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I'm reading J.D. Vance's best selling book "Hillbilly Elegy" and he has a great paragraph about how Republicans coddle working class Whites (including drug addicts) by telling them that all their problems are caused by Big Government and Obama. The reality is many such people make bad choice after bad choice and totally refuse to take the blame for their life failures. Vance knew a guy about to become a father who quite a good job because he didn't like to get up early. Vance then saw the guy putting things on Facebook like "I can't get a job in the Obama economy, get that monkey out of the White House". Was it Obama or the guy's own decisions to blame? Vance is a GOP diehard and openly admits it's the later.
I see this exact same situation quite frequently where I live. It is sad. I recently got into an online discussion and was defriended because I told the person that the reason that their relatives have a "hard time" and "bad life" is because they have made poor personal choices/decisions in their lives. That if they make better ones they'll have a better life. FWIW this person was a liberal and they blamed all their problems on conservatives and baby boomers and capitalists...
I agree with you 100%. Most family members of addicts are only enablers. They think it's societies problem because it is a "disease". Let me just say this right here to shut those people up. AIDS is a disease too. Do we hold society responsible for the wellbeing of someone who KNOWINGLY has sex with someone who has AIDS and they contract it themselves? Hell no! Everyone would say, you knew the possible outcome now it's your problem. How come they can't seem to have that same attitude with a junkie? They WILLINGLY do this stuff KNOWING that it is highly addictive and very dangerous? Any addict can quit whenever they themselves want to. All they have to do is not do the drugs and fight through the sickness for 2 days max, or if they can't do that just show up at the ER and go into detox. Pretty simple stuff here.
Addiction IS a disease. It is a disease like HIV/AIDS that requires treatment so that it can go into a dormant state and requires regular, routine "treatment" to stay in that state.
I agree with you on that. But the 2 days thing is an exaggeration. Sickness as a result from quitting certain drugs can actually kill the patient depending on the drugs that they were addicted to. The addict though has to go into "treatment" voluntarily. There are plenty of people who decide not to treat their physical ailments like cancer or even heart disease or diabetes and they die as a result. Addiction is no different so I do agree that the addict is the main person who has to cure themselves and families cannot do it for them, but disagree with the idea that it is not a "disease." It is a disease that requires ongoing treatment, like HIV/AIDS.
I more mad because of these losers are the main cause to get our cough meds to be behind the counter, even getting gas treatment for our cars requires a ID now. I mean seriously between Meth heads and crackheads, they put a damper on the OTC drugs that we normal people would buy. Sorry, play with fire your going to get burn. You know once you start shooting up or snorting the crack your going to get additive. Its what we normal people call common educated sense. If they want help, they need to step up and ask for it, than it becomes our problem. But if they dont choose to be helped, than its GODs (karma) problem. We got enough issues to deal with.. as these keep happing in small towns, it ties up resources. There was a case were all the EMTs were out dealing with a OD mob, while a mother lost her child because of no help could come. So again.. if you had one medic in your town. and u get 2 calls one is OD and other evolves a child what would you choose?
I am mad because my state wants to regulate how doctors prescribe pain meds.
What this ends up doing is causing patients who are in severe pain from getting adequate treatment in some instances.
Originally Posted by MPowering1
You're all heart. I know a few couples who have lost their children to drugs, and none of them have ever considered their children "scumbags, loser drug addicts".
You have a personal issue and expect others to have the same issue, but thankfully, most people don't think the way you do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cruisetheworld
And this is why the problem remains. Because those parents of drug addicted children are enablers.
Drug addicts will lie and steal and even kill other family members to get their next fix. Why would anyone want anything to do with such a person....even another family member? PArents are huge enablers of their drug addicted children. Ever watch the show INTERVENTION? What is the first thing the Interventionist says? It stops here and now! No more enabling your child!!! Let them hit rock bottom!
And they get ONE chance to get clean. After that cut them lose! Another poster commented that he spent over $200,000 to help get their child clean. Really? So after the first $20,000 you could not see that your child was not ready to quit drugs? So you just throw good money after bad??? YEah sounds like a plan to me.
And what about the responsibility of the drug addicted scumbag? What gives them the right to tear families apart and make every other family member's life miserable? How SELFISH!!! No one ever blames the drug addict cuz
"Oh no they have a "disease."
You're right. Most people don't think the way I do. And this is why the problem persists and grows.
I will say it again. Drug addicts are totally worthless, scumbag, human beings. They voluntarily made a decision to engage in a behavior which they knew would harm themselves and their family members. They contribute nothing to society and suck away at the resources which tax payers end up paying for i.e. rescue/ police/ hospital. If an addict does not seek help......a fatal overdose solves the problem and allows the family to be rid of the problem.
So because the parents I know who lost their children to drugs have never referred to them as "scumbags, loser drug addicts" it makes those parents enablers?
