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How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

theguardian.com

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Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#151

Post by fapjacks »

gooseus wrote: post #33
fapjacks wrote: post #17

Kratom saves lives.

If that's true, then perhaps you should put some links to good resource explaining what it is and where to get it? Also maybe something indicating why and how it saves lives, any studies on people who kicked opiates using kratom and can attest to it's life-saving properties? I know people who use kratom and they have good things to say, but I've known people who say the same thing about x, y, and z supplement/nootrop…

Here's an example of some research into kratom's use as an aid in opioid withdrawal: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3670991/

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#152

Post by tigershark »

If you ask me I'd rather spend money to save a child killed by a car, financing self driving cars, than waste money trying to save people that don't want to be saved and that, even after being revived tens of times, continue to abuse drugs until their death, as per the other thread last week.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#153

Post by rhcom2 »

dionidium wrote: post #34
Chardok wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core of Reddit has become rotten not from the_donald; the site admins are 100% at fault. Trying to make their site 100% advertiser friendly has subsequently killed all transparency in what votes do, how subreddits are ranked, and killed a lot of discourse that was not corporate palatable. I still enjoy the smaller subreddits. Unfortunately anything political becomes brigaded, but things like /r/gamingsuggestions…

"things like /r/gamingsuggestions and local city subreddits still make the site worthwhile to me." Local city subreddits are one of the best things about reddit. National politics sometimes leak in, which is when they're at their worst, but, overall, it's probably my favorite thing there.

Maybe for the smaller cities it is different but I've stopped visiting /r/boston because every single thread someone brings up politics and it becomes a flamewar between left/right.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#154

Post by dionidium »

tigershark wrote: post #152

If you ask me I'd rather spend money to save a child killed by a car, financing self driving cars, than waste money trying to save people that don't want to be saved and that, even after being revived tens of times, continue to abuse drugs until their death, as per the other thread last week.

If you really understood addiction, you'd understand that this is like saying that you don't want to treat someone with cancer, since they seemingly insist on recurring time and time again even after chemo and radiation, continuing to have cancer until their death.

But, of course, you're not thinking of addition as a medical issue. You're treating it like a moral failure.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#155

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

fapjacks wrote: post #142
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be Fucking Warned https://www.reddit.com/r/quittingkratom/

Yes, some people seem to go overboard no matter what the chemical. There are some sad stories in there of people that can't control themselves. Sort of highly, highly addictive personalities. There are some similar stories for people quitting caffeine, for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/decaf/

That doesn't really fit with my experience. I was a heavy user of alcohol, cigarettes, and occasionally even tried cocaine. Quitting all of those had extremely minimal effects on me physically or mentally.

Getting off Kratom resulted in something like a flu that lasted 2-3 weeks. And I wasn't taking an especially high dose, and I had only been using for 3 months.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#156

Post by pm90 »

tigershark wrote: post #152

If you ask me I'd rather spend money to save a child killed by a car, financing self driving cars, than waste money trying to save people that don't want to be saved and that, even after being revived tens of times, continue to abuse drugs until their death, as per the other thread last week.

Eh, this is a rather poor argument, but it is one used by a majority of Americans, it seems, to justify some rather poor positions on welfare/social security. Its the same fallacy as using "welfare queens" to label everyone on welfare as someone abusing the system, whereas it has been shown that most people quickly get off it as soon as their circumstances improve.

So while there certainly will be people undeserving or who cannot be saved, a majority of "addicts" are more likely people who could be better with the right kind of therapy and social support.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#158

Post by gooseus »

oh_sigh wrote: post #102
gooseus wrote: post #62

What I find fascinating and disappointing is how much the opioid crisis isn't being talked about or addressed proportional to other societal issues. Billions of dollars of private research being poured into self-driving cars by our greatest minds and millions of dollars in lobbying against gun laws all in the name of preventing unnecessary human deaths... yet according to Ben Bernanke (and his references), opioid ove…

Along those same lines, how about our modern day obsession with LGBT and racial issues. Yes, those are important, but I feel like the amount of time that is put into them is completely disproportionate relative to other very troubling issues(such as the opioid epidemic)

I agree to some extent. Many times when discussing these other societal issues we point to the levels of violence and conditions that affect one group proportional to other groups.

Young black males are disproportionately the victims of gun crime, pretty sure that is a well-known fact that I don't need to look up. I also believe the data is in on young white males disproportionately being the victims of opioid overdose [1].

Are opioids a white problem and guns a black problem? Or are both actually related to a different condition and it's actually a young male problem? What about if we looked at the socio-economic class of these people ignoring age, sex and race? Something common there?

I think that the focus on the racial/ethnic/sexual/gender makeup of the victims is less useful than some people want it to be.

If anything I'd say it's an economic and community issue, this Kutzgesat video goes into it somewhere [2]. If there were better community support systems for people of lower economic classes then I think we'd see far less overdose and gun crime.

One thing I will say though, and it is addressed in the first link somewhat, is the way drug enforcement is (and has been) conducted differently in different communities. That certainly exposes much of the systematic discrimination in drug enforcement which I do hold as almost as serious a problem as these deaths.

[1] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/872062 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#159

Post by lsmarigo »

nonamechicken wrote: post #90
bllguo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

parent explicitly mentions people making racial jokes and mentioning racial stereotypes. This occurs even in every large subreddit, well-behaved or not. They likely aren't even malicious on the part of the people who say them, but nevertheless, they are damaging comments to make, and I wouldn't blame people for leaving reddit because of them. that said there are plenty of small communities that are pleasant, sure. Bu…

Indian user here. I avoid majority of Reddit's default sub because of this reason. Just yesterday, I accidentally came across on comment in /r/askreddit where they openly called Indian men as vulgar and rapey. When another Indian user questioned it, he was downvoted heavily. Honestly, 12 hours later, I am still angry. I think I will leave Reddit for good this time.

I can relate man. It's soul crushing and hard to accept you just have to not participate to protect your sanity.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#160

Post by aesclepius »

tigershark wrote: post #152

If you ask me I'd rather spend money to save a child killed by a car, financing self driving cars, than waste money trying to save people that don't want to be saved and that, even after being revived tens of times, continue to abuse drugs until their death, as per the other thread last week.

I would kindly ask you to review how most opiate addicts in this current wave are created. Unfortunately, opiate medication is really the only 'easy' solution we have for many patients who have chronic, debilitating pain. I speak of patients suffering from malignancies, chronic back pain, post-traumatic injuries like motor vehicle collisions or workplace-related injuries. While there are novel attempts at cognitive behavioral therapy, setting patient expectations regarding pain and physical therapy, opiates are the mainstay of our (speaking as a resident physician) arsenal. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues prescribe ever higher doses of opiates without educating the patient on the reality and expectation of chronic pain. The patient continues to fill his/her prescription, until the point where he/she is taking heroic doses of opiates daily. At this point, many things can happen: the patient's legal provider is suddenly shocked at the amount of opiates given and stops, the patient transfers care/moves and is suddenly unable to obtain their original script, and voila - the once legal plain jane 45 year old female with chronic pain is suddenly forced to rely on the grey and black market, and since she can't obtain further legal prescriptions (because who's going to give Jane 20 oxycodone daily when seeing her for the first time), she's suddenly relying on sketchy mcsketchball who offers her illegal oxycodone... and you can imagine the downward spiral from there. So please, review how many of our opiate dependent abusers start, instead of focusing on the ugly finality of their early deaths.
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