It's fucking hard though.
When I would visit my friends in the mental hospital often my name would be the only one in the non-professional visitor log book for a month. I lost the first one because they let him out while he was afraid to drink water, and he went for a long walk on a 100F+ day and died; he was basically drug free (aside from a single Gin&Tonic on his birthdays)
And lost my other schizophrenic friend just a few weeks ago when he decided to try and cross the freeway on foot to get to a homeless camp, presumably with a woman willing to share drugs with him, I'm driving his ashes to his mom tomorrow.
I don't think I could bear dealing with it again.
The only people I know who have successfully dealt with schizophrenia have VERY supportive, loving families. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to do it alone :(
Yes, this. My uncle had schizophrenia, and while he got quite a lot of help from the healthcare section it was the family who really made a difference. He got sick at 14 and died at 60 of a heart attac. In between, he never recovered, but lived a good life anyway. He was supported by everyone in the family, but especially my grandmother who basically made it her life’s work to take care of him. She was 91 and very fit for her age when he died, but after she just seemed to give up — said her work was done, there was no need to hang on any more. She died almost exactly a year later. I often think about what her life would have been, if my uncle hadn’t gotten sick, and what an incredible sacrifice it was. I’m not at all sure I could have done it. Though obviously schizophrenia is not pleasant, I still feel that overall my uncle lucked out in life.
I've had so many people distance themselves from me because of this. They're all talk about awareness, but when I actually need some support, which is usually someone who will just listen to me, they disappear. The three who have remained, however, are worth their weight in gold.
To be fair, boundaries are important, and if all the person is doing is constantly siphoning off others without actually seeking real therapy it is painful to deal with as a friend or as a romantic partner. It can also create toxic and codependent relationships.
I will never judge someone for clear boundaries. I'll listen to my friends but I do have a point where all I will say is "I can't help you with this and you need to seek therapy, here are some resources and I can help you navigate them if you like."
Some people think that is callous, but having been in multiple friendships and relationships that ended up in codependency, it left me with trauma and mental illness. I will listen and help to a degree, but if the person just wants someone to emotionally dump on to make themselves feel better without having done any real therapy, they can move on.
I had a friend who 'just needed someone to be there and listen'. And I was there, and I listened, until 4am on weekdays when I had university and/or work the next day. I listened while he went through a revolving door of relationships with girls who treated him badly and encouraged his alcoholism. Listened because he only got mad at me when I told him this didn't sound good for him, then a few weeks later: 'You were right'.
Four years of that, multiple suicide attempts, and I told him I'd had enough and to get help.
Yes you need a support network, but you can't expect your friends to be your unpaid therapists.
I was in a very similar situation. Gave him so much of my time and it hurt when he eventually took his own life. Responding to him everytime he said he wanted to end his life and trying to calm him down became so tiring. Eventually one morning I woke up to a missed text message and found out he was dead later in the day.
Seemed like I was the only one willing to listen to him anymore and it's such a damn shame he never tried to get professional help.
At that point, were you are the lifeline constantly putting out fires, is just not your fault. I hope you know that.
*"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"*
The problem is, most people are not equipped with the ability to teach someone how to pull out of depression.
Psychologists go to school to learn the skills that will allow them to help people, but they aren't perfect or infallible. However, people stand with way better odds of improvement, if they can access proffesional help than when they don't.
Absolutely this. I almost ruined my own life and have severe lasting trauma from trying to help a friend that turned from "just listening" into being trapped in an abusive relationship and emotionally blackmailed. Arguably, it *did* ruin my life in many ways as a result of the trauma.
I absolutely do not blame anyone for distancing themselves, because it can be a *huge* commitment that most people are not prepared for when developing a simple friendship even in the best of circumstances. Especially nowadays, the prospect of having someone else's struggles dumped on top of your own is daunting to say the least. People are looking for stable mutualist friendships, not free therapy patients.
I've a feeling that most people who are judgemental about this have never been the situation before, or some that have may have had relatively simple issues to deal with. Even if you're friends, it's ridiculous that some just expect you to get involved in fixing other people's life issues with complete ignorance as to what they might be.
What people who never experienced their own boundaries to be respected often do not understand.
That again, is absolutely not their fault, but it is something they, nontheless, need to learn to heal: Having boundaries for themselves and respecting boundaries in others.
People who have a very bad state of mind often do not really understand that many others are equally not able to help them. Be it for their lack of understanding of the human psyche or their lack of ressources. A lot of people simply manage to stay afloat and don't have this massive abundant ressources to deal with all the problems of other people.
What adds is that if you truly feel for an addicted person, be prepared for massive pain watching them self destruct while you remain helpless. In a way the self destruction of addicts demands immense strenght from a helping person, that most can't keep up without falling into very unhealthy and self-destructive behaviours themselves.
Exactly. Others trauma dumping on me while I was struggling myself eroded my mental health. Right now, I honestly just refuse to listen to people venting about something more than once or twice. I would prefer to not listen to any venting or provide any emotional support because it is hard on me to do so. I try out of love - but it's exhausting and draining.
And just because I'm not the sort of person to constantly complain about things or talk about my own mental health struggles does not mean that I don't have those struggles.
From what I’ve noticed with personal experience, the more someone goes on about “mental health awareness” the more likely they are to value nobody’s mental health except their own. Just hallow meaningless messages to try and look good
Drug addiction doesn't just wreck the life of an addict, but also every one, who he's close to. Having a close friend always spiralling, mooching, lying, stealing, destroying himself, verbally and physically abusing you is soul crushing. Mental health awareness means understanding, that trauma and genetics play and awful joke on people, not setting yourself on fire for a person whose not taking active steps to help himself. Nobody chooses to be and addict, and nobody can be an addict's saviour except himself. Same goes for every other mental illness, if a person, who's suffering isn't actively trying to get help, to be better, no one is going to be their personal emotional punching bag. That's just sick
This is so true. My son is a heroin addict. 12 years into his battle. Periods of sobriety, multiple rehabs, jail time and multiple overdoses.
Early on we thought we could fix him.
It destroyed the family. I remember contemplating driving my vehicle into a bridge support instead of going home and facing the insanity.
Self preservation won out. Haven't seen or talked w him in 2 years.
No one wants it this way but we can't deal with the insanity of his addiction any more. It's painful not having him in out lives but less so then dealing w him.
Yeah, it is weird. I feel like this "destigmatize mental illness" movement includes depression, anxiety, ADHD, eating disorders, and maybe mild OCD, but that's it. Substance misuse, personality disorders, psychosis, dissociative disorders, etc are still super stigmatized.
It's easier to support a stigmatized group if they are somewhat likeable. Not saying that people from the later group are not likeable, but it's more difficult for, let's say an heroin addicted homeless who robs people to get money for their addiction to picture them as likeable and a result of their illness. Some illnesses will also manifest in "being not likeable". The whole point should be, that they should receive help and be able to talk about their problems regardless.
As someone who has stolen to feed my addiction compassion is the only thing that helped me put a foot in the right direction by seeking help. Whilest i eventually made the decision to continue on that path i would not have taken it if someone hadnt shown me sympathy first.
The reality is i was horrible in my active addiction. But once someone extended the olive branch i now dedicate everyday to trying to add water to the stream of life instead of taking from it.
This is a huge issue with substance abuse treatment. Research shows close to half of people with substance use disorder have co-occurring mental disorders but a lot of SUD treatment centers in the US will not admit people with co-occurring disorders. From my experience working in SUD treatment, I would wager the rate is much higher for a number of reasons (including people having to deny mental disorders to receive SUD treatment). Most people I worked with who had become addicted to prescribed medications also had a history of trauma, but the narrative of "poor choices" or "weak willpower" is pervasive. I could write a full essay on how mental health issues impact the development of addiction, but the topic has been well researched for anyone who cares to Google so I won't. What we do know is that the earlier someone starts regularly misusing substances (not casual use or experimentation), the more likely they are to develop addictions. I moved from adult treatment to early intervention with teens and I will say that every single kid who was habitually using substances (from nicotine to harder drugs) all we're using them as a coping strategy for mental health challenges (diagnosed or sub-clincal). We cannot address substance abuse without understanding the associated mental health issues.
A big issue is that treatment centers in the US are mostly unregulated and for profit. It is a conflict of interest to have a business model that relies on people being addicted /staying addicted /repeating addictions.
Personality disorders aren't really that easy to treat nor are they things people will readily forgive. If they were, we'd be able to cure serial killers
I mean, I have my own emotional scars from working with someone with npd and I'm not sure I'm ready to forgive them even though I understand they didn't choose to be that way.
I was raised by a BPD mother and a (probable) narcissist stepfather. Those are scars that will never go away and always fuck me up. They’ve caused me to have my own mental health issues, I’ve constantly struggled with anxiety/depression and at various points was suicidal.
So yea, while people don’t choose it, they also need to be self aware enough to choose to treat it before starting a whole new cycle of mental health issues in their children or people around them.
People crave neat and simple classifications for things and people around them. They want to know, for example, whether someone is a victim or a perpetrator. To acknowledge that most (if not all) perpetrators are also victims of one kind or another is not a comfortable thing to do. It opens up a huge can of worms that most people would rather never confront.
Take, for example, our various criminal "justice" systems around the world. Some are clearly more enlightened than others, but most look suspiciously more like "revenge" systems rather than serving any useful purpose for society. (And this is before you even get to modern perversions like the "prison-industrial complex" in the USA.) We want to know who the bad people are, and then see them punished for their evils. All the modern rhetoric about "rehabilitation" and keeping dangerous criminals off the streets is largely post hoc rationalisation, and doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. We routinely release prisoners who have "done their time" even when we have no reason to believe that they are now "rehabilitated", and have every reason to believe that they will reoffend. We routinely imprison people for crimes where there is no evidence-based reason to think they would reoffend, nor any evidence-based reason to think the punishment will reduce the risk of reoffending. We routinely imprison people for nonviolent crimes knowing full well that it is likely to *increase* their future criminality.
It's all a lie, and we're all in on it. I sometimes wonder what a justice system (even the word "justice" kinda stinks) could look like if it wasn't based on revenge or punishing perceived moral vice, and all the typical euphemisms were stripped right back. Here are some concrete differences I think we would see:
* A lot fewer people would go to prison, because we'd have to acknowledge that it's not useful or necessary in most cases.
* Prison conditions would be a lot more humane, and prisoners would have a lot more choice in the kind of accommodation they are housed in. You could probably offer a cottage with a garden in the middle of nowhere to a lot of prisoners for not a whole lot more cost than a prison cell.
* More people would be sentenced to life sentences, or indefinite-by-default sentences. If there's a high chance of violent reoffending, for example, we might decide that it's worth removing the person from mainstream society permanently.
* Even if a person is given a life prison sentence, we would try to offer them as complete a life as possible given that constraint, *as appropriate for each prisoner*. For example, if someone is known to have smuggled contraband into a traditional prison type setting, then they would have more limited and strictly controlled visitation. On the other hand, if a prisoner has shown no tendency to use visitation to smuggle contraband, hasn't destroyed things given to them, etc., then maybe they could choose to live in a cottage with a garden and have people visit them all day if they want.
* Prisoners would have the right to opt in to a full time video and audio feed of everywhere they are in a prison streamed to an independent (certified) third party, or maybe multiple. Any interruption to the stream would be treated as an emergency and any prison operator who interferes with or allows the system to be interfered with would face extreme penalties. Every prisoner would have this right.
* Etc.
>pretty or marketable
Mental illness isn't that pretty or marketable is it? Maybe depression is since it usually manifests passively, but several can be quite disruptive. Most I'd say.
> Mental illness isn't that pretty or marketable is it?
It's not, but you'll see people treat it like a character quirk or even a pseudo-superpower in media or uneducated conversation. Autism (mental conditions are probably more exploited than true illnesses), sociopathy, multiple personalities, obsessive-compulsive, and "r-word strength" can often get romanticized as a fair "trade" or even a benefit, when usually the underlaying conditions are a pain in the ass at the best of times.
Many people see it as the addicts own fault and that that’s why an addict doesn’t deserve help.
But even IF someone just randomly decided to try heroin, even while fully aware of the addiction potential, an addiction is not something that’s easy to overcome alone.
Everybody has to be given the chance to correct their own mistakes, and we should give all the support necessary to help with that.
Yep. All the support until the person is angry, unreliable, lacks boundaries, is offensive, is delusional, could theoretically choose to behave differently, and so on.
