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With all the education and knowledge out there about addictive drugs, if a person has experimented with addictive drugs just to get high and gets addicted, then they are just plain dumbasses IMO! I ONLY feel sorry for their loved ones.
If I was in great pain and needed strong drugs to keep the pain manageable and I got addicted, well so be it. The drugs would own me. I'd never say never in this case. NO ONE knows what their pain level can top out at before they turn to something for relief.
I know a young woman who suffers incredible chronic pain day in and day out. She has been diagnosed and will NEVER get better, but will only get worse as she ages. I marvel at her ability to stay away from narcotics. She's certainly stronger than I'd ever be in her shoes.
With all the education and knowledge out there about addictive drugs, if a person has experimented with addictive drugs just to get high and gets addicted, then they are just plain dumbasses IMO!
I know a young woman who suffers incredible chronic pain day in and day out. She has been diagnosed and will NEVER get better, but will only get worse as she ages. I marvel at her ability to stay away from narcotics. She's certainly stronger than I'd ever be in her shoes.
Ask her if she prays.
You gave an example of something most people don't know.
I'm a recovered alcoholic, I didn't become alcoholic because I drank too much.
I drank too much because I'm alcoholic.
It was *there all along, just looking for a preferred method of sedation...booze or narcs.
What was *there ? ,
well...I was there, it was me, my self centered selfishness, it was my ego running my life , infecting my mind with a formless fear that only booze and drugs could drown.
I was a thousand miles into the darkest forest but it was only 12 steps to get out.
I'm on board with the "bad character" view. Drug addiction and alcoholism are evidence of poor character, and are not diseases. I have known many alcoholics, and all of them had poor character and were weak people. Substances don't enter your body, they are put there by conscious physical choice. The desire to escape oneself is a choice, and a bad one.
And you can't listen to the medical profession, because it has become a part of the SJW agenda. So you have to look at reality, look at the behavior, look at the choices that are made, and come to the correct conclusion based on observation and logic.
Alcoholism and substance abuse are choices, not diseases. They are a futile attempt to escape the realities of one's own inadequacies, instead of making the more courageous and difficult and noble choice: to change them.
You're mostly right, except a few details, I agree its not a disease but it is a spiritual disease.
This I found to be true because I'm a recovered alcoholic and the solution was spiritual, when I recovered spiritually my body and mind soon recovered too. By spiritual I mean things like selfishness and dishonesty etc. There are no medical pills for character defects so its not primarily a medical problem but will eventually have medical implications for the addict. The medical profession tries hard but they will never find an answer, mostly because they don't know what the problem is in the first place.
Addicts have lost the power of choice, otherwise they wouldn't qualify as being addicts.
They're pretty much zombies who walk and talk but a part of them is not there.
Even when they tell the truth they think they're getting away with another lie.
Something has taken over their mind and it kills the overwhelming vast majority of them.
This whole thing about the opioid crisis is farce, they're addicts and are doomed to death, there is no cure, the latest medications only treat symptoms but don't touch the cause. Throwing money at it doesn't do anything, if money could beat it.... if only it were that simplistic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Paolella
The desire to escape oneself is a choice, and a bad one.
The desire to escape oneself is a choice, true,
if you were suicidal wouldn't you find it beneficial to escape yourself, no-one else is trying to kill you but you and there is no self defense when self is the deadly enemy within.
So
Its not the act of making a choice but the particular choice that is made. Drugs vs ? what ?
In the end I got free by choosing to abandon myself and trying God instead of my own self will.
It wasn't easy because I was atheist but I thought it was at least honest to try, and it worked.
Well whatddya know, there is a God and it ain't me.
I still enjoy talking to atheists.
I remember awhile back how naïve I was thinking that addiction was not a disease.
Then I've witnessed a loved one go through the whole cycle of getting hooked on opioids, trying to get help to get off them, bottoming out, and then working on recovery through managed care.
Yes, I think addicts made poor choices to get themselves addicted.
However, once that train left the station, and especially on opioids, the brain is actually re-programmed and I am convinced at that stage, it has become a disease that AA/NA meetings are not going to do a lot to help.
It might work for a few, but many people cannot recover from this sickness on their own and without close supervision. Relapse is way too easy for these folks as I have seen.
I honestly don't know what the answer is, but I am thankful that I saw the light on this disease and have changed my cowardly and naïve opinion on the people suffering from it.
ALcoholics go through detox and rehab but at the end they are told either go to AA or you will be back here.
The rehabs and the best medical attention has no answer for addictions, they treat symptoms.
I went to AA and worked their program, the 12 steps, I recovered. By recovered I don't just mean stopped drinking.
