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First, as far as addiction being classified as a mental illness, keep in mind that the medical community also considers "restless leg syndrome" and "high cholesterol" to be "diseases" or conditions requiring treatment. With expensive and profitable drugs, of course. There are considerable financial incentives to classifying everything as a disease. The ex-CEO of Merck (Henry Gadsden) even said as much over 30 years ago. His goal? To prescribe drugs to healthy people. And with statins and the reflux drugs, etc, they are succeeding beyond his wildest dreams.
Because they made the choice to use an addictive substance. If someone signs their waivers and decides to climb Mount Everest and freezes to death on the mountainside, who is to blame? The mountain, for being there and tempting them with its vast greatness? Or do we have to accept that the individual knowingly took a risk and lost? When you CHOOSE to dabble with addictive substances, you are to blame for the consequences. That is not being cynical or unsympathetic; it is calling it for what it is.
I'm not sure if you intend to be so condescending or if that is just the way it comes across.
Any addiction begins with a choice. You can choose to put a needle loaded with heroin into your arm, or you can choose not to. Nature doesn't arbitrarily draw a person into an alley with a loaded crack pipe, nor hold their head back for a haul of whiskey. People must take responsibility for the decisions they make in this life. If you gamble away your paycheck and lose your house and family, whose fault is it? I don't buy the argument that it was the flashing lights of the lottery terminals that seduced a person to the point where they had no control over themselves. This notion of "I am not responsible, I have a disease" is a cop-out.
Once you remove personal responsibility from a person by assigning him a disease, it is much easier to prescribe pills for said affliction. After all, they simply cannot help themselves. We are all puppets at the mercy of our addictions, not people making bad lifestyle choices. And if we don't want to relapse we had better keep taking our pills, until the doctor says it is ok to stop. Which, oddly enough, almost never happens.
Sorry, but I am not going to spend much time weeping for people who chose a path of self-destruction. I will not absolve them of their personal blame for their situation anymore than I'll absolve someone who drives drunk or recklessly and ends up crashing and injuring themselves or others. I'll save my sympathies for people who are truly victims of tragic circumstances beyond their control. They are simply more deserving of them. But of course, it is sad to see any human beings suffer, and I always hope they will eventually get themselves together.
First, as far as addiction being classified as a mental illness, keep in mind that the medical community also considers "restless leg syndrome" and "high cholesterol" to be "diseases" or conditions requiring treatment. With expensive and profitable drugs, of course. There are considerable financial incentives to classifying everything as a disease. The ex-CEO of Merck (Henry Gadsden) even said as much over 30 years ago. His goal? To prescribe drugs to healthy people. And with statins and the reflux drugs, etc, they are succeeding beyond his wildest dreams.
The amount of risk reduction taking statins results in is actually pretty low, so I feel you on that, but considering what its preventing is death, even a 1 or 2% reduction in risk is considered to justify it by some doctors and patients. Still, i get what you're saying here. As for restless leg syndrome, I have to disagree strongly with your implication that it isn't a debilitating neurological condition in many people. There are patients whose legs are in serious pain and moving them is the only way to gain temporary relief from the sensation, and to make it worse it's most felt at night, leading to chronic insomnia which can disrupt a person's life. As such, there are patients who legitimately need medication for Restless Leg Syndrome in order to get some relief from a condition that's very unpleasant.
First, as far as addiction being classified as a mental illness, keep in mind that the medical community also considers "restless leg syndrome" and "high cholesterol" to be "diseases" or conditions requiring treatment. With expensive and profitable drugs, of course. There are considerable financial incentives to classifying everything as a disease. The ex-CEO of Merck (Henry Gadsden) even said as much over 30 years ago. His goal? To prescribe drugs to healthy people. And with statins and the reflux drugs, etc, they are succeeding beyond his wildest dreams.