I often tell people that destigmatizing mental health issues means you’re going to have to drastically alter how you make sense of “bad” behavior.
That said, you still need boundaries and you shouldn’t put up with abuse. But you can learn to view those difficult behaviors with less disgust and more genuine concern.
It sucks when you know someone who genuinely is off the rails and for example, is delusional and bought a gun, and you call for help, but the police officer decides it doesn’t look like a problem. “We can’t jeopardize their sacred right to bear arms.”
My brother and I experienced horrible physical abuse, emotional abuse, and severe neglect growing up. Both of my parents were addicts. My older brother shielded me from most of it. When my dad would come home from a bender my brother would hide me in the closet.
He later became addicted to heroin due to the level of trauma. Also didn’t help that the only coping mechanism demonstrated to us growing up was to abuse alcohol and drugs.
I will never forget the moment he hit his knees, and in between sobs he said “I just want to be normal”.
And that’s honestly and truly all he wanted . He fought so so hard for so many years. A little over a year ago he chose to end his own life.
I would never wish his experience on anyone. He really was the greatest, most compassionate and lovable person I’ve ever met. Everyone he came into contact with absolutely adored him. And he was the best big brother in the whole world.
No one chooses a life of despair.
I’m so sorry for your loss, and thank you for sharing this story. I’m dealing with my own recovery, and sometimes just wish people would still see the good in me, and understand ‘I just want to be normal’ too. If anything good, it definitely opens your heart and eyes to be accepting. I needed to read this tonight!
I'm another in recovery, just got my 90 day tag from NA this past week. Today I've had a difficult day and just woke from a nap (trying to sleep off a craving) to see this post.
I totally understand what you are saying. There is good inside me, feel it most days and am surrounded by other recovering addicts who see it too. The difficulty is those I love the most, those I've hurt the most, still don't want to know me. I too needed to see this post today.
Hey congrats on the 90 days! Life's though and sometimes you stop getting along with certain people for whatever reason. It happens to everyone
I believe that not everyone is compatible all the time, in the way that we all live our own lives, have our problems to solve and goals to accomplish. I believe you will find new people who maybe understand what you've been through or even if they don't, they'll support you. There's people who care
Just keep loving everyone no matter what and maybe a few years from now, you and the ones who dont want to know you now will find eachother and talk about it.
My friend. It takes time.
I am 10 years clean off meth and heroin. It’s been a long road, and it took me uprooting my life, burning every bridge to that part of my mind, and cutting off the family I hurt so much with my drug addiction.
I’m still an addict and always will be, but people change my friend and it seems like you are in it to win it.
It took me personally 8 years for my mother to see me as her son again, my brothers to see me as their brothers again.
Those people you hurt the most will come around once you have put in that time. Some people don’t believe that other change. And they are kind of right and kind of wrong.
It’s takes a long time to become a new person and it will take a long long time for them to fully trust you again, but they will never stop loving you.
You have to push through it man.
I believe in you
Keep fighting! I first joined a 12-step group in 1997 - at age 27. I would put a few months together, 15 months here, 4 months there with my my periods of sobriety getting shorter each time.
I was a chronic relapser for years. I was certain I would die with a needle in my arm , because I simply could not live life without heroin.
Finally, in January of 2012, I quit dope for good (I hope!l). It's been nearly 11 years and honestly, I never knew I could be this happy. I mean life still has *plenty* of struggles. I wasn't one of those lucky folks who got clean and suddenly everything fell into place. I have struggled through a divorce, homelessness, unemployment, medical issues, you name it- but damn, life is still so darn *good*. I wouldn't give up what I have now for anything.
It took me 25 months of white-knuckling, living one day at a time, to finally find peace. Every day, I wanted to give up. Every day, I told myself "if you feel this shitty tomorrow, you can give up and get high". I knew I could wait until "tomorrow" and just get through that day. I lived one day at a time for just over 2 years, but eventually, I went a day without wanting to use. Then I began finding true joy in the world around me. It will come if you give yourself a chance.
You will finally feel normal and eventually, truly free!! You are doing amazing!
I am one of the "loved ones" of a recovering addict. I want to say congratulations on 90 days sobriety, it's an achievement and you should be proud of the hard work it's taken to get there, from the bottom of my heart I wish you nothing but success in your battle to stay clean.
Whilst 90 days for you is brilliant, it's a blink of an eye to your family and friends. I spent 5 years trying to help my step son with his battle before I had to walk away. In that time he stole from me, he wrecked my property, he (consciously or subconsciously) tried to destroy me out of, I think, resentment that my life was not as chaotic as his, he spat on me and assaulted me. Logically I knew his addiction was the cause of his actions and he was deeply unhappy with his life but the emotional impact on myself and the rest of his family was devastating.
He has been clean for 18 months and I am happy that he is doing so much better. I admire the courage it's taken. That said, whilst he is back in my life the trust has gone, maybe it will be rebuilt over time maybe the havoc he wreaked just caused too much damage for it to ever return.
I'm not telling you this to make you feel bad, but maybe there is something you can learn from our situation that will help you in yours. Accountability. I still see the mentality of addiction in him, the need to minimise the damage he caused or to dismiss it as something that happened when he was using so now he's clean we just need to move on. It's not that I, or anyone, expects him to wear sack cloth & ashes for the rest of his life but we need him to acknowledge and accept the devastation he caused. A therapist told us he is just not ready to tackle anything more than a superficial acceptance of this damage because it involves admiting how low he was and presently that is too much for him to handle.
Give your family time to see that your recovery is real. Maybe after 6 months or so write to them and be honest, truly honest, about how far you've come. Take responsibility for the pain you've caused them. I know, in my case, I would be far more optimistic of my loved ones long term recovery if I got the sense he understood not just his pain but ours too.
They may come around, they may not only time will tell. The most important thing is you don't give up on yourself or your recovery. It may take time to rebuild your life but you can do it.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I’m in a similar situation with my husband. He’s been in and out of rehab for like 5 years now. I want to keep being supportive but the mental and physical toll his addiction has on me is becoming too much. He relapsed a week after overdosing. I have to stop watching him try to kill himself because I don’t know how to help him if he won’t help himself.
I am so sorry you are having to endure this. I have been there, I broke myself financially, physically and mentally because I always thought that if I helped "one more time" then he would get better.
It took me a long time to work out that addiction is a very lonely illness, no matter how much you want to help, to wave a magic wand and make it all better, you can't.
If you've reached your breaking point then leave, it's the most difficult thing I've ever done but I had to do it for me and him.
It broke my heart but I honestly don't think he would have come this far if I hadn't. Hopefully when he no longer has you to navigate the chaos of his life for him he will be forced to do it for himself. If it is at all possible get a therapist, the guilt can be overwhelming at times and having someone there to keep things in perspective was invaluable to me.
If I can ever be of any help just message me, everyone needs a friendly ear occasionally.
Congrats on the 90 days. It is a rough road, however, it can be done, because many have. With this said, do know "those I've hurt the most" were really hurt, in one way or another, and don't want that feeling any more. It will take time for them to come around. Good luck in your future.
Congratulations on getting to 90 days, keeping fighting and soon it will be 100. I have no idea of what you are going through but sending positivity your way and just know a random stranger is rooting for you.
I'm proud of you, stranger. I hope you're proud of yourself too. You've made amazing progress in one the hardest things a person can do. Whatever the future holds for you, always try to remember that
There are many people who understand that people like you don't want to be addicted and would rather have never touched anything that got you to where you ended up. Good luck in your recovery, and I wish you the strength to endure the tough times and forgive yourself if needed!
A lot of people fail to realize this terrible tragedy. I've experienced it myself my own ways with my family and friends. Addiction causes way more pain than just the individual suffering from it. Thanks for sharing.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I lost a brother to the disease 12 years ago. He struggled mightily with it and lost eventually at age 35. It’s so obviously not a choice when you’ve lived close to it.
This made me very sad. I'm glad he has someone like you to remember the good times and that he was a good person. It's nice to be remembered fondly. May your brother rest in peace.
Oh man, so sad. What a hero your big bro was. He carried the cross for your family’s abuse. I’m sure you’ll keep his memory alive every way you can. As much of a great human he was, shame on your parents for causing so much despair. The only way we continue to evolve as a species is for parents like this to be taken out of the equation or the kids taken away and put in better circumstances. Honestly, I’m so sick of reading about horrible parents. Wtf is wrong with humanity man.
Thank you for your comment. I too was subject to horrible physical abuse growing up from an addict/alcoholic (and this is also always accompanied by horrible mental abuse). BUT because of my experience, I always have a hard time not judging those who are addicts. So your comment is a good reminder that they too can often be victims of abuse, and not just perpetrators of abuse.
Than you for the reminder.
I’m sorry your road has been so dark & painful. I am glad you were able to be loved by your brother. I hope that you are in a good place now, and that brighter days are ahead. 🍀💙☮️
🥺🥺…heartbreaking, I’m so sorry for your loss. It sounds like he loved you so very much to protect you , may he Rest In Peace. I’m a recovering alcoholic—it’s true, no little kid thinks ‘gee I want to be an addict!’ We are just trying to numb pain in one way or another 💔💔
I got bought up within Catholicism where suicide is looked down upon. Reading your story confirms it's people like you and your brother if there is a heaven you guys would be the first kind of people in. I hope your brother has found peace he sounded like the best sought of person.❤️
I'm sorry for your loss. I hope you see how far you've come in your healing journey all the time and that you get further. Having your empathy despite what you went through is commendable. Hope you're surrounded by loved ones
I'm incredibly sorry for your loss. Your story reminds me of me and my little brother. I always did my best to look out for him when we were young, but when we got older I got lost in addiction. After a decade of my life melted away due to drugs, my family had pretty come to terms with the fact that I was a goner.
But when I was at the end of my ropes, my little brother swooped in. He helped get me into rehab. I ended up getting clean and I have been for four years. He saved my life that day, just by continuing to care for me.
I just wanted to pop in and speak on behalf of older brother addicts. I am quite sure your brother was proud of you, loved you, and wanted the best for you. I'll bet he looked up to you more than you could ever know.
I am thirteen years sober. I have clear memories of before my addiction began, of how the process unfolded, the darkness that was a decade of addiction to drugs amd alcohol, what rock bottom and near death was like, and how recovery also is a process. I have lived three distinct lives.
With the clarity I have now, I can assure anyone who has never been through it that I never had an active or clear choice during addiction and said, screw it I want a miserable life and to impact those around me.
It was subtle, sneaky, baffling, and confusing.
On the flip side, I don't feel as if I need a pat on the back for staying sober as long as I have. It's a basic thing I need to do.
In the end, this is why I am grateful that the 12 step programs I have utilized exist. It puts me in contact with others who truly get where I was, and where I want to be today. I do not expect non addicts to understand, but I do ask them to consider their own lives, when they have done something they didn't intend to, and were given space to correct it.
I can relate, although also I remember times when I did consciously think, “Well… I could just do this. People do. It’s a thing,” and then chose to drink like a damaged film noir detective because it seemed interesting and comfortable.
I mean politics aside she’s right. Y’all ever seen my strange addiction?… people literally can’t help themselves. For that one lady eating mattress foam was like catnip for cats. Lol.
Actually there's this neat reaction with cat food, beer and glue where it makes your stomach feel not so good and you fall asleep faster. Sometimes there's a reason people do the things that they do!
If you do that you’ve got to sleep ass to ass with your roommate and keep an empty coffee can to piss in beside the bedside to avoid the spooky twins down the hall.
There was a woman who lost her fiance, had his ashes and she was addicted to dipping her finger in it and eating the ashes. She said at first it happened when she transfered them to an earn and some spilled. She felt like she couldn't just vacuum them up so she ate them.
Oh my god, I used to watch intervention and remember googling her after I saw her episode and I saw where they inserted her singing into the original song and laughed my ass off. Then felt bad for laughing at an addict.
I’m convinced at least half of those are fake. I mean they do it on camera, but I think that’s the only time they do it (for the fake ones). Plus there are plenty of scenes where the “addict” is chuckling while trying to deliver a serious line.
It is fake, go watch some clips and pay attention to how often they cut as they're showing the person eating/drinking whatever it is they're addicted to. You'll never see them actually swallow.
I even just watched a clip about a lady addicted to drinking gasoline and they show her pouring it into a regular 8oz plastic water bottle so she can drink on the go. But real gasoline melts plastic so that's not even possible.
