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My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

mattlakeman.org

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Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#271

Post by wruza »

hedberg10 wrote: post #247
tombert wrote: post #81

When I was nine years old, my cousin died of a heroin overdose at nineteen years old. Most of the grownups around me were very sad, but I didn't really know my cousin very well; he lived on the opposite side of the country, and he was a full decade older than me so the times I did see him we didn't really play together, and so I wasn't really able to feel "sad" about it. People I don't know die every day, I can't fee…

> my cousin had been taken so young? He wasn't taken. He took himself. Exercise: Everytime you remove agency, reintroduce it. "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. "I am helpless". No, you are making yourself helpless. These are active processes. Let's get more controversial: "I am being bullied". No, you are letting people bully you. I know this is harsh. I know the societal memes and phrases are the wa…

What exactly does that restatement change? Also, what is your background?

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#272

Post by hedberg10 »

_qn3k wrote: post #264
hedberg10 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my cousin had been taken so young? He wasn't taken. He took himself. Exercise: Everytime you remove agency, reintroduce it. "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. "I am helpless". No, you are making yourself helpless. These are active processes. Let's get more controversial: "I am being bullied". No, you are letting people bully you. I know this is harsh. I know the societal memes and phrases are the wa…

I started writing out a much longer response to this, but it just got very ranty so I'll cut it short. If you insist on such a reevaluation as to why people aren't in their best state, a one word answer "lazy", "attention seeking" (okay thats two words, you get the idea), "weak" isn't going to cut it. You need to continue to ask yourself why that is the case, why are these people so apparently lazy, that they would a…

I have seen the homeless as people to be pitied and helped. Just weak people, down on their luck. So you help them, right?

I let a homeless man sleep in the hallway of my building. He took a shit in front of my door.

Now if I had seen the homeless as what they actually are, maybe weak, maybe helpless, but still people with agency who can be absolute assholes, that wouldn't have happened.

And I hate that this is overlooked. Maybe if the parents in the article wouldn't have fallen into this trap, their son would still be alive.

The assumption everyone downvoting seems to make is that I don't have compassion or as you do, I see them as "weak", "lazy" or "attention seeking" (notice how you are seeing them as that, not me).

I can have compassion and ask them to do their part. That actually solves the problem.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#273

Post by toyg »

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #258
DantesKite wrote: post #195

Singapore already solved this problem: Execute all drug dealers. Remarkably effective but at a tremendous cost to personal liberty. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_prevale...

Wait, Singapore has the death penalty? I thought it was such an exemplary modern country?

"Exemplary" - it's effectively a very authoritarian one-party state, organized over racial lines, that profits parasitically from their neighbours (refining Indonesian oil, dodging Chinese taxes, etc etc). It works, for sure, which is a sad indictment of humanity in the third millennium, but personally I wouldn't want to follow that "example".

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#274

Post by hedberg10 »

wruza wrote: post #271
hedberg10 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my cousin had been taken so young? He wasn't taken. He took himself. Exercise: Everytime you remove agency, reintroduce it. "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. "I am helpless". No, you are making yourself helpless. These are active processes. Let's get more controversial: "I am being bullied". No, you are letting people bully you. I know this is harsh. I know the societal memes and phrases are the wa…

What exactly does that restatement change? Also, what is your background?

It removes the victim mindset.

My background is a recovering asshole, partially failing, aka the son in the article.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#275

Post by tonyedgecombe »

MisterMower wrote: post #199
abraxas wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would help for sure. My cousin died not because of overdose but because he shared needles and contracted hepatitis which turned into hepatoma. If safe injection sites had been available he might still be alive.