Because they made the choice to use an addictive substance. If someone signs their waivers and decides to climb Mount Everest and freezes to death on the mountainside, who is to blame? The mountain, for being there and tempting them with its vast greatness? Or do we have to accept that the individual knowingly took a risk and lost? When you CHOOSE to dabble with addictive substances, you are to blame for the consequences. That is not being cynical or unsympathetic; it is calling it for what it is.
I'm not sure if you intend to be so condescending or if that is just the way it comes across.
Any addiction begins with a choice. You can choose to put a needle loaded with heroin into your arm, or you can choose not to. Nature doesn't arbitrarily draw a person into an alley with a loaded crack pipe, nor hold their head back for a haul of whiskey. People must take responsibility for the decisions they make in this life. If you gamble away your paycheck and lose your house and family, whose fault is it? I don't buy the argument that it was the flashing lights of the lottery terminals that seduced a person to the point where they had no control over themselves. This notion of "I am not responsible, I have a disease" is a cop-out.
Once you remove personal responsibility from a person by assigning him a disease, it is much easier to prescribe pills for said affliction. After all, they simply cannot help themselves. We are all puppets at the mercy of our addictions, not people making bad lifestyle choices. And if we don't want to relapse we had better keep taking our pills, until the doctor says it is ok to stop. Which, oddly enough, almost never happens.
Sorry, but I am not going to spend much time weeping for people who chose a path of self-destruction. I will not absolve them of their personal blame for their situation anymore than I'll absolve someone who drives drunk or recklessly and ends up crashing and injuring themselves or others. I'll save my sympathies for people who are truly victims of tragic circumstances beyond their control. They are simply more deserving of them. But of course, it is sad to see any human beings suffer, and I always hope they will eventually get themselves together.
well said and I completely agree with you. Most of those drug addicts become so because they chose to. I don't feel sorry for them whatsoever and won't spend a cent on helping them.
I just can't buy the argument that when one is in his low of life, he has to resort to drugs/alcohol as if he has no other choice. No, he doesn't. In fact, there is not one day in our life that we can't live without those. There are millions of people out there who suffer great losses without using any drugs/alcohol and they are doing fine. We always choose to use drugs/alcohol. I had my share of misfortune in my life too, and I never thought "humm, let me try so cocaine since that will definitely help!"
Life tragedy has absolutely nothing to do with drugs/alcohol. The latter doesn't help with the former a bit.
There was an interesting discussion a while back on another forum, about banning panhandling in Norway.
Here's what a Norwegian said:
Quote:
"Some politicians in Norway have been talking about it for a while now and while this is nothing new, this debate seems to come up every now and then.
1. Background:
There are a lot of beggars in the 3 cities in my country, however the capital is filled with them and there it is a problem. Some additional facts: there is no theoretical homelessness in my country. Any Norwegian citizen that you see on the streets are most likely to be drug addicts who rent out their small apartments provided by the state in order to finance their drug purchase.
Majority of the beggars are in fact not Norwegian citizens, but people from other countries that can come unrestricted due to Schengen treaty. Those people actually make a nice profit, because when they go back to their countries (usually eastern block), their pocket change becomes a decent sum in comparison to the costs of living over there. Thus there is no end of gypsy beggars from countries like Romania that come to the capital during summer season and beg for money from both tourists and naive wealthy citizens.
The arguments for the ban so far have been: squalor in the capital which degrades the experience of tourists and is a major source of annoyance overall. Citizens don't have a reason to beg and begging trips from other countries are obviously not justifiable.
Arguments against the ban is presented first and foremost by the police saying that those people will turn to crime for income otherwise.
My theory as to why this never really gets resolved but always comes up for the debate ever year or so is probably because of the short season. By the time the slow and incompetent politicians get the resolve to make a policy, the season of begging is over and the whole thing gets forgotten.
2. Our system are quite different from America. If you don't got a job you can get 1642 dollars a month by the government, and even more if you also got a family to take care of. Then there is also stuff like housing support, where you get money to an apartment or something other you rent if you got a low income.