Seriously, and with all due respect, you have issues that are as bad, if not worse, than the issues that drug addicts have. Get some help.
Heroin has become an epidemic in low income White areas. I spend about half my childhood below the poverty line and went through many terrible things (both parents were dead by the time I was 11) and I never did illegal drugs. I don't know causes someone to stick a syringe filled with poison into their vein.
I have no idea either. I was just talking to a recently divorced gal last week who told me she divorced because her husband started down a 5 year drug path (meth in this case) and was just intent on destroying himself and had no desire to go into treatment or help himself in any way. She begged him, and tried everything in her power to get him to help himself.....all to no avail.
She asked him why he tried meth for the first time. He told her he was just curious! Really ? Curious about meth with all that we know about that drug and it's horrible effects on people ? Seriously....you can't make people this stupid, they literally have to be born this way.
The thought of "trying" anything like that strikes a huge fear in me.....I would call that a healthy fear.
You can't save those intent on sticking a needle in their arm, or smoking their next fix. We don't have any drug problems in our family/friends group.....but there are other problems that present as dysfunctional. I've grown weary of trying to "fix" those who seem intent on "breaking" their lives faster than I, or society, can attempt to "fix" them.
I have no idea either. I was just talking to a recently divorced gal last week who told me she divorced because her husband started down a 5 year drug path (meth in this case) and was just intent on destroying himself and had no desire to go into treatment or help himself in any way. She begged him, and tried everything in her power to get him to help himself.....all to no avail.
She asked him why he tried meth for the first time. He told her he was just curious! Really ? Curious about meth with all that we know about that drug and it's horrible effects on people ? Seriously....you can't make people this stupid, they literally have to be born this way.
The thought of "trying" anything like that strikes a huge fear in me.....I would call that a healthy fear.
You can't save those intent on sticking a needle in their arm, or smoking their next fix. We don't have any drug problems in our family/friends group.....but there are other problems that present as dysfunctional. I've grown weary of trying to "fix" those who seem intent on "breaking" their lives faster than I, or society, can attempt to "fix" them.
How have you grown weary of trying to "fix" addicts if you don't have any in your family or circle of friends though?
My 23 year old cousin died of a heroin overdose, and not even a few weeks later her younger sister was in the hospital for a heroin OD. Imagine the heartache and frustration her parents felt. Today she is clean and doing well, but thankfully she was not written off.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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What's interesting to me is how regionalized the drug OD epidemic seems to be. I live in Greater Louisville and grew up in Lexington and rural KY. From my mostly middle class high school in highly educated Lexington I'm not aware of a single OD death from my class of at large (2k students) high school. Lots of people used marijuana but few used heavy drugs. Meanwhile here there are high schools in working class areas where dozens of people have died of ODs. For some reason heroin is mostly a drug used by blue collar low income Whites. I assume in areas with the worst problems those high schools had a drug culture that included heroin. I live in lower middle class neighborhood and apparently one of my neighbors are heroin users. During one front yard screaming match the woman told the man that she wished the paramedics hadn't used narcan to revive him!
How have you grown weary of trying to "fix" addicts if you don't have any in your family or circle of friends though?
My 23 year old cousin died of a heroin overdose, and not even a few weeks later her younger sister was in the hospital for a heroin OD. Imagine the heartache and frustration her parents felt. Today she is clean and doing well, but thankfully she was not written off.
Well first of all, I'm sorry about your cousin and her sister. It's definitely a sad thing when someone OD's.
I clearly said in my post, "but there are other problems that present as dysfunctional". I've not had to directly deal with drug addiction, but I've dealt with enough family/extended family/friends who keep doing destructive things to themselves and then wondering how they ended up in the sorry state they are.
Destructive things can take on many forms, all the way from financial issues, largely of their own making, to loving the wrong people who they allow to continually mistreat them....and dozens of other types of similar things.
I didn't say I wasn't willing to help. What did I say to make you think that ?
What I did say was that I've grown weary of trying to "fix" people who don't seem to want to be fixed. I can't imagine anyone getting totally inspired and pumped up by repeatedly going through the same dysfunctional/destructive issues with a loved one only to have them go back to their previously destructive behavior. If you do get inspired by this situation, you're a better person than I.
So because the parents I know who lost their children to drugs have never referred to them as "scumbags, loser drug addicts" it makes those parents enablers?
Seriously, and with all due respect, you have issues that are as bad, if not worse, than the issues that drug addicts have. Get some help.
Because those parents refuse to see the truth. They are E-N-A-B-L-E-R-S. And until they do, their children will always be worthless, loser drug addicts. The ones that died from an OD actually did their parents a favor.
And as far as needing "help", I have never used drugs, never been arrested because of drugs( or any other reason), never received a DUI, always worked, obeyed the law, paid my taxes, held a job, and raised drug free productive children who are contributing working members of society.
How many drug addicts can say that? Thought so.
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