Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

bmj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 72 posts

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#61

Post by dragonwriter »

davemp wrote: post #22
WhompingWindows wrote: post #3

"Drug overdoses were the leading cause of increased mortality in midlife in each population, but mortality also increased for alcohol related conditions, suicides, and organ diseases involving multiple body systems." Perhaps we can start treating addiction like a disease and not a moral failing?

I would just like to see more education about addiction. Society definitely doesn't handle addiction properly, but it's not a disease and it's not a clear cut moral failing (though it takes strong morals to overcome). The roots of addiction go deep and many people don't properly understand that the roots have to treated lest the addiction sprout again in some form.

> but it's not a disease

In what precise way is it not?

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#62

Post by dragonwriter »

leovailati wrote: post #41
rjkennedy98 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of snide remark that drives me crazy. Treating addiction as a disease will not fix anything except put more money in the drug companies pockets (which is why they push this narrative). Treating diseases is amazingly more ineffective than preventing the disease. Preventing addiction is not something we like to talk about. Our drug companies and government have been amazingly complicity in pushing pain…

That is a very good point. When you talk about preventing addiction, are you referring to the war on drugs or providing quality of life improvements that might steer people away from drugs in the first place?

> When you talk about preventing addiction, are you referring to the war on drugs

When you talk about preventing systematic racism against blacks, are you talking about the Atlantic slave trade? Because the the relation between the latter pair is about the same as that between the former.

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#63

Post by sturgill »

circlefavshape wrote: post #37
sturgill wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addiction is a disease. And I also think it can be a moral failing to play around with addictive substances. I say this as one who has a long family history of addiction and who has struggled with his own addictions: I was wrong to get involved with certain things. When I reached out to my parents my (normally quiet and ultra-supportive) mom’s first words were, “I thought you were smarter than that.” And her next sen…

> I was wrong to get involved with certain things IMO you're judging yourself harshly. For most people who use drugs and/or alcohol a hangover is the worst consequence. If you're around other people using them and they're having fun I expect it's very hard to stay conscious of the fact that the risks are elevated for you, given your family history

My issues weren't with drugs or alcohol (there are plenty of other things to get addicted to in this life). Nor am I judging myself harshly. I'm a data guy and love that math doesn't have feelings. When you are adequately educated of the consequences and jump in anyway there is a manifest fault in judgment. Mercifully I've been able to recover, but life would have been a lot easier had I made different choices when I was quite young rather than clean up messes when I was much older.

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#64

Post by sturgill »

maxerickson wrote: post #40
ams6110 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason humans evolved morality to regulate bad behavior. Morality helps you resist your base desires and do what is better for yourself and the group in the long term. Do people become addicts because of moral failing? In some (many?) cases, yes. Not all, and not undeserving of treatment/help to recover in any case.

Fascinating how often it gets subverted by a portion of the group though.

One of my favorite lines of the Bible are these simple words from Jesus Himself: "They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick." It turns out that most of us are more like the Pharisees that Jesus railed against: convinced of our own moral superiority. I think that's a natural instinct of human nature (independent of one's professed religious beliefs).

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#65

Post by CptFribble »

kjeetgill wrote: post #59
CptFribble wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think addiction is a disease or a moral failing, it's more a product of the environment of the addict. Case in point: up to 20% of soldiers in Vietnam were addicted to heroin during the war, and up to 40% had tried it, but when they came home only about 5% remained addicted. See: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1521-0391.... There are many factors in a person's life that lead to addiction, a…

> formalized system of getting people out of the environments in which they became addicted as part of the treatment. Isn't that what going to rehab is about? For those who can afford it atleast...

I guess I mean, changing environments after rehab.

The problem many recovering addicts face, is that even if they get to go to rehab, they return to the same stressful home life/enabling friends/underemployment that pushed them into addiction in the first place.

