Are we too hard on addicts?

Discussion in 'Member Casual Chat' started by Le Chef, Jun 8, 2022.

  1. FatBack

    FatBack Well-Known Member

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    That would be used to strip people of their second amendment right
     
  2. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    To the OP.

    No, we are not hard enough.
     
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  3. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    What do you want to do, execute them like Duterte does?

    Do you want to fix the problem or punish them? How does returning to the laws that didn't work fix anything?
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2022
  4. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    The old laws were simply not applied thoroughly enough. But not I do not want to execute them.

    Locking them up would be more than sufficient. A few years in solitary (perfectly permissible in the U.S.)
     
  5. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    And they will emerge model citizens? No, they will be more dangerous than when they went in,

    How do we pay for this? We don't even have room in regular prison space much less solitary for all of the drug addicts. That is why some cities aren't arresting them in the first place.

    You know they get drugs in jail, right?

    Do you realize that many people were made into addicts by their doctors? Do you realize many are Vets?

    If a guy saw a bunch of children blown to bits in Iraq, lost it, PTSD, came back, never gained control and ends up a drug addict, your solution is to put him in solitary?
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2022
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  6. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    My little brother was turned into a meth addict by his high school baseball coach. My brother was a very talented short stop. Then his coach decided they would all play better on meth.

    My brother probably had no idea what he was doing before he was addicted.

    And you've head the rest of the story.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2022
  7. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    I have watched this cycle since I watched the vets returning from Vietnam. Something happens. We break out the flags, call up the marching band, give heroic and inspiring speeches, and send proud young men overseas to defend their country; honor the founding fathers, and keep safe baseball and apple pie.

    When they return, after the war has taken its toll, after they are desperate, broken men, we toss them aside like so much garbage. By then they are just bums on the street. And they need to be swept aside for the next marching band for the next war.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2022
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  8. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    PS, my cousin came back after his 5th tour in Iraq, after having to clean up the dismembered bodies of children in a school that had been attacked by mistake, and fell into despair and alcoholism. A year later he shot himself in the head.

    Could have just as easily been drugs as booze.

    Lock em up!
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2022
  9. James California

    James California Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    ~ Drug addiction is a mental health issue . America does a dismal job with mental health care and incarceration of the criminally insane.
    Without motivation the addict has little chance of recovery. Drug addicts often relapse without chaperoned supervision.
    Society is often hard on the drug addicted out of fear . Unfortunately due to dangerous behavior these individuals cannot be allowed to remain in public . Jail is the most common alternative.
    Until the USA has a government "for the people, of the people " this will not change. Monies will be spent elsewhere, sent to other countries and stuffed into politicians pockets by special interests — not "America first".
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2022
  10. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    For the severely sick, we had mental health institutions, but Reagan closed them all and the patients were turned loose on the streets.

    Maybe there are some jobs government should do...besides run prisons.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2022
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  11. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    Who cares. Life's not fair. My dad saw quite a few people on both sides blown apart in Korea (including friends of his). Two were killed when a shell landed in their foxhole. Dad was one of the men who had to sift their remains out of the hole until they had enough body parts to constitute what they hoped were two distinct bodies.

    Yet he didn't come home and become an addict.
     
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2022
  12. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There probably is, but I don't think a lot. Addictions to bad (or just too much) food are psychological, but that doesn't mean they're easier to break.

    It seems to me most of the damage from drug addiction results from the addicts having to turn to crime. I used work security for a large company and part of our duty was escorting people to take a drug test. The vast majority those that failed were randoms who were adequately performing their job despite using an illegal drug. So they lost their job simply because the drug was illegal, not because it was making them unproductive.
     
  13. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    Inside the secret lives of functioning heroin addicts

    They’re not slumped over in alleyways with used needles by their sides. Their dignity, at least from outside appearances, remains intact. They haven’t lost everything while chasing an insatiable high.

    They are functioning heroin addicts – people who hold down jobs, pay the bills and fool their families.

    For some, addiction is genetic; they’re wired this way. For others, chronic pain and lack of legal opioids landed them here. Or experimentation got them hooked and changed everything.

    What addicts have in common, according to experts, is a disease that has more to do with their brains than the substances they use. About 85% of people can take a pain pill, for example, and never crave it again.

    This is a story about the others, those traveling the dangerous road of functional addiction. What works for them now, experts explain, can easily and lethally be derailed.

