With so much news about human suffering and the insane political climate, another heart wrenching tragedy is happening across this country. The thousands of people overdosing every month from fentynal. Great NYT article today brings a story of one man's need to understand why and his call to action:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/us/drug-overdose-medical-examiner.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
A pathologist in NH who decided to retire after 20 years to become a minister. He can no longer take the amount of death he has seen from the opioid epidemic. He decide to pursue a spiritual path, going to seminary school to become an ordained minister.He wants to understand why there is so much addiction and see how he can help young people avoid this deadly path.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the highest occurrences of opioid overdoses happen to be in low-income areas such as in West Virginia and Ohio. Just my take on this issue it's that people don't have jobs or are underemployed. They can't really do much with their life and they resort to drugs as a mean of escaping their harsh reality.
It's not quite logical and you would think that they just need to toughen up but that's easier said than done if you've been unemployed for years with no prospects. They have quite a difficulty issue dealing with this indeed.
My ex-husband was a heroin addict, now he still does cocaine, drinks, or smokes pot. He is an addict, always has been an addict, and always will be an addict, unless he makes the choice not to be. During our 10yr marriage, he was sober for 3 months, because he chose to. During this time, he felt great, looked great, but the pull of the high was too much - why? I believe it's a chemical imbalance and the only thing that can stop it is your willpower. There's no magic pill or magic solution. If you have an addictive personality, the best thing to do is not to feed the addiction- period.
I'm sorry but I don't feel sorry for these people because they are making the initial choice to indulge in a behavior that they know it's destructive. I saved my ex's life several times, but it didn't matter, the drugs won every time and that was by his choice. The only way an addict can stop being an addict is if he choses to, just like any other behavior. Just my opinion based on experience...
why? I believe it's a chemical imbalance and the only thing that can stop it is your willpower.
Of course I agree that the addict has to make the choice to get better but at least based on my own experience sometimes if you're craving something it means your body is lacking a certain nutrient. I used to have a really strong urge every now and then to smoke a cigar. And it wasn't like I just felt like smoking for the hell of it, it was almost a crippling addiction. But by chance I started taking B-12 vitamin supplements in an effort to develop a better diet and those cigar cravings immediately went away. It's kind of amazing really in how literally within taking one B-12 pill I didn't feel that urge anymore.
Overcoming addiction is like an alchemy of healing. Many factors must flow in to make healing happen. I think it’s true that one needs to develop the will to change. But as much as that, people need the support network and love, and lots of love and grace, to overcome addiction. No, a partner does not count as part of the support network. A partner needs help too because being together with an addict can be draining and heartbreaking.
The addict’s habits, however, do create a physical change in brain chemistry, I think. So yes, a quality diet, exercise, being in nature, getting enough rest etc. are important. Yet still psycho pharmaca might be needed to reboot oneself or get to a stable ground.
Besides all this the social infrastructure plays a huge role, too. The usa is the only developed country in which mortality increases. These “deaths of despair” are brought on by decaying communities and a decline in “economic and social wellbeing” for working class people, no matter what age or place they live. Here is the researcher couple that collected and interpreted the data:
https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/mortality-and-morbidity-in-the-21st-century/
Yet apparently data shows that increasingly middle-aged white men are dying by opioids overdoses. So “which came first, the opioids or despair?”:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-11/which-came-first-the-opioids-or-the-despair
The American medical system is problematic because they only give people prescription opioids instead of addressing the underlying issue of more and more people with chronic pain:
Modern diet and sedentary lifestyle lead to a pain epidemic that is poorly managed with powerful drugs. The will to change or not, I do belief that a body can get hijacked by powerful drugs. But the in the US people with mental health issues and addiction problems are stigmatized and excluded from access to painmeds and medical attention in order to threat their chronic pain, thus a thick black-market.
I see the rampant individualism of our time that disregards vulnerability as a huge problem. Here in the USA people often assume that those brought to the knees by life must have an inherent moral flaw and are therefore not worthy of attention and love. Its quite a harsh attitude devoid of compassion and sadly translates into American institutions as well as the government, as we see. Think Koch brothers or Paul Ryan and his love for Ayn Rand or somebody like the Vegas shooter. They represent the epitome of a cultural necrophilia that disregards all that has less in material wealth and power. They want power over life. A far more sinister and soulless attitude to life than the orange buffoon, who becomes restless if he cannot consume the praise and attention brought to him at one of his rallies or on twitter or whatever.
Knocked that one out of the ballpark, Tee! It does seem like we're learning that when representative democracy is married to free-market capitalism, it inevitably leads to power in the hands of a few "cultural necromancers:" corporations, oligarchs, an elite ... During the last election cycle I struggled with the concept of socialism, given that anything used for good also could be used for bad. Now, I'm thinking we do need a whole new system or to radically redefine the "rules," because our institutions are "soulless," broken, and not working for us. Lola and PN are right; people are truly suffering. To Diana's point, I agree that a person has to choose to quit, but I also think that most people are helped by spiritual and community supports, which are, as Tee points out, truly lacking in our society right now.
Thank you Gracesinger. I realize now that I made a few mistakes in my text, that I posted sleep deprived. It should say, that the USA is the only developed country in which life expectancy is decreasing or mortality rate is increasing. Just wanted to make that clear.
This is article about how the drug companies triumph over the DEA. Maybe I'm wrong thinking this way. Isn't the drug company like the gun and the pills are like the bullets that feed constant pain of hopelessness, and despair from people, so the companies can make a huge amount of money off this.