I guess what I'm saying is that rehab without job training/support and relocation assistance of some kind is doomed to high recidivism. (If the word recidivism applies to rehab, not sure if that's proper usage here)

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#66

Post by jackhack »

bilbo0s wrote: post #23

Sounds like Americans have had a marked decrease in mental and physical health over the time period analyzed. (1999-2016). I think maybe easier access to healthcare, mental and physical, could help? Also a lot of this might be signs of an overworked populace? (How many jobs are people working to make ends meet? Do the ends meet after all the jobs are worked? etc). So we should probably look at that as well. But I thi…

Everyone's overthinking this: I think the answer is as simple as "9/11 and its global aftermath." What do we have? Wars, astounding national Debt, and the political divisiveness and uncertainty being fueled by the several crops of politicians. Well, that and the natural cultural end-game of global banks looting western civilization.

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#67

Post by CptFribble »

dragonwriter wrote: post #60
CptFribble wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think addiction is a disease or a moral failing, it's more a product of the environment of the addict. Case in point: up to 20% of soldiers in Vietnam were addicted to heroin during the war, and up to 40% had tried it, but when they came home only about 5% remained addicted. See: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1521-0391.... There are many factors in a person's life that lead to addiction, a…

> I don't think addiction is a disease or a moral failing, it's more a product of the environment of the addict. Diseases are very often products of the environment.

That's very true. I guess I'm referring to "disease" in a too-narrow pathological sense.

We're all complex open systems so of course disease and environment are intertwined, I just find that when lay-people like me refer to addiction as disease, they typically mean a narrow definition of "let's find a problem with your brain that we can fix," and not much else.

Maybe I was addressing an imaginary counter-argument!

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#68

Post by davemp »

dragonwriter wrote: post #61
davemp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would just like to see more education about addiction. Society definitely doesn't handle addiction properly, but it's not a disease and it's not a clear cut moral failing (though it takes strong morals to overcome). The roots of addiction go deep and many people don't properly understand that the roots have to treated lest the addiction sprout again in some form.

> but it's not a disease In what precise way is it not?

Disease generally implies the damage or malfunction of a system of the body. Whereas addiction is a malfunction of behavior.

My comment likely didn’t translate my thoughts clearly enough. I would not argue against “mental disease”. The distinction between physical and mental disease is important (because treatment is so different) and under common definition physical disease is implied. That was the miscommunication in my and many other comments in this thread.

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#69

Post by mikert5671 »

skh wrote: post #43
mikert5671 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were all in control of our own lives, we live according to ourselves. The buck stops with me on how I live my life

You seem very sure of yourself in this. Perhaps read up on the topic more than you already have. Read Nudge and other such books by behavioral economists. There are experts in neuroscience who disagree with your view. It’s worth considering how this is possible. https://neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-choice-psychology-... https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=are%20we%20in%20contro...

The problem with neuroscience is that they know nothing. For instance, it was considered true that neurons in the brain dont change and adapt, and then the concept of nueroplasticity came along, it was revolutionary. Twenty years later, a new study comes along and says that our brains are not as dynamic as we thought afterall. Human history is ripe with "experts" who were wrong, sometimes for centuries.

Re: Changes in midlife death rates across racial and ethnic groups in the US

#70

Post by skh »

mikert5671 wrote: post #69
skh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem very sure of yourself in this. Perhaps read up on the topic more than you already have. Read Nudge and other such books by behavioral economists. There are experts in neuroscience who disagree with your view. It’s worth considering how this is possible. https://neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-choice-psychology-... https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=are%20we%20in%20contro...

The problem with neuroscience is that they know nothing. For instance, it was considered true that neurons in the brain dont change and adapt, and then the concept of nueroplasticity came along, it was revolutionary. Twenty years later, a new study comes along and says that our brains are not as dynamic as we thought afterall. Human history is ripe with "experts" who were wrong, sometimes for centuries.

There are instances of where experts got it wrong. But to claim that neuroscientists know nothing is a bit arrogant. They certainly know more about the brain than you do (unless you too are a neuroscientist). I'm guessing you are not a neuroscientist. You hold a belief about decision making that is at odds with some experts and you have no expertise in the subject. A reasonable person would, at the very minimum, conclude that there is the possibility that their conclusion is wrong.

We can point to instances where experts got it wrong. We also can point to instances where they got it right. The people who study intensely an area are more likely to be right about that area than a non-expert. Physicians sometimes get diagnoses wrong. Yet a reasonable person pays attention to what they say.

Post reply on HN