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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)

#331

Post by louissm_it »

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…

While advice like this might have been alright if it was in a self-help book where the OP was looking for ways to approach the situation, it is completely uncalled for and inappropriate in this situation.

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

#332

Post by sasaf5 »

_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 am not entirely in agreement with parent comment, but I need to call false dichotomy on your second argument. There's a whole range of acceptable states between depressed and happiest.

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

#333

Post by tremon »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #251
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…

>I'm a strong proponent of the US taking the approach the Swiss took to combat their opiate epidemic in the late 80s and early 90s. I suspect you have your dates wrong, they didn't get a handle on their problems until the late nineties and early 2010s. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/inside_switzerlands_radical_...

You could both be right. That would mean it takes 20+ years of consistent policy to remedy the situation.

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

#334

Post by stichers »

denton-scratch wrote: post #291
stichers wrote: post #277

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…

> I've struggled for answers, but I don't think there are any. It took me a long time to learn this: there are problems for which there is no answer. I got this from Buddhism (I have renounced Buddhism, but I've retained some of the insights). The world is intrinsically fucked-up, and not fixable. You can sometimes fix some things, but in the end the world is an incorrigible mess (samsara). It's quite a relief once y…

Thank you. I think I'm getting to that same insight by bashing my brain repeatedly around the same loop. It's good to hear it put more succinctly.

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

#335

Post by throwaway0a5e »

vintermann wrote: post #253
mrslave wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a recent teetotaler and my quality of life is massively improved. It took me an unreasonably long time to realize many adult role models in my life (family, and then in my first significant professional workplace) were abusing alcohol. None of them would consider themselves alcoholic. A few of them were dependent at significant cost to their health, which I believe is easily classified as alcoholic. A few years a…

There's a perspective I feel is sorely missing in this otherwise great piece and the discussion around it: the larger social and even political perspective. We treat it as an individual problem. What could Jack, as an individual, do? In truth, not much. What could the patents do? In truth, not much. But maybe we can change things on a larger level. Create a society where heroin isn't as appealing by comparison. Where…

>What could Jack, as an individual, do? In truth, not much. What could the patents do? In truth, not much.

This is bullshit. People who want to beat their addiction and have the support from their immediate family are the demographic that most readily beats addiction.

When it comes to beating addiction, losing weight and all sorts of other things that require a lot of willpower having some personal motivation to do whatever it is plus a support network who can help you and encourage you is just about the most effective strategy. People care a lot more about doing hard things if they feel their family has a stake in it.

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

#336

Post by LeanderK »

stichers wrote: post #277

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…

> I've struggled for answers, but I don't think there are any.

I've also experienced drug-related loss and I think one can still find some lessons. Life is terrifying for some and they feel incredibly overwhelmed. We lack Compassion and Respect for those who don't really make it. We glorify individualism and grow up with the expectation that we can also be just like them, but some just can't. The gig-economy is incredibly harsh and brutal, no wonder the weekend with its drug fueled escapades is the only thing keeping them going. For some there is just no way out of loneliness, anxiety, soul-crushing work for minimum wage or without a job. Nobody tells them that everything's okay and giving them hope for the future.

I think selfish international politics just increases economic competition which brutalises our society. We hype up Elon Musk but in the end there's a lot of randomness in life and the super-star entrepreneur could just as well die of a heroin OD in the streets.

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

#337

Post by [deleted] »

sasaf5 wrote: post #332
_qn3k wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 am not entirely in agreement with parent comment, but I need to call false dichotomy on your second argument. There's a whole range of acceptable states between depressed and happiest.

[deleted]

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

#338

Post by bongoman37 »

MisterMower wrote: post #205
standardUser wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has waged a war on drug for several generations with virtually unlimited funding and has made no progress on that goal whatsoever. What makes you think it could ever work, despite the mountains and decades of evidence that it has failed?

They’ve been fighting the suppliers. It’s time to go after the demand side, too. Every user bought their drugs from a dealer. Throw them in jail with the dealer. It seems like every solution in this thread is something other than “punish people who buy or sell drugs.” Can we at least try ruthless enforcement before we try free drugs for addicts paid for by taxpayers?

Given that law enforcement is quite willing to plant evidence on innocent people, this would just be a terrible idea. I had a cop friend who shared a bit of weed saying 'Can't take it all, its evidence for a case next week'. Free drugs for addicts is often a lot more cost effective. Also, not every drug user is a major addict. Almost everyone I knew (I move in academic circles), has some experimentation with drugs and a fair number will smoke weed every so often and try something like mushrooms a couple of times a year.

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

#339

Post by hedberg10 »

Fnoord wrote: post #318
hedberg10 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s here that British Petroleum, or BP, first promoted and soon successfully popularized the term “carbon footprint" in the early aughts. The company unveiled its “carbon footprint calculator” in 2004 so one could assess how their normal daily life — going to work, buying food, and (gasp) traveling — is largely responsible for heating the globe. A decade and a half later, “carbon footprint” is everywhere.

“This is one of the most successful, deceptive PR campaigns maybe ever,” said Benjamin Franta, who researches law and history of science as a J.D.-Ph.D. student at Stanford Law School.

...

https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh...

The term was popularized by a $250 million advertising campaign by the oil and gas company BP in an attempt to move public attention away from restricting the activities of fossil fuel companies and onto individual responsibility for solving climate change.[3][4]

...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint

I have so many bridges to sell!

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

#340

Post by hycaria »

vintermann wrote: post #253
mrslave wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a recent teetotaler and my quality of life is massively improved. It took me an unreasonably long time to realize many adult role models in my life (family, and then in my first significant professional workplace) were abusing alcohol. None of them would consider themselves alcoholic. A few of them were dependent at significant cost to their health, which I believe is easily classified as alcoholic. A few years a…

There's a perspective I feel is sorely missing in this otherwise great piece and the discussion around it: the larger social and even political perspective. We treat it as an individual problem. What could Jack, as an individual, do? In truth, not much. What could the patents do? In truth, not much. But maybe we can change things on a larger level. Create a society where heroin isn't as appealing by comparison. Where…

What is this historical community? A cult?
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