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

fivethirtyeight.com

51–60 of 302 posts

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

#52
post #4

Interesting question: The replacing opioid addiction with maintenance drugs... I could understand that drug being an okay interim solution, but in the end the person still needs to go through withdrawal, the drug just replaces withdrawal with another drug. Withdrawal is hard. Yes. But at least the person is in the right mindset to go through it once they are off the compulsory addiction, even if it takes a year to ge…

Why? The problems with addiction - specifically opioid addiction - is that it causes negative, destructive behavior. This isn't a consequence of having a physical dependence we are all physically dependent on things after all.

No, it does not cause negative, destructive behavior. It causes you to lie down and feel good. And it also causes constipation. And, if your supply is interrupted, withdrawal symptoms. The rest is caused primarily by the laws and social environment. Having to interact with criminals? Getting uncertain doses? Overdosing? Those things are because it is illegal, not because it's an opiate.

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

#53
post #50
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y'all realize that black legislators and community organizers pushed for and voted for those "racist" crack sentences? They were trying to save their own communities. Edit: for the uninformed down voters: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.slate.com/articles/news_and_p...

Have you heard the theory that racism might be institutionalized?

Now that's just crazy talk.

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

#54

I think the saddest part of this article is perhaps the glancing statement it makes about how prison isn't a place of recovery and rehabilitation. The prison system here really is too focused on punishment and locking people up forever rather than helping them get back on their feet and being productive members of society

Unfortunately, the drug war and punishing users of non-sanctioned drugs is embedded deep in America's political and social DNA - but seeing how much has changed in some areas of drug policy especially with variations from state to state - I hold out some hope that we might see some changes there too - but I just wouldn't hold my breath.

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

#55
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Contrast to the crack cocaine epidemic in the 80s: fuck'em, throw them all in prison. That's overly reductive to the point of being wrong. There was never a particularly strong feeling that crack addicts should be thrown in prison any more than other types of addicts. People were strongly in favor of throwing crack dealers in prison because they were turning neighborhoods into war zones as they fought for lucrative…

crack vs cocaine sentencing doesn't agree with you. It was clearly making the "black" crime of crack possession worse than the "white" crime of coke possession. Obama got a whole law passed in 2010 to address it!

Crack vs powder sentencing isn't relevant. The violence was all on the crack side, which is what prompted the harsher sentences.

And yes, Obama got a law passed based on a lie. That happens all the time.

EDIT: Most people really don't care what you put into your body until you make them care, and that's what happened. You'd open up the paper and see another eight-year-old on the way to school got shot in the head because crack dealers were spraying bullets at each other again. That happens often enough and the public decides Something Must Be Done.

Personally, I thought a better solution would be to teach the crack dealers how to shoot, but nobody liked my idea.

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

#56
post #29

Interesting question: The replacing opioid addiction with maintenance drugs... I could understand that drug being an okay interim solution, but in the end the person still needs to go through withdrawal, the drug just replaces withdrawal with another drug. Withdrawal is hard. Yes. But at least the person is in the right mindset to go through it once they are off the compulsory addiction, even if it takes a year to ge…

> Withdrawal is hard. Just to emphasize that: Before my SO started working in a hospital, I had no idea that people going through alcohol withdrawal can end up in the ICU. They're ending up in an ICU because of the withdrawal, not the alcohol... That was really surprising to me.

Alcohol is one of the only substances on the planet that can cause you to straight up die from withdrawal alone. Deaths from opiate withdrawal are secondary, usually from falling during a seizure. But with alcohol, your heart can simply stop or your brain have a massive stroke from the withdrawal. We think it harmless because its legal, but alcohol is radically dangerous from an addiction standpoint.

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

#57
post #50
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y'all realize that black legislators and community organizers pushed for and voted for those "racist" crack sentences? They were trying to save their own communities. Edit: for the uninformed down voters: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.slate.com/articles/news_and_p...

Have you heard the theory that racism might be institutionalized?

Have you studied the crack epidemic or have you simply slurped up some recent liberal political journalism?

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

#58
> evidence-based medicine

non-evidence based medicine that uses the made-up-on-the-spot holistic approach is upheld by the idea that there is no scientific method available because it is about the body as a whole.

I think that rebuttal is reductionist and that there could be a method that is applicable to that form of treatment.

does anybody have thoughts on that?

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

#59
post #14

Interesting question: The replacing opioid addiction with maintenance drugs... I could understand that drug being an okay interim solution, but in the end the person still needs to go through withdrawal, the drug just replaces withdrawal with another drug. Withdrawal is hard. Yes. But at least the person is in the right mindset to go through it once they are off the compulsory addiction, even if it takes a year to ge…

I'm physically dependent on caffeine. Why bother fixing that when it is cheap legal and available?

In case you're looking for a sincere answer: being physically dependent on any otherwise unnecessary drug is a drag. You constantly have to seek it out to feel better. Even though caffeine is easily obtainable, I still have found it to be inconvenient when I've been at high levels of consumption. Plus, it does have health effects. It may not be so, but you'll likely feel a lot better without it.

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

#60
post #50
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y'all realize that black legislators and community organizers pushed for and voted for those "racist" crack sentences? They were trying to save their own communities. Edit: for the uninformed down voters: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.slate.com/articles/news_and_p...

Have you heard the theory that racism might be institutionalized?

I do not recollect with precision, but there is an article posted on HN few years ago, showing the 80s archives of New York Times, in it NYT was squarely arguing for harsher sentencing and so were African American civic leaders.

May be there is racism that is institutional, but the point is most people even those who are against harsher sentences today thought it was a remedy. We will be failing ourselves if we cannot examine that fact and simply hitch and re-assign every "fucked up" decision to racism.

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