Originally I quit drinking for 5 yrs but I was slowly going mad, the alcoholism kept right on going in my mind and I became suicidal. I was stark raving sober. Thats what AA addresses.
AA isn't tried and found failing, its found difficult and not tried.
Only 10% of the people who go to AA ever try the program,
they will say "I'm in the program" but they aren't.
They are in meetings but the program is the 12 steps, not meetings. So, they are lying.
The AA position is its not a disease, but it is a spiritual disease.
The reason alkies drink and why addicts do drugs is the same, they are trying to raise their consciousness so they can feel better so they settle for a stolen and a borrowed experience.
Actually alcoholics drink because they have a compulsion, driven by an obsession.
As Karl Jung put it, 'seeking a communion , at a low level, with what we call God'.
Do they not bear blame because of a disease or are they just selfish and don't care about others and only about getting high?
Going with thinking in the "gray area" and not just in black or white thinking it's probably some of both so you are left with figuring out the small details and that's what self examination or therapy is all about. If you can't be bothered to UNDERSTAND someone, just toss a coin!
Actually alcoholics drink because they have a compulsion, driven by an obsession.
As Karl Jung put it, 'seeking a communion , at a low level, with what we call God'.
AKA trying to get God from a bottle.
God exists in alternative thinking or in slowing down enough that one can be closer to nature - and see the "true nature" of things (note - the true nature is not a guy above the clouds pulling levers).
Who is to measure closeness to God? Maybe someday we can take MRI's and hook electrical sensors up to people and compare LSD with Speaking in Tongues, but until then we'll have to argue about it.
There is a famous story in the book by Ram Dass (richard alpert) who was Tim Leary's partner in the LSD experiments when it was legal and done scientifically.
---------------------
Ram Dass is seeking the truth everywhere. He ends up in India where he meets various religious figures - many of whom seem to have powers. For example, the Forest Yogi who worked hard and could move boulders with his body and hands - yet his diet was a small rice ball each day and what was left of it (bowel movement) was raisin sized.
Finally, one of his guides takes him to climb a mountain to meet the person who would become his true guru.
It took a couple days and finally they came upon the Guru sitting quietly in the area where he lived. He looked at Ram Dass and said "where are the pills?". Turned out Ram Dass has brought a pocketful of the most pure and strong LSD to India hoping he could get insight into "what it was". Was it just a fake? Or did it, as Huxley and many others claimed, "open the doors of perception".
Ram Dass handed 4 of the pills to the Guru (enough to send an elephant on a good journey) who popped them into his mouth all at one time. They sat together for hours.
Nothing happened to the Guru!
True or not, the story illustrates a very important point which even applies to booze. If you are already "there" there is nowhere to go. This would be different with "body" drugs like heroin or large amounts of booze - but LSD simply opened up pathways in the brain which had been closed off - so if the Guru was truly "there" nothing would have happened.
I once drank a 6-pack (I don't drink) to see if I would get drunk. All that happened was that I was plastered to the floor and could not move. In other words, I felt the physical effects - but no change in personality.
On the other hand we've all seen people who take a could sips of wines and then change personality completely. I submit that they are just looking for a excuse to leave their heads...
Don't have an answer to the OP. But I feel great empathy for the addict, their family, and our society. It's a terrible waste of lives.
I wish anyone, whether it's the reader of this who might be addicted--or anyone connected with an addict-- the strength to overcome the tragedy of addiction.
I've seen the pain in friend's kids who were/are addicted and how how heart-breaking it is for all involved.
And I've seen adult and young alcoholics and how painful that is. Though it's a "legal" drug.
An ex-smoker, it took me three tries to overcome that not-so-lovely habit. But I did. The hardest--and the best thing I ever did for myself.
My 30 year old son started experimenting with drugs at 15. When he shot up heroin for the first time he was naïve and arrogant enough to believe he wouldn't get addicted. He was an addict for 10 years and while no longer a druggie, he drinks too much and is going nowhere with his life. The drugs destroyed part of his brain that will probably never recover.
I have never been addicted to drugs or alcohol, although I'm guessing I am genetically predisposed to such, as there were many alcoholics on both sides of my family. I do not consider myself a selfish person and people who know me would probably say that I am actually very unselfish.
However, years ago, I was prescribed some sort of painkiller after a surgery. I took it exactly twice. After that second time, there was definitely this kind of seductive pull taking root in my mind, wanting more, more, more. Alarmed, I threw the pills away and have made do with only Tylenol since then.
The element of choice was there in the beginning, sure, but I doubt it's there much later on. Had I taken a different turn at that crossroads, I believe that pull would have grown until it was uncontrollable on my own. I could be dead of a heroin overdose right now.
Meanwhile, I think I've quit smoking about a thousand times.
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