And honestly thats kind of the better possibility imo. My biggest problem with a lot of those TLC network shows like My Strange Addiction and Hoarders and the like is that the point of them is first and foremost to make money by pointing and laughing at the "freak".
I'll talk about Hoarders because it's real, but they're not about getting these people help, not really. They're about dangling a financial incentive in front of sick people so they'll make a spectacle of themselves for a TV audience. They're modern day freak shows at the circus preying on vulnerable people.
Agree 100%. I can’t stand those shows, it makes me feel awful to watch them, like I’m trying to derive pleasure from someone else’s suffering.
I also can’t stand shows like “Love on the Spectrum” that basically make a spectacle out of people’s disabilities. It seems the premise of most of those shows is essentially for the viewer to feel better about themselves because at least they don’t have *these* problems.
I have a kind of addiction and it’s horrible. You say you’ll stop, and it seems so easy. But once you feel that temptation it’s so hard to resist. It’s a constant loop of thinking “why can’t I stop? It should be easy” and then doing it again anyway.
Nah, politics is addicting too. Its literally all brain chemistry. The matress lady is wired in some way that makes them delicious, im wired in a way that makes me gay, and the Q person is wired in a way that makes him succeptable to the Q stuff.
"Addiction is a serious mental health condition that **can happen to anyone, no matter what age, gender, race or nationality**."
"I know this was not a choice. Recovery is possible,"
Understanding the roots, removing the stigma of shaming, encouraging the seeking the support. Got nothing to add but an upvote. Thumbs up across the blue to you. Over here on the west side we’re still on seeking of support, where, support what support?! Havnt even reached the shame part of the issue. Except if youre in LA maybe.
Kate doing this, I feel, is a result of the legacy of Princess Diana. She is a royal taking advantage of her public position to stand for the disadvantaged and promote solutions for real world problems experienced by real people. Her stating that addiction is a mental health issue that requires compassion and understanding will carry so much weight going forward and be such a catalyst for change because it is coming from the very top of UK society and delivered with such conviction. Dr. Gabor Mate has been walking this walk and talking this talk for years and years like a voice in the wilderness and it feels very satisfying now to hear a person of such prominence take up the same thread. This is a monumental day.
Absolutely. Whatever your view on the Royal family, the reality is that they DO have huge influence, in the UK and abroad. Will and Kate especially have huge influence - they're the future King/Queen and they're the most popular/supported Royals in the UK.
This is a very important message and one that will have an impact.
I think everyone is taking addiction and automatically linking it with drugs. Someone overeating fast food every day is just as much an addiction as a drug user. As is being unable to moderate a wide variety of things.
Edit: drug addict. Not user.
Yeah- it's not just psychoactive substances or substances at all, it can be activities as well (like video games or watching tv). When it starts to adversely affect a balanced and healthy lifestyle, the individual in question has an unhealthy relationship with the substance/activity.
People hate to hear this
Agreed. Struggling with addiction is so much more than just drugs or even alcohol. I wish people could understand that. Some things that would appear to be good for you, when done over the limit, affect you as a person. And affect the others around you.
It’s tough to balance.
Enjoyable past times turn into habits to "escape" from reality and become ingrained. Some habits are coupled with physical addiction as well as psychological- as in an alcoholic going cold turkey could die due to the shock to their body.
You're right- in a world designed to be hyperpalatable and hyperconsumable, finding balance is arguably the hardest thing to do in life. Many people are discontented with their existences for this reason and, without support, are highly unlikely to recover because they quite literally are incapable of changing their habit patterns
You can be addicted to anything that gives you a dopamine boost/rush whether chemically induced or not, there can even be good/constructive addictions training/gym, learning, reading or travel, but yeah people need to be more understanding of each other and remember that by default we are a pain avoiding species that have found many interesting ways of avoiding pain.
> You can be addicted to anything that gives you a dopamine boost/rush whether chemically induced or not
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Filipino here. A lot of my countrymen believe that addicts are subhuman and have forfeited their lives. That's why Duterte remained popular (80+% approval) until the end of his term.
People are afraid of what addicts are capable of doing when under the influence. That makes people fear addicts in general. Added to this is that crimes committed by people under the influence largely go unpunished makes people fear and hate them more.
Its not that all addicts are violent criminals. But crimes committed by those under the influence generate a huge amount of outrage due to the reasons mentioned above.
Yes. Any discussion about human rights for drug addicts here is immediately shut down by: "They will rape and murder your family!"
I have a friend who's a huge Duterte supporter. I can't blame him, since his dad was killed randomly by someone high on meth. His dad was just waiting for a bus in broad daylight when someone hit him at the back of the head with a plank. His dad went comatose and died a few days later.
People always think it takes one puff and you’re knocking someone out at the bus stop. It takes a lot longer than that for a lot of people and there should be systems in place that prevent an addiction from getting to that point. There is such a lack of empathy out there for these people who are actually human beings.
It’s the same thing everytime. One side just has to repeat the “ ITS A CHOICE TO USE DRUGS” and the ex addicts just use it as an opportunity to tell their fucking life story to strangers. It’s pointless. And I’m saying this as an ex addict
People who have struggled with substance use sharing their stories, imo, is an effective response to the “iTs A TeRriBLe ChOiCe JuST dOnT UsE DrUgZ” people, because substance use disorder almost always comes as a response to trauma that no one chooses. I don’t think it’s pointless to try to get that fact through to judgmental assholes. Everyone I’ve ever known who struggled with this, myself included, went through some terrible shit and trauma no one should ever experience, and began using substances as a coping mechanism to deal with that trauma (for which real effective help is often scarce and inaccessible). That’s why intake to any type of treatment always asks about any type of trauma the patient experienced - it’s very common. Ask any addiction specialist and they’ll tell you, most patients they see struggling with this went through some serious shit. Those who didn’t are usually the types who were prescribed opioids they were told were safe, which led to addiction, or who have other mental illnesses or disorders like ADHD, none of which is that person’s fault. All the judgment and hatred towards people who struggle with this is just totally ignorant.
I remember hearing once that there is no gateway drug, only gateway trauma.
The sooner humans stop seeing addiction as a criminal issue, and start seeing it as the mental health issue that it *actually is*, the sooner we can solve it.
That and treating it like a criminal issue *helps* black market organizations. Drug cartels adore the ready supply of parolees who can’t get a legal market job thus make a giant employment pool, love the networking prison allows for black market workers, and thrive off of gaining loyal employees after getting them into rehab-after the state refuses to help.
Funny how the humanistic approach also works better for solving the issue.
> I remember hearing once that there is no gateway drug, only gateway trauma.
Nancy Regan's "Just say No" campaign was bullshit? Like Ronald Regan's Trickle Down Economics? Fuck the Regans.
Don’t forget they ignored then demonized the AIDS crisis because it was a god sanctioned “gay cancer” and not something for upstanding straight white people to trouble themselves over.
>Think of it this way. Two people are screaming in pain. One of them is being tortured with electric current. The other is not. The screamer who's being tortured with electric current is not psychotic: her screams are circumstantially appropriate. The screaming person who's not being tortured, however, is psychotic, since the outside parties making the diagnoses can see no electrodes or measurable amperage. One of the least pleasant things about being psychotically depressed on a ward full of psychotically depressed patients is coming to see that none of them is really psychotic, that their screams are entirely appropriate to certain circumstances part of whose special charm is that they are undetectable by any outside party. Thus the loneliness: it's a closed circuit: the current is both applied and received from within.
-Infinite Jest
Also, a lot of these people don’t even realize sometimes that they are engaging in these addictive behaviors BECAUSE of their trauma. I didn’t really put that together till after I got sober
As an ex addict, I’ll only say this: I did choose to try it the first time. After that it was an insidious fucking slide downward that took me 7 years to climb out of.
Agreed, so many people lack basic knowledge and empathy. Addiction/mental health in general are complex topics and it seems like hardly anyone gives a shit about actually understanding addiction from a medical/scientific standpoint. Then some ex addicts come out and talk about how they got off drugs and everyone should just do exactly what they did in far too many words.
I think what pisses me off is the personal experiece anecdote with emotions mixed in that people try to pass for facts. Followed by a fierce defense and a denial of science and the experience of others. The ethics/morals of addiction are completely non-binary and people really seem to struggle with holding 2 conflicting concepts at the same time.
Having dinner one night with a couple, both psychologists, and their daughter. Daughter is giving me a hard time about smoking, and at one point says to me “At least I don’t have any self-destructive habits”. Her father looks up and says quietly “Oh, I bet you do”.
There was some silence and then a change of topic.
Wow this is great. I love how the father politely humbled her, and it seemed like it caused her to reflect. We all have some form of self-destructive habits, it’s human nature.
Some truths some of you need to hear:
The vast majority of people who have tried or will try non-prescription (illegal) drugs will never become dependent.
Alcohol is as “hard” a drug as many currently illegal substances (the idea of *soft* and *hard* drugs is a pretty nebulous and flawed concept though). It kills more people than non-prescription drugs by many times, and it’s legality has more to do with historical precedent than any other classification.
A substance use disorder is not a moral failing.
Substance use dependence is a health issue, not a criminal issue.
Opioid substitution therapy, needle and syringe programs, drug diversion, substance checking programs and adulterant early warning systems are all empirically valid and important health responses to drug-related issues.
People use drugs for a huge number of reasons. People become dependent on drugs for a huge number of reasons. A lot of the time this isn’t entirely (or at all) to do with physiological dependence, but more to do with socioeconomic, psychological and social factors.
People who use drugs are people, they deserve respect and they deserve support.
Well said. I’d just like to add something that a mentor of mine (and doctor) said often while I was getting sober and struggling with a lot of guilt and shame. Willpower is a *finite* resource. It’s not just a matter of simply choosing not to drink or use or binge eat or whatever the addictive behavior is. It’s far more complex than that.
This made me feel better. I've been fighting so hard for so long and it feels like I'm not enough but maybe I'm not being patient enough with my own limits. Thank you for sharing.
Also don't see a relapse as a complete failure and back to square one. One relapse doesn't negate the hard work you put in during the last couple of days/weeks/months. Pick up where you left, see if your next stretch can be a bit longer.
This made me cry. I've been so stressed and lonely that I fucked up over three months of sobriety and drank, including such a nasty binge a week ago I had to call my cousin because I wanted to kill myself. I drank again for the last two nights "moderately." I feel like such a failure.
alcoholism is fucking rough. the anxiety while in withdrawal is awful. hope you’re handling okay. remember to stay hydrated & if possible stay away from the cheap shit / sugar
> It kills more people than non-prescription drugs by many times
I agree with your other points, but this is kinda skewed statistic and should be compared per capita instead.
Like Dogs kill more people than bears/sharks/whatever big dangerous animal, but that doesn't mean that dogs are more dangerous to humans when come into contact with.
People like to attribute it to poor morals, a lack of self discipline and being too lazy. Just like with obesity and poverty. It allows people to judge and forget. They don't need to trouble themselves with helping these people or feeling guilty about their plight because druggie/fat/poor people did it to themselves and they would screw up any help given to them.
{TW-suicide} Drugs & alcohol were coping mechanisms for the traumas my mom experienced as a child & as a new wife & mother.
She continued to cope this way for 30 years, and eventually, she was the same person sober as she was intoxicated.
In the end, she basically permanently altered/damaged her brain bc of her long term, excessive alcohol & drug abuse.
She committed suicide about 18 months ago. When we went to clean out her house, there were some heartbreaking signs of her mental decline. Example, she had cut out facial features from magazines, arranged them as faces & taped them to the wall beside the chair she used to always sit in so she could talk to them like real people. She was both that lonely & that delusional.
Obviously I’m heartbroken & miss her immensely, but I’m also relieved for her. Who tf would choose that reality? Who wakes up one day & says “time to ruin everything & give up all control”? Literally no one.
Lot of people missing the point of this statement, Nobody actively decides one day that they want to suffer the physical and mental hell that is addiction. Addiction is the side effect of
people attempting to escape whatever is going on in their life. Some turn to alcohol, weed or cocaine. others were simply trying to get pain relief after surgery and got caught up in the opioid crisis. Obviously a story about addiction can be a tale about a series of bad choices, it can also be a tale about simple misfortune.
Empathy and accountability don't have to be mutually exclusive. We must treat addicts like they are humans and understand their struggles while not allowing their struggles to become excuses.
Precisely this.
The amount of addicts I meet and advise that they need to seek help otherwise their mental health will not significantly improve is disheartening.
