Edit
I kinda made this post out of spite for the fact the most previous post in this community, whose title I quoted/copied, was getting so many downvotes… At the time I posted this, the previous post had about a 30% downvote rate, and it really, really made me mad.
I am relieved tho to see people in the comments here who have real, actual empathy for their fellow humans. Thank you for contributing here.
It blows my mind how normalized it is to hate on those who are struggling. Especially in 20fucking23 when so many of us now are on the verge of it ourselves. Let’s be better, everyone - to everyone. I beg you.
A friend of mine once said “no one healthy wakes up one day and decides to try heroin, just for fun.”
That really stuck with me. There are many reasons why people use substances, and there are many reasons why people may refuse help. This doesn’t make them less than. You, as an outsider, have no knowledge or understanding of the circumstances that lead them to where they now are.
A 30+ year long friend of mine overdosed and died a few months ago. Don’t talk to me about what makes people become junkies. The fact is- ALL of them chose to remain so.
Being in perpetual debilitating pain from botched operations, wounds sustained during battle or plain accidents are not a choice. Neither is having any number of diseases that leaves you in said chronic pain.
The healthcare system is nothing but an administrative nightmare in many places, and it can be nigh impossible to get the help needed to recover to a functional life depending on where you live.
No one made someone an addict but themselves. Period. FULL STOP.
And the sooner we stop coddling addicts, the better for them- and everyone they make to suffer by their side.
You’ve clearly never lived with any sort of chronic pain condition. I’ve only ever gotten fentanyl once - in the hospital, with a doctor’s hand inside my stomach. You also clearly have no idea how hard it is to rebuild a normal life after several surgeries that don’t end well.
I’d be dead or in the streets too except I happen to live somewhere halfway decent, and even then I barely get by on a monthly script. Do you have any idea how it feels when your insides are filled with cysts? Ever had your intestines on the outside of your body involuntarily? How about breaking open your nose bone to get even more cysts out?
You feel like people unlucky enough to go through things like that should just suck it up for their remaining years? It’s just a little pain, right?
I absolutely live with chronic pain. Both a debilitating herniated disc, and fibromyalgia. And I manage it without becoming a junkie.
Don’t think you know someone because of a few paragraphs on the internet.
Lastly, I didn’t say people shouldn’t take pain medications. Don’t be fucking stupid. You’re manufacturing an argument out of nothing.
Those “paragraphs” has been the past 6 years of my life. My son was 3 when I got sick, and he’s only ever seen me lie in bed or hobble around awkwardly.
I’m not manufacturing anything, I’m living it.
Are you a heroin junkie living in a tent?
No, but I’d be homeless (and I have been, albeit for a short time) right now and probably on something illegal if I didn’t live where I do. Whether you call it an addiction or not I can’t function (read: move) without opiates daily, and I get monthly injections as well. I have 12 different daily medications atm. Do you think I choose to live like this?
Before I got sick I was a respected special ed. teacher. Now I’m nothing. Life isn’t as black and white as you seem to think it is. If I didn’t have a caring wife and son there’s no reason to think I would have any semblance of a life. Many are not lucky enough to have someone.
I’m very sorry for your loss.