You actually have to deny receiving help, if you want to become homeless, it isn't something you just end up as.
Now, obviously Canada is not nearly as generous as Norway in this regard, but it's no US either. I wonder how many people are homeless because they got screwed, and how many because they are addicts. There's a few interviews and short documentaries on Youtube on the subject.
I wish I saw the world in black and white like you two. Life would make so much more sense.
Ain't that the truth. I await the day those of you who look down on addicts, falls into the trap of addiction and you suddenly realize it is not so simple as you think. Or maybe it will be your child or a loved one. It's easy to simplify things the way you have when you know practically nothing about them.
Because they made the choice to use an addictive substance. If someone signs their waivers and decides to climb Mount Everest and freezes to death on the mountainside, who is to blame? The mountain, for being there and tempting them with its vast greatness? Or do we have to accept that the individual knowingly took a risk and lost? When you CHOOSE to dabble with addictive substances, you are to blame for the consequences. That is not being cynical or unsympathetic; it is calling it for what it is.
NorthYorkEd and his fellow supporters definitely have no knowledge about the plethora of genetic studies that have been done to study addiction. Your Mt. Everest example is the stupidest analogy I have ever read/ heard. But you are forgiven for your lack of understanding of the role of genetics in addiction (Google: addiction and genetics).
Do you consider alcohol to be an addictive substance? Most of us choose to "dabble" with beer at a very young age. Yet, most of us do not become alcoholics. But do you simply blame an alcoholic for not being able to stop after the 10th, 20th, 30th drink? You think he is just an "idiot" for losing his family, job and health over beer and vodka? I mean, how stupid does one have to be to understand that some people are pre-disposed to becoming addicts.
If you are scientifically challenged, I suggest you read what many famous recovering alcoholics have had to say about this "disease" known as alcoholism. There is a reason why recovering alcoholics cannot go back to drinking one-glass-of-wine on the weekends .......
well said and I completely agree with you. Most of those drug addicts become so because they chose to. I don't feel sorry for them whatsoever and won't spend a cent on helping them.
I just can't buy the argument that when one is in his low of life, he has to resort to drugs/alcohol as if he has no other choice. No, he doesn't. In fact, there is not one day in our life that we can't live without those. There are millions of people out there who suffer great losses without using any drugs/alcohol and they are doing fine. We always choose to use drugs/alcohol. I had my share of misfortune in my life too, and I never thought "humm, let me try so cocaine since that will definitely help!"
Life tragedy has absolutely nothing to do with drugs/alcohol. The latter doesn't help with the former a bit.
I am glad you agree with him Botticelli, but I am really hoping that you (and others) concede the fact that you were completely wrong on this issue and spoke without any understanding of Science. Here's a simple point from an authoritative source about addiction:
US Govt's National Institute on Drug Abuse "Why do some people become addicted, while others do not? Studies of identical twins indicate that as much as half of an individual's risk of becoming addicted to nicotine, alcohol, or other drugs depends on his or her genes. Pinning down the biological basis for this risk is an important avenue of research for scientists trying to solve the problem of drug abuse."
Ain't that the truth. I await the day those of you who look down on addicts, falls into the trap of addiction and you suddenly realize it is not so simple as you think. Or maybe it will be your child or a loved one. It's easy to simplify things the way you have when you know practically nothing about them.
You know nothing about me or my life and what I have or have not experienced. You are making a lot of assumptions based on a few internet postings. I simply have a difference of opinion. Thanks for wishing that myself and/or my loved ones succumb to addiction though, that was really a high-handed move.
I can post actual scientific papers if you like ...... An opinion with any knowledge is a very dangerous thing.
My point was simply this--deciding to experiment with potentially addictive substances is a risky move. Some people come out of it ok, others do not. Your mileage may vary, so be prepared to deal with the consequences of YOUR actions.
Why is that such a distasteful concept?
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