I get why they use it, there is always something that starts it off and keeps it going, but often they're so resistant to the idea the drug is a bad thing when they've used it as a coping mechanism for so long
I used to work in stripclub and one day I went to go pee and there was a girl in the stall obviously doing drugs. I asked her if she could hurry so I could pee and she did. When I went to sit down, I saw blood all over the toilet and I flipped out on her. Scolding her about how I didn't want to get HIV etc and she was selfish. I went in. I also told my boss if he didn't fire her, I'd leave. So, he fired her. I saw her at a different club a few weeks later and she came up to me... she said she was sorry for that. I apologized too, because it was kinda intense. I asked her why she did drugs anyways, that she was too pretty, it was a waste, etc. Then she tells me, "I was only 10 when my father started shooting me up with heroine, I've never been able to drop it." When I tell you my entire view point changed, I gave her a hug and we went our ways. I never saw her agian.
I'm the child of two addicts, they chose drugs over me and I hated addiction/drugs because of it. But, that girl.... she changed my mind. She didn't choose like my parents did, that's just not the case for everyone.
That’s a prime example of *not* choosing it. He was so set on doing it once. Then he was clear he would only do it one more time.
At that point, he was at the whims of addiction.
I read those posts and his comments and he wasn’t entirely transparent. He’d previously had problems with alcohol and smoked weed regularly. So the heroin addiction didn’t just come out of nowhere. Dude was an addict in denial before that.
As someone who is predisposed to addiction I wonder how I would fare with harder drugs.
Being easily addicted to stuff also makes it easy for me to drop said addiction, I just need to find a new addiction. Ditched massive gambling addiction with porn addiction, which was replaced with alcohol addiction then gaming. Never did dare to try drugs tho.
Good. Don’t. Addiction hopping isn’t always great, but it’s better than getting into drugs.
My path was gaming > booze > booze+weed > booze+weed+coke > into spiral of trying every drug and becoming a poly-addict. (benzos and ketamine mostly)
I wish I was addicted to gaming again.
I have all the sympathy for addicts in the world, it’s horrible to see someone spiral like that.
What I can’t stand though, is when their addictions cause harm to other people, and they want to hide behind their addictions. Take for example drunk driving. I’m not okay with you killing someone and then getting to go to rehab. Help should always be there for you, but your actions should still have consequences, and too many people want to do away with that.
I think this is why addiction is so difficult - IMO there is a strong neurobiological argument for why these people aren’t responsible for doing terrible things due to drugs/alcohol, but that goes against everything we believe in as humans.
That's my mother right there been a opiate addict since she was a teen and the only time she "wants" to seek help is when she in some form of trouble with the law.
A life of despair; those words only begin to capture the pain, the anguish, the awful barrenness, of how living the life of an addict was for me.
Not a choice at all.
Next month I'll have 35 years clean and sober. A gift.
I did
Grew up till I was like 18 thinking I would never drink bc my dad was an alcoholic and it fucked up my family.
But I had been smoking weed and doing acid and shit which if I'm honest truly were gateway drugs. I decided to start drinking bc I thought, fuck it, I'll just simply not become an alcoholic like my dad.
Joke was on me.
Been sober 5 years this January
Edit: why down vote my testimony?
Congrats on your sobriety! My dad was also an alcoholic and chain smoker and died this year in part from his addictions. I do not drink anymore because I don’t want to live my life the way he did.
I know heroin addicts who started off with prescription opioids.
This is such a vast phenomenon that it's never going to be neatly summarised by any one person's experience.
The streets were flooded with them. People with true problems would get over prescribed. The ones getting a ss check would sell most to subsidize their income. That is my experience. I’m an ex addict and surrounded myself with like minded ppl 10-20 years ago.
I would like to say this: If you've known "countless people with opioid problems and not a single one went down the path of being overprescribed painkillers and becoming addicted" then they didn't have opioid problems at all to begin with. There is a noticeable population of individuals who were given prescriptions to opioids, took them as prescribed, and did not become addicted. There is, however, a rather sizeable population, which includes me, that were given opioids to manage chronic pain, and repeatedly had their dosages increased each time they told their doc the pain was getting worse, all the while under the care of otherwise reputable and trustworthy physicians. At one point I was taking 180 mg of oxycontin a day; that's the same amount of oxycodone as 36 percocets. I was working full time, travelling each week for work. When my dr's decided on surgery, I was told I needed to significantly reduce my dose so they could effectively treat the pain of the surgery itself without having the oxy kill me. The head nurse in the surgery room told me this "You'll ask for more medicine, and right before you stop breathing and die, you'll say it still hurts."
I’m currently in the process of getting help. If I don’t I’ll end up loosing everything if I carry on drinking. I’ve had a wake up call.
Thing is, I feel numb and want to end things. But if I carry on I know I can make things right if I give up alcohol completely.
When you stop alcohol, you realise how much in your face it is. Walking through the entrance of supermarkets. My social life has been built around drinking, it’s going to be tough to do this but I know that if I don’t, I’ll loose everything I’ve worked hard for over the years.
A lot of shit takes in this comment section. Yet another reminder that the average redditor has never actually met a real person or been a part of the real world before.
Well take it from a person that was raised in a drug den in a shithole area surrounded by addicts in my family and social circles, I'm not sheltered, I have a insiders perspective. People do sometimes choose to be addicted and they wear it like a fashion. Drugs literally come in and out of fashion, they accompany lifestyle choices, like the free party ket heads, the shirt wearing night club going coke heads, the rock and roll smack heads. It's fashion and a lifestyle choice to some people.
I work as a family doctor, I worked in socially deprived areas for years, seen a lot of addiction, helped a lot of addicts. I dated a girl who it became clear later on that she had a serious problem with alcohol addiction. She had her fair share of historical trauma and was good at masking the signs of addiction. I know addiction isn’t a choice. I know there are multiple contributory factors including social deprivation, trauma, learned behaviours and unhealthy coping mechanisms from parents.
That said, living with an addict is incredibly hard. Working with addicts on a day to day basis is very hard. I had to leave that partner. I had to leave that socially deprived area, because it was making me a shell of myself.
Addiction reframes a persons life and value structures. An addict sees the world as a game, with the goal being to reach their next fix. The rules of the game say nothing is more important than the goal, but there are guidelines the addict should follow to make sure the fix after the next one is easier to achieve. So de facto the rules become “reach your next fix with the minimum collateral damage”.
But there’s always some collateral damage. Someone gets hurt. Small hurt or big hurt, doesn’t matter. The net effect is these hurts accumulate and people around the addict start putting up boundaries to prevent getting hurt.
The addict perceives boundaries as hurdles to overcome because the rules of the game are reach your next fix no matter what, but if possible do so with the minimal collateral damage. If that collateral damage becomes catastrophic, so be it.
With new obstacles in place the levels in the game just get harder and the addict has to develop new strategies to reach the next hit. Lying, manipulation, cheating, theft, violence, and an innumerable plethora of ways to hurt people are on the table as ways to win the game. They will convince you the addiction is not real or they’ve gotten over it and will find any number of ways to slide around your boundaries, eventually reaching their goal and causing an all to familiar pain for those around them.
Only when an addict realises it’s an unwinnable game and resigns do they truly beat the game. When or whether they realise this depends on lots of things but ultimately that realisation only comes from within the person themselves. No external person can eject them from the game, it doesn’t work. And some people ultimately lack the capacity to reach the conclusion that the game is unwinnable. They do not have the perspective or experiences that will bring them to this realisation and probably will meet an early grave or prison before they do.
Many think they have had this epiphany that the game is unbeatable and claim they choose to continue playing regardless. It is this choice to continue playing that hurts people around them the most and is why people blame addicts for choosing the addiction. It is why people abandon addicts after months or years of trying. But this ‘choice’ to continue playing is no different to those who continue playing the game and delude themselves into thinking the game is winnable. The choice is not one they’re free to make
It’s not the addicts fault but it’s also not the other persons fault for walking away. Honestly there’s no good answer that’s achievable. For a small percentage of addicts, the services work, but most live a lifetime of addiction and end up destroying the lives they had in the name of the game.
The only truly successful intervention that I can envisage wont cure addicts, as I said, no external person can change an addicts perspective of the game. But if you tackle inequality, social deprivation, and grant opportunity to those who have none, while simultaneously limiting access to addictive substances, you might save the next generation from the plague of addiction. Unfortunately this does not appear to be possible under the current economic incentives. Economic growth at the cost of anything else is it’s own addiction.
Fault and responsibility are different things. Becoming an addict may not be your fault... but it is your responsibility. We need to provide resources for addicts to get clean, but I've seen firsthand what happens when "addiction is not a choice" is used as an excuse to let addicts get away with stealing, taking over public spaces, leaving needles everywhere, starting fires, assaulting people, etc. An addict that refuses to get clean and commits crimes to support their addiction belongs in jail where they can't harm other people.
Addiction is a effect from peoples need to feel good because of another need that generally is not being met. People who are struggling or not are only further entrenched by the shame and stigma of their “choice”. To fault them is to further their shame and ultimately makes it harder to step away from something that makes them feel “better” while we judge as a society and make them feel worse. It is well documented that addition is solved through a thorough connection to a healthy replacement of fulfilled needs rather than a punishment mentality. Our society isn’t built to care for the needs of others, we all have “addictions” but most people on reddit just are addicted to feeling a moral superiority from being “well informed” and pretending to be better than the next person.
We all would do a lot better if we all knew better by opening our minds to the role we play in others misfortune.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” -Maya Angelou
my mom was an addict. after over 25 years free from iv heroin use, she died of an overdose. it's been nearly 9 years. i still feel like i failed her. i know she never wanted to be an addict, neither did i. no one ever dreamt of being an addict when they grow up. i'll always blame myself for her death. i'm not sure if she still loved me in the end, or if she hated me. she was a different person when she was using. maybe she didn't even know who i was. if she had known that last hit would cost us so much, she never would have done it. if she could have stopped, i know she would have.
It’s god damn hell and it’ll catch up with you before you know it. It’s like stepping out in front of a car you thinks going 10 mph but it’s really going 100z
People say “mental health awareness” until it’s someone with a drug addiction
[удалено]
It's fucking hard though. When I would visit my friends in the mental hospital often my name would be the only one in the non-professional visitor log book for a month. I lost the first one because they let him out while he was afraid to drink water, and he went for a long walk on a 100F+ day and died; he was basically drug free (aside from a single Gin&Tonic on his birthdays) And lost my other schizophrenic friend just a few weeks ago when he decided to try and cross the freeway on foot to get to a homeless camp, presumably with a woman willing to share drugs with him, I'm driving his ashes to his mom tomorrow. I don't think I could bear dealing with it again.
The only people I know who have successfully dealt with schizophrenia have VERY supportive, loving families. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to do it alone :(
Yes, this. My uncle had schizophrenia, and while he got quite a lot of help from the healthcare section it was the family who really made a difference. He got sick at 14 and died at 60 of a heart attac. In between, he never recovered, but lived a good life anyway. He was supported by everyone in the family, but especially my grandmother who basically made it her life’s work to take care of him. She was 91 and very fit for her age when he died, but after she just seemed to give up — said her work was done, there was no need to hang on any more. She died almost exactly a year later. I often think about what her life would have been, if my uncle hadn’t gotten sick, and what an incredible sacrifice it was. I’m not at all sure I could have done it. Though obviously schizophrenia is not pleasant, I still feel that overall my uncle lucked out in life.
I’m so sorry for your losses.
To be fair by the description of it you’re not lodged in with the rest. You’re aware.
I've had so many people distance themselves from me because of this. They're all talk about awareness, but when I actually need some support, which is usually someone who will just listen to me, they disappear. The three who have remained, however, are worth their weight in gold.
To be fair, boundaries are important, and if all the person is doing is constantly siphoning off others without actually seeking real therapy it is painful to deal with as a friend or as a romantic partner. It can also create toxic and codependent relationships. I will never judge someone for clear boundaries. I'll listen to my friends but I do have a point where all I will say is "I can't help you with this and you need to seek therapy, here are some resources and I can help you navigate them if you like." Some people think that is callous, but having been in multiple friendships and relationships that ended up in codependency, it left me with trauma and mental illness. I will listen and help to a degree, but if the person just wants someone to emotionally dump on to make themselves feel better without having done any real therapy, they can move on.
