Blaming Addicts For Their Own Disease
Yesterday, someone I know for a long time shared a completely awful article titled "Stop Calling Your Drug Addiction a Disease." I won't share it myself, but if you've been on Facebook any length of time you've likely seen it or a variation of it. Sharing something like this is the fastest way to get me to unfriend you for a variety of reasons I will touch on.
The view comes from a place where the writer blames the addict for their choice to use. For most addicts, it was a long time before they are acknowledging their addiction. In fact, the fact that they acknowledge an addiction is a huge step in itself. I think my daughter went to her grave not seeing herself as an addict.
Then they reminded Jesus that adultery was punishable by stoning under Mosaic law and challenged him to judge the woman so that they might then accuse him of disobeying the law. Jesus thought for a moment and then replied, “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.”
In the case yesterday, this is what irked me the most. I know the person long enough to know they made some pretty questionable choices in their life. The essay blames everyone whoever smoked weed, shot up heroin, snorted cocaine, or bought prescription drugs for everything that happened to them afterward.
I'll admit it: I have smoked weed. Have you? Well, according to this person, who made questionable choices in their life, you now deserve every bad thing that happens to you after that.
I'll admit it: in the 1980's in the crazy scene that was going on, I snorted cocaine. I had a lot of fun doing it. I didn't become an addict. Why? I don't know. There's a physiological component to addiction where some people, like me, can try things and walk away from them, no harm, no foul. I've even done that with cigarettes.
About the only thing I am addicted to is food. I've used that as a learning tool sometimes for people who genuinely are trying to understand addiction. Try not eating. Just stop eating and see what happens. At first it might not be a big deal, but eventually you start obsessing over food. That's what's happened to the addict's brain. Whatever they are addicted to, it is like food to them. They have to have it.
The prescription pills are a whole other thing. The writer of the blog post in this case is a young, judgmental college student. I doubt she's ever been prescribed a pain killer in her life for anything. She hasn't bothered to learn the history of the Oxycontin epidimic that we are going through. When it first came out, doctors were told by the pharmaceutical companies that it solved the problem of addiction, present with other painkillers such as morphine, and still managed to kill the pain. That was a lie. Doctors were prescribing it for pain left and right. They've become more cautious now, but it's still prescribed and it is highly addictive. The writer seems to think, though, it's just a matter of choosing not to buy them illegally once you run out and no one will prescribe you more.
YOUNG
IGNORANT
JUDGMENTAL
This was not a moment for discussion yesterday. The person who shared the post clearly is in a place of denial about their own past, and maybe some things that are still going on. I mean, in this line of thinking you deserve lung cancer and all kinds of respiratory illnesses because you made the choice as a teenager to smoke and still do, right? I'm not going to bang my head against the wall with someone like that. Be gone.
The view comes from a place where the writer blames the addict for their choice to use. For most addicts, it was a long time before they are acknowledging their addiction. In fact, the fact that they acknowledge an addiction is a huge step in itself. I think my daughter went to her grave not seeing herself as an addict.
Then they reminded Jesus that adultery was punishable by stoning under Mosaic law and challenged him to judge the woman so that they might then accuse him of disobeying the law. Jesus thought for a moment and then replied, “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.”
In the case yesterday, this is what irked me the most. I know the person long enough to know they made some pretty questionable choices in their life. The essay blames everyone whoever smoked weed, shot up heroin, snorted cocaine, or bought prescription drugs for everything that happened to them afterward.
I'll admit it: I have smoked weed. Have you? Well, according to this person, who made questionable choices in their life, you now deserve every bad thing that happens to you after that.
I'll admit it: in the 1980's in the crazy scene that was going on, I snorted cocaine. I had a lot of fun doing it. I didn't become an addict. Why? I don't know. There's a physiological component to addiction where some people, like me, can try things and walk away from them, no harm, no foul. I've even done that with cigarettes.
About the only thing I am addicted to is food. I've used that as a learning tool sometimes for people who genuinely are trying to understand addiction. Try not eating. Just stop eating and see what happens. At first it might not be a big deal, but eventually you start obsessing over food. That's what's happened to the addict's brain. Whatever they are addicted to, it is like food to them. They have to have it.
The prescription pills are a whole other thing. The writer of the blog post in this case is a young, judgmental college student. I doubt she's ever been prescribed a pain killer in her life for anything. She hasn't bothered to learn the history of the Oxycontin epidimic that we are going through. When it first came out, doctors were told by the pharmaceutical companies that it solved the problem of addiction, present with other painkillers such as morphine, and still managed to kill the pain. That was a lie. Doctors were prescribing it for pain left and right. They've become more cautious now, but it's still prescribed and it is highly addictive. The writer seems to think, though, it's just a matter of choosing not to buy them illegally once you run out and no one will prescribe you more.
YOUNG
IGNORANT
JUDGMENTAL
This was not a moment for discussion yesterday. The person who shared the post clearly is in a place of denial about their own past, and maybe some things that are still going on. I mean, in this line of thinking you deserve lung cancer and all kinds of respiratory illnesses because you made the choice as a teenager to smoke and still do, right? I'm not going to bang my head against the wall with someone like that. Be gone.
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