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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)

#311

Post by tsukurimashou »

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…

fuck off

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

#312

Post by OneTimePetes »

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…

That sounds like a warm place for a anti-social person.

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

#313

Post by denton-scratch »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #18
nostromo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to believe that — before I lived in a city that effectively decriminalized all drugs. The result has been a disaster. People on meth run around the streets at night causing chaos. Homeless people on heroin leave needles everywhere. People avoid transit and parks now because there is regularly someone losing his or her mind nearby. Long sentences aren’t the answer of course. But I do think that sending someone…

I see the same in London, where everything is illegal. I think it's unrelated to whether drugs are a crime or not - homeless and drug users in general will find a way to get it. It's a sad reflection on the state of society and our cities. Personally, after a terrible experience in Paris, I decided I will avoid all big cities. I think we should do something about it and forcefully throw homeless and drug users out of…

> forcefully throw

I live in a market town. Small towns are often a magnet for druggies - they're safer than big cities, and they're often much nicer places.

We don't really want all the druggies from the Big City forcibly ejected, so they end up in small towns. Why should townies have to deal with the problems that Big City folk can't be bothered with?

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

#314

Post by krageon »

hedberg10 wrote: post #266
Biganon wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you go to someone who has Crohn's disease and tell them "you're doing that to yourself"? No? So why do it with depression?

Never mentioned Crohn's. Why are you bringing that up? Same with the comment above above: Ask yourself, why are you deflecting, why are you removing agency? Let's say depression is a purely biological problem, the chemical imbalance (it isn't), take a pill and be be healed! Right? Now who sells that pill? Who lobbied to have depression seen as a disease? Who invented the CO2 footprint? BP.

> Why are you bringing that up?

Are you asking why would they bring up a disease in a talk about what is commonly thought of as diseases, or are you asking something else?

> why are you deflecting

This is funny, because you are deflecting in your comment as well. If you feel like folks should not deflect, you should engage with what they say and then tell them to not deflect. Then it becomes more relatable, because it is not hypocritical :)

> chemical imbalance (it isn't)

Depression is a catchall term for many different problems. Some are well understood to be purely chemical (depression unrelated to thoughts, circumstances or environmental factors such as season or food), some are well understood to be environmental: That means "just stop removing agency" could be a way to tackle it, although it famously does not work for most people. Why do you suppose your answer does not suffice for most? Do you feel this is evidence of yet more weakness?

It seems to me you do not enjoy one-dimensional answers to your own thoughts, so why do you insist on having them about other people?

> who sells that pill

You might say the same thing about the smallpox vaccine: Someone sells it. Following your implied point: Perhaps this means that it is not a problem, clearly money changes hands so perhaps there is a profit motive (and potentially this means it is the only motive and potentially that means the requirements are fabricated. That is quite a leap!). While it is reasonable to follow such a thought process, perhaps in this case it does not suffice to follow it, recognise a potential problem and dismiss the original solution entirely. Mostly because if you talked to even-handed professionals (many of whom have similar concerns as yours, if a bit more nuanced by practical experience and what I would hesitantly call empathy), you might find that folks have considered these questions (and do every single day) and to this date they have not been answered in a way that provides a solution for every single case.

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

#315

Post by bserge »

hedberg10 wrote: post #256
bserge wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, depression is imaginary. The kids killed in Syria and Afghanistan should've helped themselves. Lol at bullying being more controversial. But yeah life is harsh and the world is shit. And death is inevitable.

> depression is imaginary Nice strawman > The kids killed in Syria and Afghanistan should've helped themselves Never mentioned kids in warzones > But yeah life is harsh and the world is shit. And death is inevitable. Make an effort, coward.

I mean, I agree with you, life is harsh and we all need to practice more personal responsibility.

However, there are a lot of cases where things are out of someone's control and they're really helpless.

Like depression. Take a pill? No, it's wade through the medical system trying to find a doctor who will graciously grant you the magic paper. And if you don't find one, tough shit.