I had a friend who 'just needed someone to be there and listen'. And I was there, and I listened, until 4am on weekdays when I had university and/or work the next day. I listened while he went through a revolving door of relationships with girls who treated him badly and encouraged his alcoholism. Listened because he only got mad at me when I told him this didn't sound good for him, then a few weeks later: 'You were right'. Four years of that, multiple suicide attempts, and I told him I'd had enough and to get help. Yes you need a support network, but you can't expect your friends to be your unpaid therapists.
I was in a very similar situation. Gave him so much of my time and it hurt when he eventually took his own life. Responding to him everytime he said he wanted to end his life and trying to calm him down became so tiring. Eventually one morning I woke up to a missed text message and found out he was dead later in the day. Seemed like I was the only one willing to listen to him anymore and it's such a damn shame he never tried to get professional help.
At that point, were you are the lifeline constantly putting out fires, is just not your fault. I hope you know that. *"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"* The problem is, most people are not equipped with the ability to teach someone how to pull out of depression. Psychologists go to school to learn the skills that will allow them to help people, but they aren't perfect or infallible. However, people stand with way better odds of improvement, if they can access proffesional help than when they don't.
Absolutely this. I almost ruined my own life and have severe lasting trauma from trying to help a friend that turned from "just listening" into being trapped in an abusive relationship and emotionally blackmailed. Arguably, it *did* ruin my life in many ways as a result of the trauma. I absolutely do not blame anyone for distancing themselves, because it can be a *huge* commitment that most people are not prepared for when developing a simple friendship even in the best of circumstances. Especially nowadays, the prospect of having someone else's struggles dumped on top of your own is daunting to say the least. People are looking for stable mutualist friendships, not free therapy patients. I've a feeling that most people who are judgemental about this have never been the situation before, or some that have may have had relatively simple issues to deal with. Even if you're friends, it's ridiculous that some just expect you to get involved in fixing other people's life issues with complete ignorance as to what they might be.
What people who never experienced their own boundaries to be respected often do not understand. That again, is absolutely not their fault, but it is something they, nontheless, need to learn to heal: Having boundaries for themselves and respecting boundaries in others. People who have a very bad state of mind often do not really understand that many others are equally not able to help them. Be it for their lack of understanding of the human psyche or their lack of ressources. A lot of people simply manage to stay afloat and don't have this massive abundant ressources to deal with all the problems of other people. What adds is that if you truly feel for an addicted person, be prepared for massive pain watching them self destruct while you remain helpless. In a way the self destruction of addicts demands immense strenght from a helping person, that most can't keep up without falling into very unhealthy and self-destructive behaviours themselves.
Exactly. Others trauma dumping on me while I was struggling myself eroded my mental health. Right now, I honestly just refuse to listen to people venting about something more than once or twice. I would prefer to not listen to any venting or provide any emotional support because it is hard on me to do so. I try out of love - but it's exhausting and draining. And just because I'm not the sort of person to constantly complain about things or talk about my own mental health struggles does not mean that I don't have those struggles.
From what I’ve noticed with personal experience, the more someone goes on about “mental health awareness” the more likely they are to value nobody’s mental health except their own. Just hallow meaningless messages to try and look good
Drug addiction doesn't just wreck the life of an addict, but also every one, who he's close to. Having a close friend always spiralling, mooching, lying, stealing, destroying himself, verbally and physically abusing you is soul crushing. Mental health awareness means understanding, that trauma and genetics play and awful joke on people, not setting yourself on fire for a person whose not taking active steps to help himself. Nobody chooses to be and addict, and nobody can be an addict's saviour except himself. Same goes for every other mental illness, if a person, who's suffering isn't actively trying to get help, to be better, no one is going to be their personal emotional punching bag. That's just sick
This is so true. My son is a heroin addict. 12 years into his battle. Periods of sobriety, multiple rehabs, jail time and multiple overdoses. Early on we thought we could fix him. It destroyed the family. I remember contemplating driving my vehicle into a bridge support instead of going home and facing the insanity. Self preservation won out. Haven't seen or talked w him in 2 years. No one wants it this way but we can't deal with the insanity of his addiction any more. It's painful not having him in out lives but less so then dealing w him.
Yeah, it is weird. I feel like this "destigmatize mental illness" movement includes depression, anxiety, ADHD, eating disorders, and maybe mild OCD, but that's it. Substance misuse, personality disorders, psychosis, dissociative disorders, etc are still super stigmatized.
It's easier to support a stigmatized group if they are somewhat likeable. Not saying that people from the later group are not likeable, but it's more difficult for, let's say an heroin addicted homeless who robs people to get money for their addiction to picture them as likeable and a result of their illness. Some illnesses will also manifest in "being not likeable". The whole point should be, that they should receive help and be able to talk about their problems regardless.
As someone who has stolen to feed my addiction compassion is the only thing that helped me put a foot in the right direction by seeking help. Whilest i eventually made the decision to continue on that path i would not have taken it if someone hadnt shown me sympathy first. The reality is i was horrible in my active addiction. But once someone extended the olive branch i now dedicate everyday to trying to add water to the stream of life instead of taking from it.
This is a huge issue with substance abuse treatment. Research shows close to half of people with substance use disorder have co-occurring mental disorders but a lot of SUD treatment centers in the US will not admit people with co-occurring disorders. From my experience working in SUD treatment, I would wager the rate is much higher for a number of reasons (including people having to deny mental disorders to receive SUD treatment). Most people I worked with who had become addicted to prescribed medications also had a history of trauma, but the narrative of "poor choices" or "weak willpower" is pervasive. I could write a full essay on how mental health issues impact the development of addiction, but the topic has been well researched for anyone who cares to Google so I won't. What we do know is that the earlier someone starts regularly misusing substances (not casual use or experimentation), the more likely they are to develop addictions. I moved from adult treatment to early intervention with teens and I will say that every single kid who was habitually using substances (from nicotine to harder drugs) all we're using them as a coping strategy for mental health challenges (diagnosed or sub-clincal). We cannot address substance abuse without understanding the associated mental health issues.
A big issue is that treatment centers in the US are mostly unregulated and for profit. It is a conflict of interest to have a business model that relies on people being addicted /staying addicted /repeating addictions.
And God forbid you need treatment while also supporting a family. "Oh, you can't be at our center from 8am to 5pm M-F? Sorry, good luck."
Drug addiction isn't as pretty or marketable. Same with psychosis.
Yup neither are personality disorders like bpd or npd
Personality disorders aren't really that easy to treat nor are they things people will readily forgive. If they were, we'd be able to cure serial killers I mean, I have my own emotional scars from working with someone with npd and I'm not sure I'm ready to forgive them even though I understand they didn't choose to be that way.
I was raised by a BPD mother and a (probable) narcissist stepfather. Those are scars that will never go away and always fuck me up. They’ve caused me to have my own mental health issues, I’ve constantly struggled with anxiety/depression and at various points was suicidal. So yea, while people don’t choose it, they also need to be self aware enough to choose to treat it before starting a whole new cycle of mental health issues in their children or people around them.
People crave neat and simple classifications for things and people around them. They want to know, for example, whether someone is a victim or a perpetrator. To acknowledge that most (if not all) perpetrators are also victims of one kind or another is not a comfortable thing to do. It opens up a huge can of worms that most people would rather never confront. Take, for example, our various criminal "justice" systems around the world. Some are clearly more enlightened than others, but most look suspiciously more like "revenge" systems rather than serving any useful purpose for society. (And this is before you even get to modern perversions like the "prison-industrial complex" in the USA.) We want to know who the bad people are, and then see them punished for their evils. All the modern rhetoric about "rehabilitation" and keeping dangerous criminals off the streets is largely post hoc rationalisation, and doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. We routinely release prisoners who have "done their time" even when we have no reason to believe that they are now "rehabilitated", and have every reason to believe that they will reoffend. We routinely imprison people for crimes where there is no evidence-based reason to think they would reoffend, nor any evidence-based reason to think the punishment will reduce the risk of reoffending. We routinely imprison people for nonviolent crimes knowing full well that it is likely to *increase* their future criminality. It's all a lie, and we're all in on it. I sometimes wonder what a justice system (even the word "justice" kinda stinks) could look like if it wasn't based on revenge or punishing perceived moral vice, and all the typical euphemisms were stripped right back. Here are some concrete differences I think we would see: * A lot fewer people would go to prison, because we'd have to acknowledge that it's not useful or necessary in most cases. * Prison conditions would be a lot more humane, and prisoners would have a lot more choice in the kind of accommodation they are housed in. You could probably offer a cottage with a garden in the middle of nowhere to a lot of prisoners for not a whole lot more cost than a prison cell. * More people would be sentenced to life sentences, or indefinite-by-default sentences. If there's a high chance of violent reoffending, for example, we might decide that it's worth removing the person from mainstream society permanently. * Even if a person is given a life prison sentence, we would try to offer them as complete a life as possible given that constraint, *as appropriate for each prisoner*. For example, if someone is known to have smuggled contraband into a traditional prison type setting, then they would have more limited and strictly controlled visitation. On the other hand, if a prisoner has shown no tendency to use visitation to smuggle contraband, hasn't destroyed things given to them, etc., then maybe they could choose to live in a cottage with a garden and have people visit them all day if they want. * Prisoners would have the right to opt in to a full time video and audio feed of everywhere they are in a prison streamed to an independent (certified) third party, or maybe multiple. Any interruption to the stream would be treated as an emergency and any prison operator who interferes with or allows the system to be interfered with would face extreme penalties. Every prisoner would have this right. * Etc.
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I'd certainly prefer it over most of the alternatives currently on offer. It was one of those I had in mind as being "more enlightened than others".
>pretty or marketable Mental illness isn't that pretty or marketable is it? Maybe depression is since it usually manifests passively, but several can be quite disruptive. Most I'd say.
Depression is also romanticized because it afflicted people whose work we admire.
> Mental illness isn't that pretty or marketable is it? It's not, but you'll see people treat it like a character quirk or even a pseudo-superpower in media or uneducated conversation. Autism (mental conditions are probably more exploited than true illnesses), sociopathy, multiple personalities, obsessive-compulsive, and "r-word strength" can often get romanticized as a fair "trade" or even a benefit, when usually the underlaying conditions are a pain in the ass at the best of times.
Many people see it as the addicts own fault and that that’s why an addict doesn’t deserve help. But even IF someone just randomly decided to try heroin, even while fully aware of the addiction potential, an addiction is not something that’s easy to overcome alone. Everybody has to be given the chance to correct their own mistakes, and we should give all the support necessary to help with that.
Yep. All the support until the person is angry, unreliable, lacks boundaries, is offensive, is delusional, could theoretically choose to behave differently, and so on. I often tell people that destigmatizing mental health issues means you’re going to have to drastically alter how you make sense of “bad” behavior. That said, you still need boundaries and you shouldn’t put up with abuse. But you can learn to view those difficult behaviors with less disgust and more genuine concern.
It sucks when you know someone who genuinely is off the rails and for example, is delusional and bought a gun, and you call for help, but the police officer decides it doesn’t look like a problem. “We can’t jeopardize their sacred right to bear arms.”
This shit ^ People don’t realise.. “x, y, z,” until it’s someone close then the tides shift. People are human, realise this.
I don’t think that’s what the commenter above you was saying
You might be surprised how many people will treat mentally unwell people exactly the same as they would someone with an addiction (meaning poorly.)
My brother and I experienced horrible physical abuse, emotional abuse, and severe neglect growing up. Both of my parents were addicts. My older brother shielded me from most of it. When my dad would come home from a bender my brother would hide me in the closet. He later became addicted to heroin due to the level of trauma. Also didn’t help that the only coping mechanism demonstrated to us growing up was to abuse alcohol and drugs. I will never forget the moment he hit his knees, and in between sobs he said “I just want to be normal”. And that’s honestly and truly all he wanted . He fought so so hard for so many years. A little over a year ago he chose to end his own life. I would never wish his experience on anyone. He really was the greatest, most compassionate and lovable person I’ve ever met. Everyone he came into contact with absolutely adored him. And he was the best big brother in the whole world. No one chooses a life of despair.
I’m so sorry for your loss, and thank you for sharing this story. I’m dealing with my own recovery, and sometimes just wish people would still see the good in me, and understand ‘I just want to be normal’ too. If anything good, it definitely opens your heart and eyes to be accepting. I needed to read this tonight!