    Hanging in the balance are people you may never imagine: peers, co-workers and neighbors. Loved ones, bosses and teachers. Respected members of your community who, for the benefit of everyone’s understanding, want to be heard.
    https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/27/health/functioning-heroin-addicts/index.html
     
  14. bobobrazil

    bobobrazil Well-Known Member

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    i was addicted to both narcotics, and amphetimines for 25 years, all Rx drugs never bootleg, reasoning? they are doctor supplied, NO doctors did not push them, i manipulated doctors...BOTH similar effects "when im rushing on my run and i feel like im jesus son" from Lou Reed describes the high euphoria absolutely zero problems none....
    much of the American populace has been fed utter garbage by media for 100 years, of course people have a negative perception....
    i work with other recovering addicts in recovery, and i can tell you that i did not reach sobriety until 42 yrs of age and two prison terms had no effect at all, the PULL or obsession of addiction cuts threw all....many people in recovery go back and forth between sobriety and usage for years, i see them actually working harder because they NEED that fix..

    the best solution would be legal semi-restricted doctor prescribed pure drugs at a cheaper reasonable price, that would get the "gangster
    " driven violence out of the game
     
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  15. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    To you guys who are or have been addicts: imagine that you are locked up inside a work camp and are made to do physical labor, like harvesting tomatoes, for 6 months. You get plenty to eat and water to drink but you must work as a condition of getting either. You can read in the evening unttil it's dark. No electricity or electronics of any kind.

    In other words, compulsory fresh air and exercise. Every day for 6 months. What if anything would this do to your physical craving?
     
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2022
  16. bobobrazil

    bobobrazil Well-Known Member

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    for myself i DID spend 3 yrs in various prisons with everything you mentioned....it did nothing, the memory of the "wonderful" feeling of bliss remained and i did not quite untill i just got very tired...for lack of a better way to describe it , i "outgrew" it
     
  17. James California

    James California Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    ~ Glad you are doing well. Thanks for sharing ... :fingerscrossed:
     
  18. bobobrazil

    bobobrazil Well-Known Member

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    thank you, i got sober at 42-43 which is typical for AA's anyway..i returned to school while working in a drug rehab, and got a degree in IT while working as well
    i continued to work in recovery till i could get enough years to pass the 7 yr background checks, and still do "private" work with addicts and have worked in the new computer field for years,,, while sobering up i realized many would prefer to boil me in oil, and those same people still probably think more prison and harsher sentences
    will make things more better
     
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  19. James California

    James California Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    ~ It sounds like you may do well as an independent self employed contractor ..? Work at your own will for whomever you decide.
    Just a thought ...
     
  20. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    I honestly don't know why you are asking, or even what you are asking, but there is no excuse for a person like me to be carrying around extra weight. By "person like me," I mean someone in generally good health, who knows what "overweight" means, who can count calories and read nutrition information on packages, with access to nutritious food and exercise facilities.

    My motivation in wanting to lose the weight is probably vanity, at bottom. I'd likely live a little longer, which means I can continue earning money, and I'd look better. Let's face it, there's nothing attractive about fat.
     
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2022
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  21. MJ Davies

    MJ Davies Well-Known Member

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    I asked because I wanted to not make assumptions about your motivation and goals.

    For example, around the turn of the 20th century and prior, heavier women were considered attractive because they were less frail and could withstand childbirth. It has only been in the last several decades that "rail thin" has become the norm.

    I met a woman at the gym I used to go to when I was a police officer. She would come every morning at 6A and walk on the treadmill for an hour and another hour on the stationery bike. She was so thin that you could see her bones, but in her mind, she had to not "be fat" and for her that meant starving herself and over-exercising.

    There was a huge legal battle in the case of Terry Schiavo basically for the same reason. Her quest to be thin killed her.

    I met a woman in her 90s in a nursing home that always had two giant red spots on her cheeks. She would cake make-up on because her mother, long passed, told her that she was "too pale".

    This woman was considered beautiful in her time and country, so much so that men committed suicide because she rejected them.

    Image20.jpg

    My point is simply that society defines what it likes and doesn't like so we must ask ourselves are we using the right motivators in setting a goal (such as losing weight) or are we just ignoring our internal signals in order to fit what our society says we should be and who is setting those standards and what are their motives?

