverages
Of course, that’s vague AF to the point where you can argue both that anything but “Hey let’s portray binge drinking as cool” is a-ok and on the other hand that portraying any kind of positive association with alcohol is not ok. And considering how the regulators somehow refuse to shut down right-out scam call-in shows there’s not much hope for them to interpret that in a way advertisers would disagree with (advertisers have their own rules because shitstorms against their behaviour are not good advertisement).
Talking about political strategy though, I don’t think that’s a particularly good point to start, the first step should be warning labels, akin to tobacco. And yes I’m completely fine with the same kind of labels on coffee and tea and while we’re at it ultra-processed food.
In Hungary, it kind of it is, if your manufacturer is in the right circle.
Yes, and many naive young people don’t really understand the fine lines between fun illegal party drugs (weed, molly, LSD) and life changing, soul crushing, body destroying incredibly immediately addictive illegal party drugs (crack, heroin, meth etc )
To be fair to anon, they’re asking sincerely if you take them at face value. A lot of people just don’t know why others just fall down that rabbit hole.
Is it possible to get second hand high from those ?
don’t think so. either way don’t try it. tastes like burnt plastic and not worth ruining your life over