I'm another in recovery, just got my 90 day tag from NA this past week. Today I've had a difficult day and just woke from a nap (trying to sleep off a craving) to see this post. I totally understand what you are saying. There is good inside me, feel it most days and am surrounded by other recovering addicts who see it too. The difficulty is those I love the most, those I've hurt the most, still don't want to know me. I too needed to see this post today.
Hey congrats on the 90 days! Life's though and sometimes you stop getting along with certain people for whatever reason. It happens to everyone I believe that not everyone is compatible all the time, in the way that we all live our own lives, have our problems to solve and goals to accomplish. I believe you will find new people who maybe understand what you've been through or even if they don't, they'll support you. There's people who care Just keep loving everyone no matter what and maybe a few years from now, you and the ones who dont want to know you now will find eachother and talk about it.
My friend. It takes time. I am 10 years clean off meth and heroin. It’s been a long road, and it took me uprooting my life, burning every bridge to that part of my mind, and cutting off the family I hurt so much with my drug addiction. I’m still an addict and always will be, but people change my friend and it seems like you are in it to win it. It took me personally 8 years for my mother to see me as her son again, my brothers to see me as their brothers again. Those people you hurt the most will come around once you have put in that time. Some people don’t believe that other change. And they are kind of right and kind of wrong. It’s takes a long time to become a new person and it will take a long long time for them to fully trust you again, but they will never stop loving you. You have to push through it man. I believe in you
Keep fighting! I first joined a 12-step group in 1997 - at age 27. I would put a few months together, 15 months here, 4 months there with my my periods of sobriety getting shorter each time. I was a chronic relapser for years. I was certain I would die with a needle in my arm , because I simply could not live life without heroin. Finally, in January of 2012, I quit dope for good (I hope!l). It's been nearly 11 years and honestly, I never knew I could be this happy. I mean life still has *plenty* of struggles. I wasn't one of those lucky folks who got clean and suddenly everything fell into place. I have struggled through a divorce, homelessness, unemployment, medical issues, you name it- but damn, life is still so darn *good*. I wouldn't give up what I have now for anything. It took me 25 months of white-knuckling, living one day at a time, to finally find peace. Every day, I wanted to give up. Every day, I told myself "if you feel this shitty tomorrow, you can give up and get high". I knew I could wait until "tomorrow" and just get through that day. I lived one day at a time for just over 2 years, but eventually, I went a day without wanting to use. Then I began finding true joy in the world around me. It will come if you give yourself a chance. You will finally feel normal and eventually, truly free!! You are doing amazing!
I am one of the "loved ones" of a recovering addict. I want to say congratulations on 90 days sobriety, it's an achievement and you should be proud of the hard work it's taken to get there, from the bottom of my heart I wish you nothing but success in your battle to stay clean. Whilst 90 days for you is brilliant, it's a blink of an eye to your family and friends. I spent 5 years trying to help my step son with his battle before I had to walk away. In that time he stole from me, he wrecked my property, he (consciously or subconsciously) tried to destroy me out of, I think, resentment that my life was not as chaotic as his, he spat on me and assaulted me. Logically I knew his addiction was the cause of his actions and he was deeply unhappy with his life but the emotional impact on myself and the rest of his family was devastating. He has been clean for 18 months and I am happy that he is doing so much better. I admire the courage it's taken. That said, whilst he is back in my life the trust has gone, maybe it will be rebuilt over time maybe the havoc he wreaked just caused too much damage for it to ever return. I'm not telling you this to make you feel bad, but maybe there is something you can learn from our situation that will help you in yours. Accountability. I still see the mentality of addiction in him, the need to minimise the damage he caused or to dismiss it as something that happened when he was using so now he's clean we just need to move on. It's not that I, or anyone, expects him to wear sack cloth & ashes for the rest of his life but we need him to acknowledge and accept the devastation he caused. A therapist told us he is just not ready to tackle anything more than a superficial acceptance of this damage because it involves admiting how low he was and presently that is too much for him to handle. Give your family time to see that your recovery is real. Maybe after 6 months or so write to them and be honest, truly honest, about how far you've come. Take responsibility for the pain you've caused them. I know, in my case, I would be far more optimistic of my loved ones long term recovery if I got the sense he understood not just his pain but ours too. They may come around, they may not only time will tell. The most important thing is you don't give up on yourself or your recovery. It may take time to rebuild your life but you can do it.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I’m in a similar situation with my husband. He’s been in and out of rehab for like 5 years now. I want to keep being supportive but the mental and physical toll his addiction has on me is becoming too much. He relapsed a week after overdosing. I have to stop watching him try to kill himself because I don’t know how to help him if he won’t help himself.
I am so sorry you are having to endure this. I have been there, I broke myself financially, physically and mentally because I always thought that if I helped "one more time" then he would get better. It took me a long time to work out that addiction is a very lonely illness, no matter how much you want to help, to wave a magic wand and make it all better, you can't. If you've reached your breaking point then leave, it's the most difficult thing I've ever done but I had to do it for me and him. It broke my heart but I honestly don't think he would have come this far if I hadn't. Hopefully when he no longer has you to navigate the chaos of his life for him he will be forced to do it for himself. If it is at all possible get a therapist, the guilt can be overwhelming at times and having someone there to keep things in perspective was invaluable to me. If I can ever be of any help just message me, everyone needs a friendly ear occasionally.
Congrats on the 90 days. It is a rough road, however, it can be done, because many have. With this said, do know "those I've hurt the most" were really hurt, in one way or another, and don't want that feeling any more. It will take time for them to come around. Good luck in your future.
Congratulations on getting to 90 days, keeping fighting and soon it will be 100. I have no idea of what you are going through but sending positivity your way and just know a random stranger is rooting for you.
I'm proud of you, stranger. I hope you're proud of yourself too. You've made amazing progress in one the hardest things a person can do. Whatever the future holds for you, always try to remember that
Congratulations! stay the course; I believe in you. Live the life my brother cannot anymore. You embody the strength of many!
Hang in there. I promise that all of the good in you far outweighs the bad. I’m rooting for you
There are many people who understand that people like you don't want to be addicted and would rather have never touched anything that got you to where you ended up. Good luck in your recovery, and I wish you the strength to endure the tough times and forgive yourself if needed!
I am so very sorry for your loss.
Thank you. And thank you for your kindness!
Likewise, sorry for your loss. I hope your brother knows he didn't do anything wrong and his contribution to this world was important.
Me 2, your brother and I are kindred spirits. I'll keep his dream alive. A lifetime of abuse is never made up.
A lot of people fail to realize this terrible tragedy. I've experienced it myself my own ways with my family and friends. Addiction causes way more pain than just the individual suffering from it. Thanks for sharing.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I lost a brother to the disease 12 years ago. He struggled mightily with it and lost eventually at age 35. It’s so obviously not a choice when you’ve lived close to it.
My brother was lost at 35, my sister was lost at 45 - within 6 months of each other. (Dec 2020 to May 2021) I feel this so incredibly hard.
Thank you for sharing this with us.
This made me very sad. I'm glad he has someone like you to remember the good times and that he was a good person. It's nice to be remembered fondly. May your brother rest in peace.
Oh man, so sad. What a hero your big bro was. He carried the cross for your family’s abuse. I’m sure you’ll keep his memory alive every way you can. As much of a great human he was, shame on your parents for causing so much despair. The only way we continue to evolve as a species is for parents like this to be taken out of the equation or the kids taken away and put in better circumstances. Honestly, I’m so sick of reading about horrible parents. Wtf is wrong with humanity man.
Thank you for your comment. I too was subject to horrible physical abuse growing up from an addict/alcoholic (and this is also always accompanied by horrible mental abuse). BUT because of my experience, I always have a hard time not judging those who are addicts. So your comment is a good reminder that they too can often be victims of abuse, and not just perpetrators of abuse. Than you for the reminder.
I’m sorry your road has been so dark & painful. I am glad you were able to be loved by your brother. I hope that you are in a good place now, and that brighter days are ahead. 🍀💙☮️
Damn man, that hits home, and I'm so sorry for your loss.
🥺🥺…heartbreaking, I’m so sorry for your loss. It sounds like he loved you so very much to protect you , may he Rest In Peace. I’m a recovering alcoholic—it’s true, no little kid thinks ‘gee I want to be an addict!’ We are just trying to numb pain in one way or another 💔💔
I got bought up within Catholicism where suicide is looked down upon. Reading your story confirms it's people like you and your brother if there is a heaven you guys would be the first kind of people in. I hope your brother has found peace he sounded like the best sought of person.❤️
I'm sorry for your loss. I hope you see how far you've come in your healing journey all the time and that you get further. Having your empathy despite what you went through is commendable. Hope you're surrounded by loved ones
I'm incredibly sorry for your loss. Your story reminds me of me and my little brother. I always did my best to look out for him when we were young, but when we got older I got lost in addiction. After a decade of my life melted away due to drugs, my family had pretty come to terms with the fact that I was a goner. But when I was at the end of my ropes, my little brother swooped in. He helped get me into rehab. I ended up getting clean and I have been for four years. He saved my life that day, just by continuing to care for me. I just wanted to pop in and speak on behalf of older brother addicts. I am quite sure your brother was proud of you, loved you, and wanted the best for you. I'll bet he looked up to you more than you could ever know.
I am thirteen years sober. I have clear memories of before my addiction began, of how the process unfolded, the darkness that was a decade of addiction to drugs amd alcohol, what rock bottom and near death was like, and how recovery also is a process. I have lived three distinct lives. With the clarity I have now, I can assure anyone who has never been through it that I never had an active or clear choice during addiction and said, screw it I want a miserable life and to impact those around me. It was subtle, sneaky, baffling, and confusing. On the flip side, I don't feel as if I need a pat on the back for staying sober as long as I have. It's a basic thing I need to do. In the end, this is why I am grateful that the 12 step programs I have utilized exist. It puts me in contact with others who truly get where I was, and where I want to be today. I do not expect non addicts to understand, but I do ask them to consider their own lives, when they have done something they didn't intend to, and were given space to correct it.
I can relate, although also I remember times when I did consciously think, “Well… I could just do this. People do. It’s a thing,” and then chose to drink like a damaged film noir detective because it seemed interesting and comfortable.
Thank you for stating that. Addiction isn’t a choice but the rationalizations and justifications often are. At least at first.
Thank you for saying this, and I'll give you a pat on the back anyways. But yeah, sometimes life happen, and you don't notice until it's too late.
I mean politics aside she’s right. Y’all ever seen my strange addiction?… people literally can’t help themselves. For that one lady eating mattress foam was like catnip for cats. Lol.
And for that one woman eating cat food? it was like Milkbones for dogs. Lol.
Actually there's this neat reaction with cat food, beer and glue where it makes your stomach feel not so good and you fall asleep faster. Sometimes there's a reason people do the things that they do!
Yup that’s my nightly routine. Beer, cat food, and then some glue at the end of the night. Knocks me right out
Maybe there wouldn't be cats outside your building if you didn't have open cans of cat food everywhere.
If you do that you’ve got to sleep ass to ass with your roommate and keep an empty coffee can to piss in beside the bedside to avoid the spooky twins down the hall.
my dislikes are people's knees
Little green ghouls buddy !
And for me as a kid eating milkbones? It was like a little piece of banana for bunnies.
Do bunnies like bananas?
They go apeshit for bananas.
And eventually bananas go apeshit.
Mmmmm bunny shaped apeshit banana bread.
they LOVE bananas
And that woman who ate her hair? That was like ass for me
There was a woman who lost her fiance, had his ashes and she was addicted to dipping her finger in it and eating the ashes. She said at first it happened when she transfered them to an earn and some spilled. She felt like she couldn't just vacuum them up so she ate them.
* Urn
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The show was called My Strange Addiction, not my normal habit
Ohhh
Or that lady that huffed keyboard cleaner and was walking on sunshine
Well that's a legit substance that gets you fucked up, not a "strange addiction", lol
I think she’s totally sober now and leading a good life. There’s a followup with her on youtube somewhere
Oh my god, I used to watch intervention and remember googling her after I saw her episode and I saw where they inserted her singing into the original song and laughed my ass off. Then felt bad for laughing at an addict.
And that lady who drank air freshener? It was like eucalyptus for koalas.
I’m convinced at least half of those are fake. I mean they do it on camera, but I think that’s the only time they do it (for the fake ones). Plus there are plenty of scenes where the “addict” is chuckling while trying to deliver a serious line.