    As in politics and everything else, should we just blindly accept what a third party tells us is the "right" way to be or take back control or develop control over our own lives and health in a way that is best for us despite the "cookie cutter" version <of whatever> we are expected to be?
     
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  22. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    Yes there is a huge difference and you've sort of alluded to it by attempting to compare yourself to one. Your "inability" to generate the willpower to exercise and eat better is nowhere near the same as an addicts inability to just "stop" doing whatever they are addicted to. At the end of the day you just don't feel like doing the work to maintain what you consider an ideal weight. An addict in many cases flat out cannot control themselves without their vices and/or goes through pretty dramatic mind alterations without their vices that lead to everything from simple irritability to physical pain to flat out death in many cases.

    I'm addicted to nicotine, I have family members who are addicted to crack cocaine and I've seen with my very eyes what happens to people addicted to crack who can't get crack. Being addicted to nicotine and not having nicotine is miserable, but knowing people who have been addicted to both they've told me that hard drug or alcohol withdraws are 10x worse than nicotine withdraws and I couldn't imagine that. Without nicotine I basically get irritable fast and restless and short tempered and there were times in the past when I was willing to pay somebody 20 bucks for a single cigarette back when I smoked and I ran out. But that was about the extent of it, I could "deal" with it and I didn't feel like I was going to die without it I would just be really really pissed off. Crack addiction is so strong that a mother will literally sell her toddlers baby food and let the kid starve for days to buy more crack if necessary. Or leave the kid at home alone for days while she runs around town at night doing whatever to find a few bucks just to get her next crack hit.

    There is no real way to describe in words what goes through the minds of hard drug or alcohol addicts. Yes there is a massive difference between not having the will power to get in better shape vs being unable to "just say no" to hard drugs once addicted to them.
     
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  23. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    I can only say that I could lose 10 pounds and not have to sorry about my bones protruding.
     
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  24. Le Chef

    Le Chef Banned at members request Donor

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    For some, I'm sure. But one of the other posters above said that if were locked up for 6 months with access to nothing but fresh air, sunshine, food, drink and exercise, he'd still crave it, saying:

    "for myself i DID spend 3 yrs in various prisons with everything you mentioned....it did nothing, the memory of the "wonderful" feeling of bliss remained and i did not quite untill i just got very tired...for lack of a better way to describe it , i "outgrew" it."
     
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2022
  25. Nightmare515

    Nightmare515 Ragin' Cajun Staff Member Past Donor

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    True, addiction levels vary between individuals. There are some addicts that if you were to lock them up for 6 months without access to their vices "cold turkey" style they would literally die. Some involuntarily as in the withdraw would kill them, others would go so insane that they pound their head against the wall until they commit suicide or hang themselves. Some have been addicted so long that their very anatomy has become dependent on the vice and taking it away from them kills them.

    I know the feeling, I've quit nicotine on a number of occasions and went the cold turkey route once when I had to attend a training course for 2 months that didn't allow any sort of nicotine. It was brutal but after a couple weeks the cravings did ease up but they never went away they just got easier to dismiss. When I got out of the course I immediately went and grabbed a smoke and it was honestly the grossest thing I've ever tasted...But I still wanted another one...It was weird. I know I can cold turkey quit as I've done it before but I'm also not a hardcore addict like some members of my family.

    Nicotine doesn't even really compare because it's not a "blissful" mind altering drug. I get a slight buzz from it but nothing like the euphoria that hard drugs supposedly do. Even alcohol isn't really the same. As someone who was also once a functioning alcoholic I remember that it wasn't even the "drunkenness" that I was addicted to but rather just the booze. I drank too much to even get drunk anymore and I vividly remember going to parties and being jealous of everyone else who were drunk and having a good time. I wanted that mind altering bliss of being drunk but I couldn't get it because my tolerance level had become ridiculously high. Sure my body itself was drunk I assume but I couldn't "feel" drunk. My body couldn't physically handle the amount of booze required for me to reach the same feeling of "drunk" as the average person does after 2 or 3 shots or a few beers. By the time I was reaching that feeling I'd consumed critically dangerous amounts of alcohol to the point where my body would shut down from alcohol poisoning and I'd pass out. My body quit before my mind reached "bliss". I just drank because if I didn't I got irritable and couldn't sleep, the feeling of drunkenness had long passed.

    Terrible times back then...
     
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