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What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

fivethirtyeight.com

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Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#231

Post by saint_fiasco »

astura wrote: post #224
slv77 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the condition that you abide by the rules. The rules are generally in place to protect the community from sociopaths and serve as the communities immune system.

What!? Religious rules are not "to protect the community from sociopaths." For example, eating pork is not sociopathic behavior and yet a large part of the world's religions forbid pork eating. People who have problems with the religious community usually are for their arbitrary rules rather than they'd much rather be sociopaths. (I'd make the argument they aren't particularly good about keeping sociopaths out anyway…

By making adherence to arbitrary rules a pain in the ass, they discourage people with insincere motivations from hanging out with them. Only a very dedicated sociopath would follow all those rules just to fit in and earn their trust.

This isn't failproof of course. Sociopathic cult leaders are very dedicated.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#232

Post by saint_fiasco »

CodeCube wrote: post #23
anythingnonidin wrote: post #18

OP here. An interesting takeaway I had was the importance of community. Does anyone know any non-profits or startups working to increase people's sense of community at a mass scale? It seems this is missing from large parts of the western world and has many consequences.

the cynical amongst us would respond that this need is being "filled" by FB and social media ... I for one hope that doesn't turn out to be true in the long term.

Using social media to fill the need of community is like using heroin to fill the need of happiness. It provides a pale facsimile of the real thing at a terrible price.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#233

Post by pnutjam »

KGIII wrote: post #149
taylorswift_ wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were 0 people who recovered from opiate addiction without being hooked on a maintenance drug for the rest of their lives then it'd have more credence. If you give an alcoholic xanax for the rest of their life because it affects the same area of the brain but they aren't drunk anymore, are they recovered? Not to mention, that seems like a pretty horrible and bleak outlook to make people believe they can't mak…

It's not always about recovery, but harm reduction.

best is the enemy of better, sometimes we can only do better and best is a pipe dream. I spent most of my life so far learning this.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#234

Post by rantanplan »

cloverich wrote: post #229
rantanplan wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking with more than 20 years of experience being close to people who follow these treatments. One has to wonder why would we not choose a treatment(3-12 months, depending on the person/situation) since it can demonstrably help people recover completely from opioids and instead choose life-long dependence on particular drugs. Are these the same scientists that think prescribing Vicodin, as if it's aspirin, is a…

> I'm talking with more than 20 years of experience Experience is valuable but for driving systematic changes, unreliable. Its too easy to color personal experience with bias of many kinds. That's the entire point of science, to eliminate those biases and document the underlying evidence to support a claim like: "Methadone does not work."

> That's the entire point of science

Challenge accepted :D

Scientific fact 1: methadone doesn't alleviate the addiction. It actually feeds it to the point that it increases the patient's tolerance at which point you have to increase the dosage.

Scientific fact 2: methadone doesn't provide the "high". Totally true. That's why the vast majority of patients seek it elsewhere(alcohol, cannabis, etc).

Scientific fact 3: Life-long methadone users have relapses more than once. Most clinics/doctors supporting methadone brush it off as "it's quite normal and logical".

Scientific fact 4: innumerable people have been able to kick off opioid addiction by following long-term(but not life-long) therapies.

General fact: You'd be hard pressed to find a drug, other than methadone, that has been so controversial in its usage.

More facts: these panels of "experts" don't provide evidence that long-term recovery doesn't work, but they opine that "hey, methadone is the best, true story.". Show me data, show me science ;)

Isn't it way too convenient for the drug industry? Has it ever happened before, I wonder?

Isn't it weird that heroin addiction in US has increased because of the gratuitous opioid prescriptions?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/29/us-heroin-us...

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#235

Post by pnutjam »

AndrewOMartin wrote: post #150
anythingnonidin wrote: post #18

OP here. An interesting takeaway I had was the importance of community. Does anyone know any non-profits or startups working to increase people's sense of community at a mass scale? It seems this is missing from large parts of the western world and has many consequences.

I've seen a couple of documentaries where KKK members were interviewed and the sense of purpose and community seemed to be the main thing they were all getting out of it. I'm not saying the KKK is a good community group, but I will say there are a lot of people with less community than they offer.

Same things with gangs, if you read auto-biographies, this is a recurring theme.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#236

Post by Kluny »

astura wrote: post #224
slv77 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the condition that you abide by the rules. The rules are generally in place to protect the community from sociopaths and serve as the communities immune system.

What!? Religious rules are not "to protect the community from sociopaths." For example, eating pork is not sociopathic behavior and yet a large part of the world's religions forbid pork eating. People who have problems with the religious community usually are for their arbitrary rules rather than they'd much rather be sociopaths. (I'd make the argument they aren't particularly good about keeping sociopaths out anyway…

The parent commenter probably read this book: https://www.gitbook.com/book/hintjens/psychopathcode/details

I read it to. The thesis is basically that - societal norms are designed to make it easy for normal people to notice psychopaths and avoid them. The book is pretty convincing, I'd give it a look. I didn't notice too many numbers or studies quoted in it, though.

Presented without evidence though, parent commenter's statement may be hard to believe.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#237

Post by pnutjam »

DougN7 wrote: post #28
anythingnonidin wrote: post #18

OP here. An interesting takeaway I had was the importance of community. Does anyone know any non-profits or startups working to increase people's sense of community at a mass scale? It seems this is missing from large parts of the western world and has many consequences.

> any non-profits ... working to increase people's sense of community at a mass scale You're describing most religions that I'm aware of. Say what you will about their beliefs, but most of them (definitely not all) work hard to have an inclusive and supportive community.

Juggelos got you covered: https://juggaloholocaust.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/13-juggalo...

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#238

Post by emodendroket »

anythingnonidin wrote: post #18

OP here. An interesting takeaway I had was the importance of community. Does anyone know any non-profits or startups working to increase people's sense of community at a mass scale? It seems this is missing from large parts of the western world and has many consequences.

Uh, well, maybe not a popular answer here, but that is one thing churches are really good at.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#239

Post by emodendroket »

gedy wrote: post #189
otakucode wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of things Mother Teresa (who was at times a horrendous person, her Nobel acceptance speech is pretty disturbing and cruel) said about American/western society. She remarked that although a person in India might be radically more poor, even if they were starving in the street, they knew people would reach out to them and cared for them. In America, no matter how rich you are, you feel far more alone than…

> (who was at times a horrendous person, her Nobel acceptance speech is pretty disturbing and cruel) Wait what? Because she brought up abortion? https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1979...

I don't know about the speech particularly, but I think Catholic notions about poverty and suffering bringing people closer to Christ rub some people the wrong way. At least that seems to be a lot of the motivation behind "Mother Teresa was awful" stuff I see.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#240

Post by emodendroket »

CodeCube wrote: post #23
anythingnonidin wrote: post #18

OP here. An interesting takeaway I had was the importance of community. Does anyone know any non-profits or startups working to increase people's sense of community at a mass scale? It seems this is missing from large parts of the western world and has many consequences.

the cynical amongst us would respond that this need is being "filled" by FB and social media ... I for one hope that doesn't turn out to be true in the long term.

I see people claiming this all the time (or even that somehow Reddit is the new version of it), but it's just not right... it's not the same kind of community at all.
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