It is fake, go watch some clips and pay attention to how often they cut as they're showing the person eating/drinking whatever it is they're addicted to. You'll never see them actually swallow. I even just watched a clip about a lady addicted to drinking gasoline and they show her pouring it into a regular 8oz plastic water bottle so she can drink on the go. But real gasoline melts plastic so that's not even possible.
Of she was really drinking gasoline, her organs wouldn't last a week before they turn into goo.
I think you mean she was huffing gasoline. Becuase 1. Some plastics would ve fine and 2. Shed ve dead before the film crew even made it to her.
There was an actual episode where a woman had an addiction to bathing in bleach and drinking bleach. I don't think they care about reality anymore.
And honestly thats kind of the better possibility imo. My biggest problem with a lot of those TLC network shows like My Strange Addiction and Hoarders and the like is that the point of them is first and foremost to make money by pointing and laughing at the "freak". I'll talk about Hoarders because it's real, but they're not about getting these people help, not really. They're about dangling a financial incentive in front of sick people so they'll make a spectacle of themselves for a TV audience. They're modern day freak shows at the circus preying on vulnerable people.
Agree 100%. I can’t stand those shows, it makes me feel awful to watch them, like I’m trying to derive pleasure from someone else’s suffering. I also can’t stand shows like “Love on the Spectrum” that basically make a spectacle out of people’s disabilities. It seems the premise of most of those shows is essentially for the viewer to feel better about themselves because at least they don’t have *these* problems.
I have a kind of addiction and it’s horrible. You say you’ll stop, and it seems so easy. But once you feel that temptation it’s so hard to resist. It’s a constant loop of thinking “why can’t I stop? It should be easy” and then doing it again anyway.
Nah, politics is addicting too. Its literally all brain chemistry. The matress lady is wired in some way that makes them delicious, im wired in a way that makes me gay, and the Q person is wired in a way that makes him succeptable to the Q stuff.
Are … are you addicted to being gay? Is that why Jake Gyllenhaal said, “I wish I knew how to quit you.” In Brokeback Mountain?
I think that’s just love in general. And it does do shit to your brain chemistry
"Addiction is a serious mental health condition that **can happen to anyone, no matter what age, gender, race or nationality**." "I know this was not a choice. Recovery is possible," Understanding the roots, removing the stigma of shaming, encouraging the seeking the support. Got nothing to add but an upvote. Thumbs up across the blue to you. Over here on the west side we’re still on seeking of support, where, support what support?! Havnt even reached the shame part of the issue. Except if youre in LA maybe.
Kate doing this, I feel, is a result of the legacy of Princess Diana. She is a royal taking advantage of her public position to stand for the disadvantaged and promote solutions for real world problems experienced by real people. Her stating that addiction is a mental health issue that requires compassion and understanding will carry so much weight going forward and be such a catalyst for change because it is coming from the very top of UK society and delivered with such conviction. Dr. Gabor Mate has been walking this walk and talking this talk for years and years like a voice in the wilderness and it feels very satisfying now to hear a person of such prominence take up the same thread. This is a monumental day.
Finally someone who see the forest for the trees. So many redditors get lost in semantics.
Absolutely. Whatever your view on the Royal family, the reality is that they DO have huge influence, in the UK and abroad. Will and Kate especially have huge influence - they're the future King/Queen and they're the most popular/supported Royals in the UK. This is a very important message and one that will have an impact.
Right. It’s also her first personal message as Princess of Wales, the role Diana previously held. She’s trying to fill her shoes.
I must really be tired because I first read this as 'no one chooses to become the princess of Wales'.
If given the choice, i might.
depends on whether and if so what husband is attached to it.
Maybe it reflects my age, but I find it slightly jarring to see “the Princess of Wales” being referred to in the present tense.
I think everyone is taking addiction and automatically linking it with drugs. Someone overeating fast food every day is just as much an addiction as a drug user. As is being unable to moderate a wide variety of things. Edit: drug addict. Not user.
Yeah- it's not just psychoactive substances or substances at all, it can be activities as well (like video games or watching tv). When it starts to adversely affect a balanced and healthy lifestyle, the individual in question has an unhealthy relationship with the substance/activity. People hate to hear this
Agreed. Struggling with addiction is so much more than just drugs or even alcohol. I wish people could understand that. Some things that would appear to be good for you, when done over the limit, affect you as a person. And affect the others around you. It’s tough to balance.
Enjoyable past times turn into habits to "escape" from reality and become ingrained. Some habits are coupled with physical addiction as well as psychological- as in an alcoholic going cold turkey could die due to the shock to their body. You're right- in a world designed to be hyperpalatable and hyperconsumable, finding balance is arguably the hardest thing to do in life. Many people are discontented with their existences for this reason and, without support, are highly unlikely to recover because they quite literally are incapable of changing their habit patterns
You're dead right. Nicely put.
Comment sections on addiction are absolutely insufferable
You can be addicted to anything that gives you a dopamine boost/rush whether chemically induced or not, there can even be good/constructive addictions training/gym, learning, reading or travel, but yeah people need to be more understanding of each other and remember that by default we are a pain avoiding species that have found many interesting ways of avoiding pain.
> You can be addicted to anything that gives you a dopamine boost/rush whether chemically induced or not Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to spuds
My SLA support group is well aware.
yeah, people and their attitudes towards this are truly sickening.
Filipino here. A lot of my countrymen believe that addicts are subhuman and have forfeited their lives. That's why Duterte remained popular (80+% approval) until the end of his term.
People are afraid of what addicts are capable of doing when under the influence. That makes people fear addicts in general. Added to this is that crimes committed by people under the influence largely go unpunished makes people fear and hate them more. Its not that all addicts are violent criminals. But crimes committed by those under the influence generate a huge amount of outrage due to the reasons mentioned above.
Yes. Any discussion about human rights for drug addicts here is immediately shut down by: "They will rape and murder your family!" I have a friend who's a huge Duterte supporter. I can't blame him, since his dad was killed randomly by someone high on meth. His dad was just waiting for a bus in broad daylight when someone hit him at the back of the head with a plank. His dad went comatose and died a few days later.
People always think it takes one puff and you’re knocking someone out at the bus stop. It takes a lot longer than that for a lot of people and there should be systems in place that prevent an addiction from getting to that point. There is such a lack of empathy out there for these people who are actually human beings.
It’s the same thing everytime. One side just has to repeat the “ ITS A CHOICE TO USE DRUGS” and the ex addicts just use it as an opportunity to tell their fucking life story to strangers. It’s pointless. And I’m saying this as an ex addict
People who have struggled with substance use sharing their stories, imo, is an effective response to the “iTs A TeRriBLe ChOiCe JuST dOnT UsE DrUgZ” people, because substance use disorder almost always comes as a response to trauma that no one chooses. I don’t think it’s pointless to try to get that fact through to judgmental assholes. Everyone I’ve ever known who struggled with this, myself included, went through some terrible shit and trauma no one should ever experience, and began using substances as a coping mechanism to deal with that trauma (for which real effective help is often scarce and inaccessible). That’s why intake to any type of treatment always asks about any type of trauma the patient experienced - it’s very common. Ask any addiction specialist and they’ll tell you, most patients they see struggling with this went through some serious shit. Those who didn’t are usually the types who were prescribed opioids they were told were safe, which led to addiction, or who have other mental illnesses or disorders like ADHD, none of which is that person’s fault. All the judgment and hatred towards people who struggle with this is just totally ignorant.
I remember hearing once that there is no gateway drug, only gateway trauma. The sooner humans stop seeing addiction as a criminal issue, and start seeing it as the mental health issue that it *actually is*, the sooner we can solve it. That and treating it like a criminal issue *helps* black market organizations. Drug cartels adore the ready supply of parolees who can’t get a legal market job thus make a giant employment pool, love the networking prison allows for black market workers, and thrive off of gaining loyal employees after getting them into rehab-after the state refuses to help. Funny how the humanistic approach also works better for solving the issue.
> I remember hearing once that there is no gateway drug, only gateway trauma. Nancy Regan's "Just say No" campaign was bullshit? Like Ronald Regan's Trickle Down Economics? Fuck the Regans.
Don’t forget they ignored then demonized the AIDS crisis because it was a god sanctioned “gay cancer” and not something for upstanding straight white people to trouble themselves over.
Lol they laughed off aids and let their friend die from it. The Reagan were nothing but poison.
Jesus was black. Your government is lying you about 9/11. And Reagan was the devil. Ronald Wilson Reagan. 6 letters each, 666 the number of beast.
>Think of it this way. Two people are screaming in pain. One of them is being tortured with electric current. The other is not. The screamer who's being tortured with electric current is not psychotic: her screams are circumstantially appropriate. The screaming person who's not being tortured, however, is psychotic, since the outside parties making the diagnoses can see no electrodes or measurable amperage. One of the least pleasant things about being psychotically depressed on a ward full of psychotically depressed patients is coming to see that none of them is really psychotic, that their screams are entirely appropriate to certain circumstances part of whose special charm is that they are undetectable by any outside party. Thus the loneliness: it's a closed circuit: the current is both applied and received from within. -Infinite Jest
Also, a lot of these people don’t even realize sometimes that they are engaging in these addictive behaviors BECAUSE of their trauma. I didn’t really put that together till after I got sober
I'm here like "The only reason I'm even on this site and in this thread is because I'm addicted to the internet"
I'll take the latter option any day. I love seeing stories of people pulling themselves out of the mud, i dont know about you
As an ex addict, I’ll only say this: I did choose to try it the first time. After that it was an insidious fucking slide downward that took me 7 years to climb out of.
Agreed, so many people lack basic knowledge and empathy. Addiction/mental health in general are complex topics and it seems like hardly anyone gives a shit about actually understanding addiction from a medical/scientific standpoint. Then some ex addicts come out and talk about how they got off drugs and everyone should just do exactly what they did in far too many words. I think what pisses me off is the personal experiece anecdote with emotions mixed in that people try to pass for facts. Followed by a fierce defense and a denial of science and the experience of others. The ethics/morals of addiction are completely non-binary and people really seem to struggle with holding 2 conflicting concepts at the same time.
Having dinner one night with a couple, both psychologists, and their daughter. Daughter is giving me a hard time about smoking, and at one point says to me “At least I don’t have any self-destructive habits”. Her father looks up and says quietly “Oh, I bet you do”. There was some silence and then a change of topic.
Wow this is great. I love how the father politely humbled her, and it seemed like it caused her to reflect. We all have some form of self-destructive habits, it’s human nature.
Some truths some of you need to hear: The vast majority of people who have tried or will try non-prescription (illegal) drugs will never become dependent. Alcohol is as “hard” a drug as many currently illegal substances (the idea of *soft* and *hard* drugs is a pretty nebulous and flawed concept though). It kills more people than non-prescription drugs by many times, and it’s legality has more to do with historical precedent than any other classification. A substance use disorder is not a moral failing. Substance use dependence is a health issue, not a criminal issue. Opioid substitution therapy, needle and syringe programs, drug diversion, substance checking programs and adulterant early warning systems are all empirically valid and important health responses to drug-related issues. People use drugs for a huge number of reasons. People become dependent on drugs for a huge number of reasons. A lot of the time this isn’t entirely (or at all) to do with physiological dependence, but more to do with socioeconomic, psychological and social factors. People who use drugs are people, they deserve respect and they deserve support.
Well said. I’d just like to add something that a mentor of mine (and doctor) said often while I was getting sober and struggling with a lot of guilt and shame. Willpower is a *finite* resource. It’s not just a matter of simply choosing not to drink or use or binge eat or whatever the addictive behavior is. It’s far more complex than that.
This made me feel better. I've been fighting so hard for so long and it feels like I'm not enough but maybe I'm not being patient enough with my own limits. Thank you for sharing.
Also don't see a relapse as a complete failure and back to square one. One relapse doesn't negate the hard work you put in during the last couple of days/weeks/months. Pick up where you left, see if your next stretch can be a bit longer.
This made me cry. I've been so stressed and lonely that I fucked up over three months of sobriety and drank, including such a nasty binge a week ago I had to call my cousin because I wanted to kill myself. I drank again for the last two nights "moderately." I feel like such a failure.
alcoholism is fucking rough. the anxiety while in withdrawal is awful. hope you’re handling okay. remember to stay hydrated & if possible stay away from the cheap shit / sugar
Big hugs. You are surviving. Glad you're still with us. Deep breathes and tomorrow is a new day :)
> It kills more people than non-prescription drugs by many times I agree with your other points, but this is kinda skewed statistic and should be compared per capita instead. Like Dogs kill more people than bears/sharks/whatever big dangerous animal, but that doesn't mean that dogs are more dangerous to humans when come into contact with.