Then there's the case of a girl being chained and dying of dehydration, for which the accomplice wife of the ISIS piece of shit who did it got 10 years in prison. Not only was the girl helpless, she wasn't even helped by someone who could.

These two things made me reply. I probably shouldn't have, but whatever, we're all shitposting here.

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

#316

Post by watwut »

denton-scratch wrote: post #308
watwut wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think alcohol causes such a strong reaction in most people. It is pleasant, but not to that extreme. Also, people dont get addicted to alcohol that fast. It takes a lot more usage to develop physical dependency.

This is correct. You have to work on an alcohol addiction. It takes a few months to develop a dependency severe-enough that withdrawal might result in seizures. Short of that, you can just quit, if you can get time off work for a few days in bed. You also have to work on a heroin addiction, so I have heard. It simply isn't true that "one dose and you're hooked". People become addicts because they want to be addicts,…

> You also have to work on a heroin addiction, so I have heard. It simply isn't true that "one dose and you're hooked".

When I looked at it, it is something like 30% of people develop dependence after first one-two usages. Then there are people who can use it casually for a long time before developing it.

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

#317

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

The person writing this came from a place of personal experience.

I feel that having personal experience is valuable; same with “skin in the game.” In our industry, theory and speculation are currencies that can trump experience, so I feel that we are often biased against personal experience.

With fentanyl and carfentanyl being mixed into absolutely everything (including cocaine and pot), it’s an experience that is becoming available to a significant segment of the population, compared to previous generations.

This is an area in which I have a great deal of personal experience, and “skin in the game.” I’ve learned that it’s pretty much useless to try explaining this stuff to most folks. We seem to have our minds made up.

The whole thing is fraught with emotion, personal ego, judgement, theory, and, worst of all, lots of money.

People get heavily invested in particular points of view, and often refuse to accept alternative approaches. This is not always a bad thing, as errors in judgment often result in death, so it depends on what our “I’m sticking to my guns” viewpoint is. Alternatively, some approaches never work, but there’s so much investment in them, that we keep trying, anyway.

I’m doing my own little part to help out. It’s a huge problem, and I certainly don’t have all the answers.

But I do have a couple of them.

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

#318

Post by Fnoord »

hedberg10 wrote: post #266
Biganon wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you go to someone who has Crohn's disease and tell them "you're doing that to yourself"? No? So why do it with depression?

Never mentioned Crohn's. Why are you bringing that up? Same with the comment above above: Ask yourself, why are you deflecting, why are you removing agency? Let's say depression is a purely biological problem, the chemical imbalance (it isn't), take a pill and be be healed! Right? Now who sells that pill? Who lobbied to have depression seen as a disease? Who invented the CO2 footprint? BP.

> Now who sells that pill? Who lobbied to have depression seen as a disease?

> Who invented the CO2 footprint? BP.

Emacs contains doctor.el which can help with issues like these. Back when I was into conspiracy theories (~2004-2007?), it helped me. One advantage of it is that you can keep your conspiracy theories for yourself.

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

#319

Post by yulaow »

drran wrote: post #35
yulaow wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you shouldn't only decriminalized, you must in parallel fund social services and clinics to help drug abusers. Else it's just useless

> it's just useless Why? Cannabis market thrive is US. More and more people use cannabis every day, making profits for sellers. Some people will switch to hard drugs and die, of course, but car incidents are not stopping car sales.

Cannabis is very very VERY different from heroin and coke in term of dependency creation. Abusers need a totally different level of support from the health system and social services

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

#320

Post by Talanes »

nindalf wrote: post #212
klyrs wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...why would any drugs even leave the facility. They wouldn't need to. Supply follows demand. When you get enough users in one spot, you'll find dealers. I'm strongly anti-prohibition and I think safe supply and safe injection sites are crucial, but there's no silver bullet. Every simple solution will cause knock-on problems.

Why would addicts pay dealers when they could get it for free? Genuine question.

I've paid more money to drink alcohol in a location I prefer countless times, so I'm sure some paid for the privilege of doing their drugs somewhere more interesting than the clinic.
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