“My cousin died because he made a choice to try heroin, got hooked on it and made a choice to share needles, contracted hepatitis, which turned into hepatoma.” Fixed that for you. Truly sorry for your loss, but people make choices, and those choices have consequences. Can we hold these two things to be true at the same time: 1. No one is forcing people to take these drugs. The choice to start is theirs. They are ulti…

>Truly sorry for your loss

If that was the case I don't think you would have written what you did.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#276

Post by hilbert42 »

wespiser_2018 wrote: post #24

Good write up. The US is really grappling with diseases of despair, and heroin/fentanyl addition is on of the biggest ones impacting the wellbeing of our society. A massive slice of talent and raw human resource is just dying every year, but the solutions that have worked in other countries are just impossible to implement here due because the the methods that are known to work are politically dead on arrival. I'm a…

"...and the Sacklers just walked with no criminal liability."

The fact that they did, has to be amongst the top crimes of the century.

That justice can fail so spectacularly is treason against the citizenry. Not only does it undermine people's belief in rightful justice but it also brings law, order and governance into disrespect.

If you want to sow the seeds of anarchy then this is how to do it.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#277

Post by stichers »

I lost a friend to meth and GHB at the beginning of this year, and although details are different, the trajectory is similar.

He suffered anxiety and was fearful about his life for years. Meth was what gave him fleeting confidence and euphoria, but also what finished that life. He was terrified to live, and he was terrified of death, so he self-medicated to manage, and ultimately that killed him.

As one of the people that cared about him who is left behind, I've struggled for answers, but I don't think there are any.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#278

Post by baq »

hedberg10 wrote: post #247
tombert wrote: post #81

When I was nine years old, my cousin died of a heroin overdose at nineteen years old. Most of the grownups around me were very sad, but I didn't really know my cousin very well; he lived on the opposite side of the country, and he was a full decade older than me so the times I did see him we didn't really play together, and so I wasn't really able to feel "sad" about it. People I don't know die every day, I can't fee…

> my cousin had been taken so young? He wasn't taken. He took himself. Exercise: Everytime you remove agency, reintroduce it. "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. "I am helpless". No, you are making yourself helpless. These are active processes. Let's get more controversial: "I am being bullied". No, you are letting people bully you. I know this is harsh. I know the societal memes and phrases are the wa…

> "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. "I am helpless". No, you are making yourself helpless. These are active processes. Let's get more controversial: "I am being bullied". No, you are letting people bully you.

most people are social animals. it's easy to be an individualist if you have the trait and nigh impossible if you don't.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#279

Post by denton-scratch »

I found this acccount utterly riveting, and I really appreciated the frankness.

One thing I picked up on, though: the OP refers to people dying from OD. I believe it's quite unusual to die from an overdose; my understanding is that nearly all "OD" deaths are not poisonings, but the consequence of inhaling your own vomit. Hendrix, Joplin and Jim Morrison all died from inhaling vomit.

Opiates depress your respiratory reflexes, so you breathe "less well". And they make you dozy, or even pass out. If you puke in your sleep, and then breathe in, bad stuff (like, hydrochloric acid) goes into your lungs, you fail to wake up, so you "drown" i.e. you can't breathe. Death by respiratory failure.

Smack in itself isn't really that harmful. Smackhead doctors have been dosing themselves with clinical heroin for decades, while carrying on their jobs and family lives. Scoring on the street, though, is super-high-risk.

/me never used smack.

I did at one time hang out around losers; a few of them were smackheads, and they robbed the rest of us rotten. Most of these losers were into downers - I once held the tourniquet for a guy that was injecting Tuinal (a discontinued barbiturate combination). Injecting barbs is much more dangerous than injecting smack, if you can get smack that isn't adulterated.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#280

Post by hedberg10 »

baq wrote: post #278
hedberg10 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my cousin had been taken so young? He wasn't taken. He took himself. Exercise: Everytime you remove agency, reintroduce it. "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. "I am helpless". No, you are making yourself helpless. These are active processes. Let's get more controversial: "I am being bullied". No, you are letting people bully you. I know this is harsh. I know the societal memes and phrases are the wa…

> "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. "I am helpless". No, you are making yourself helpless. These are active processes. Let's get more controversial: "I am being bullied". No, you are letting people bully you. most people are social animals. it's easy to be an individualist if you have the trait and nigh impossible if you don't.

Fair point. My own character traits certainly color my viewpoints.
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