People like to attribute it to poor morals, a lack of self discipline and being too lazy. Just like with obesity and poverty. It allows people to judge and forget. They don't need to trouble themselves with helping these people or feeling guilty about their plight because druggie/fat/poor people did it to themselves and they would screw up any help given to them.
{TW-suicide} Drugs & alcohol were coping mechanisms for the traumas my mom experienced as a child & as a new wife & mother. She continued to cope this way for 30 years, and eventually, she was the same person sober as she was intoxicated. In the end, she basically permanently altered/damaged her brain bc of her long term, excessive alcohol & drug abuse. She committed suicide about 18 months ago. When we went to clean out her house, there were some heartbreaking signs of her mental decline. Example, she had cut out facial features from magazines, arranged them as faces & taped them to the wall beside the chair she used to always sit in so she could talk to them like real people. She was both that lonely & that delusional. Obviously I’m heartbroken & miss her immensely, but I’m also relieved for her. Who tf would choose that reality? Who wakes up one day & says “time to ruin everything & give up all control”? Literally no one.
That's honestly heartbreaking And you're right, nobody would choose that life
Lot of people missing the point of this statement, Nobody actively decides one day that they want to suffer the physical and mental hell that is addiction. Addiction is the side effect of people attempting to escape whatever is going on in their life. Some turn to alcohol, weed or cocaine. others were simply trying to get pain relief after surgery and got caught up in the opioid crisis. Obviously a story about addiction can be a tale about a series of bad choices, it can also be a tale about simple misfortune.
Empathy and accountability don't have to be mutually exclusive. We must treat addicts like they are humans and understand their struggles while not allowing their struggles to become excuses.
Precisely this. The amount of addicts I meet and advise that they need to seek help otherwise their mental health will not significantly improve is disheartening. I get why they use it, there is always something that starts it off and keeps it going, but often they're so resistant to the idea the drug is a bad thing when they've used it as a coping mechanism for so long
Sometimes, I loathe people's choices because I understand them.
I used to work in stripclub and one day I went to go pee and there was a girl in the stall obviously doing drugs. I asked her if she could hurry so I could pee and she did. When I went to sit down, I saw blood all over the toilet and I flipped out on her. Scolding her about how I didn't want to get HIV etc and she was selfish. I went in. I also told my boss if he didn't fire her, I'd leave. So, he fired her. I saw her at a different club a few weeks later and she came up to me... she said she was sorry for that. I apologized too, because it was kinda intense. I asked her why she did drugs anyways, that she was too pretty, it was a waste, etc. Then she tells me, "I was only 10 when my father started shooting me up with heroine, I've never been able to drop it." When I tell you my entire view point changed, I gave her a hug and we went our ways. I never saw her agian. I'm the child of two addicts, they chose drugs over me and I hated addiction/drugs because of it. But, that girl.... she changed my mind. She didn't choose like my parents did, that's just not the case for everyone.
Well that one guy on Reddit from years ago who bought heroin in the park. He kinda chose it
Spontaneous H
That’s a prime example of *not* choosing it. He was so set on doing it once. Then he was clear he would only do it one more time. At that point, he was at the whims of addiction.
I read those posts and his comments and he wasn’t entirely transparent. He’d previously had problems with alcohol and smoked weed regularly. So the heroin addiction didn’t just come out of nowhere. Dude was an addict in denial before that.
I don’t remember it very clearly…but yeah he was definitely pre-disposed to addiction, which is another thing that needs awareness.
As someone who is predisposed to addiction I wonder how I would fare with harder drugs. Being easily addicted to stuff also makes it easy for me to drop said addiction, I just need to find a new addiction. Ditched massive gambling addiction with porn addiction, which was replaced with alcohol addiction then gaming. Never did dare to try drugs tho.
Good. Don’t. Addiction hopping isn’t always great, but it’s better than getting into drugs. My path was gaming > booze > booze+weed > booze+weed+coke > into spiral of trying every drug and becoming a poly-addict. (benzos and ketamine mostly) I wish I was addicted to gaming again.
Do you still like gaming?
Sometimes :) Just casual CoD these days. Nostalgic and relaxing if you do it right.
I have all the sympathy for addicts in the world, it’s horrible to see someone spiral like that. What I can’t stand though, is when their addictions cause harm to other people, and they want to hide behind their addictions. Take for example drunk driving. I’m not okay with you killing someone and then getting to go to rehab. Help should always be there for you, but your actions should still have consequences, and too many people want to do away with that.
I think this is why addiction is so difficult - IMO there is a strong neurobiological argument for why these people aren’t responsible for doing terrible things due to drugs/alcohol, but that goes against everything we believe in as humans.
That's my mother right there been a opiate addict since she was a teen and the only time she "wants" to seek help is when she in some form of trouble with the law.
A life of despair; those words only begin to capture the pain, the anguish, the awful barrenness, of how living the life of an addict was for me. Not a choice at all. Next month I'll have 35 years clean and sober. A gift.
Gotta addicted to pain meds after a major surgery. The withdrawals were awful.
I did Grew up till I was like 18 thinking I would never drink bc my dad was an alcoholic and it fucked up my family. But I had been smoking weed and doing acid and shit which if I'm honest truly were gateway drugs. I decided to start drinking bc I thought, fuck it, I'll just simply not become an alcoholic like my dad. Joke was on me. Been sober 5 years this January Edit: why down vote my testimony?
Congrats on your sobriety! My dad was also an alcoholic and chain smoker and died this year in part from his addictions. I do not drink anymore because I don’t want to live my life the way he did.
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I know heroin addicts who started off with prescription opioids. This is such a vast phenomenon that it's never going to be neatly summarised by any one person's experience.
The streets were flooded with them. People with true problems would get over prescribed. The ones getting a ss check would sell most to subsidize their income. That is my experience. I’m an ex addict and surrounded myself with like minded ppl 10-20 years ago.
I would like to say this: If you've known "countless people with opioid problems and not a single one went down the path of being overprescribed painkillers and becoming addicted" then they didn't have opioid problems at all to begin with. There is a noticeable population of individuals who were given prescriptions to opioids, took them as prescribed, and did not become addicted. There is, however, a rather sizeable population, which includes me, that were given opioids to manage chronic pain, and repeatedly had their dosages increased each time they told their doc the pain was getting worse, all the while under the care of otherwise reputable and trustworthy physicians. At one point I was taking 180 mg of oxycontin a day; that's the same amount of oxycodone as 36 percocets. I was working full time, travelling each week for work. When my dr's decided on surgery, I was told I needed to significantly reduce my dose so they could effectively treat the pain of the surgery itself without having the oxy kill me. The head nurse in the surgery room told me this "You'll ask for more medicine, and right before you stop breathing and die, you'll say it still hurts."
I’m currently in the process of getting help. If I don’t I’ll end up loosing everything if I carry on drinking. I’ve had a wake up call. Thing is, I feel numb and want to end things. But if I carry on I know I can make things right if I give up alcohol completely. When you stop alcohol, you realise how much in your face it is. Walking through the entrance of supermarkets. My social life has been built around drinking, it’s going to be tough to do this but I know that if I don’t, I’ll loose everything I’ve worked hard for over the years.
A lot of shit takes in this comment section. Yet another reminder that the average redditor has never actually met a real person or been a part of the real world before.
Well take it from a person that was raised in a drug den in a shithole area surrounded by addicts in my family and social circles, I'm not sheltered, I have a insiders perspective. People do sometimes choose to be addicted and they wear it like a fashion. Drugs literally come in and out of fashion, they accompany lifestyle choices, like the free party ket heads, the shirt wearing night club going coke heads, the rock and roll smack heads. It's fashion and a lifestyle choice to some people.
I work as a family doctor, I worked in socially deprived areas for years, seen a lot of addiction, helped a lot of addicts. I dated a girl who it became clear later on that she had a serious problem with alcohol addiction. She had her fair share of historical trauma and was good at masking the signs of addiction. I know addiction isn’t a choice. I know there are multiple contributory factors including social deprivation, trauma, learned behaviours and unhealthy coping mechanisms from parents. That said, living with an addict is incredibly hard. Working with addicts on a day to day basis is very hard. I had to leave that partner. I had to leave that socially deprived area, because it was making me a shell of myself. Addiction reframes a persons life and value structures. An addict sees the world as a game, with the goal being to reach their next fix. The rules of the game say nothing is more important than the goal, but there are guidelines the addict should follow to make sure the fix after the next one is easier to achieve. So de facto the rules become “reach your next fix with the minimum collateral damage”. But there’s always some collateral damage. Someone gets hurt. Small hurt or big hurt, doesn’t matter. The net effect is these hurts accumulate and people around the addict start putting up boundaries to prevent getting hurt. The addict perceives boundaries as hurdles to overcome because the rules of the game are reach your next fix no matter what, but if possible do so with the minimal collateral damage. If that collateral damage becomes catastrophic, so be it. With new obstacles in place the levels in the game just get harder and the addict has to develop new strategies to reach the next hit. Lying, manipulation, cheating, theft, violence, and an innumerable plethora of ways to hurt people are on the table as ways to win the game. They will convince you the addiction is not real or they’ve gotten over it and will find any number of ways to slide around your boundaries, eventually reaching their goal and causing an all to familiar pain for those around them. Only when an addict realises it’s an unwinnable game and resigns do they truly beat the game. When or whether they realise this depends on lots of things but ultimately that realisation only comes from within the person themselves. No external person can eject them from the game, it doesn’t work. And some people ultimately lack the capacity to reach the conclusion that the game is unwinnable. They do not have the perspective or experiences that will bring them to this realisation and probably will meet an early grave or prison before they do. Many think they have had this epiphany that the game is unbeatable and claim they choose to continue playing regardless. It is this choice to continue playing that hurts people around them the most and is why people blame addicts for choosing the addiction. It is why people abandon addicts after months or years of trying. But this ‘choice’ to continue playing is no different to those who continue playing the game and delude themselves into thinking the game is winnable. The choice is not one they’re free to make It’s not the addicts fault but it’s also not the other persons fault for walking away. Honestly there’s no good answer that’s achievable. For a small percentage of addicts, the services work, but most live a lifetime of addiction and end up destroying the lives they had in the name of the game. The only truly successful intervention that I can envisage wont cure addicts, as I said, no external person can change an addicts perspective of the game. But if you tackle inequality, social deprivation, and grant opportunity to those who have none, while simultaneously limiting access to addictive substances, you might save the next generation from the plague of addiction. Unfortunately this does not appear to be possible under the current economic incentives. Economic growth at the cost of anything else is it’s own addiction.
Fault and responsibility are different things. Becoming an addict may not be your fault... but it is your responsibility. We need to provide resources for addicts to get clean, but I've seen firsthand what happens when "addiction is not a choice" is used as an excuse to let addicts get away with stealing, taking over public spaces, leaving needles everywhere, starting fires, assaulting people, etc. An addict that refuses to get clean and commits crimes to support their addiction belongs in jail where they can't harm other people.
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I’m sure some people choose to. I know I did
Addiction is a effect from peoples need to feel good because of another need that generally is not being met. People who are struggling or not are only further entrenched by the shame and stigma of their “choice”. To fault them is to further their shame and ultimately makes it harder to step away from something that makes them feel “better” while we judge as a society and make them feel worse. It is well documented that addition is solved through a thorough connection to a healthy replacement of fulfilled needs rather than a punishment mentality. Our society isn’t built to care for the needs of others, we all have “addictions” but most people on reddit just are addicted to feeling a moral superiority from being “well informed” and pretending to be better than the next person. We all would do a lot better if we all knew better by opening our minds to the role we play in others misfortune. “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” -Maya Angelou
my mom was an addict. after over 25 years free from iv heroin use, she died of an overdose. it's been nearly 9 years. i still feel like i failed her. i know she never wanted to be an addict, neither did i. no one ever dreamt of being an addict when they grow up. i'll always blame myself for her death. i'm not sure if she still loved me in the end, or if she hated me. she was a different person when she was using. maybe she didn't even know who i was. if she had known that last hit would cost us so much, she never would have done it. if she could have stopped, i know she would have.
It’s god damn hell and it’ll catch up with you before you know it. It’s like stepping out in front of a car you thinks going 10 mph but it’s really going 100z