That might make sense if even voluntary treatment was even close to having good outcomes in large percentages. Addiction is a bitch of a disease. So far, I’m one of the blessed ones, one of about 2-5%, who was able to hit the 5 year clean mark and then keep going. Relapse is a common problem among those who want to be clean, never mind those who haven’t even begun to accept the measure of their problem.
One of us is missing something. My remark was a reference to your own comment about being lectured by your friends, and hence (from my view) contained nothing false to retract. “Unlike Ensign Edison’s coterie of friends, I wouldn’t begrudge you…”
I hereby retract the statement anyway, for desperate fear that we’ll continue analyzing it.
Oh, I get it now, thanks. I misunderstood. My mistake.
I was explaining that for each category of panhandler, giving to them won’t help their situation. I think it’s good that they are hungry. If they get hungry enough they will take the necessary steps to improve their situation. This is the pattern that goes on now:
panhandle->buy food->panhandle->buy food->panhandle->buy food …
By giving a hungry person money, you only give them momentary help and then they are right back in the original situation. If you didn’t give them money, they would have a harder time and need to come up with a true solution to their problems.
Like steal?
Like change their priorities. I see people begging all the time with multiple facial piercings and covered head to toe with tatoos. Funny how people with no means of support have the money for decorating their bodies. A good way to start getting a job would be to remove the piercings. Not sure what to do about the tatoos.
We can ask society as a whole to make changes to reduce poverty, but isn’t it easier to have people make changes themselves?
Here is a short list of things that can reduce your chances of being poor:
Graduate from high school.
Wear condoms so you don’t get pregnant or get someone else pregnant.
Don’t start using addictive drugs.
Yeah, addiction is tough, but why are so people so stupid as to say: “You know, that meth stuff looks pretty cool. Maybe I’ll give that a try”.
Yeah, I suppose that’s one possibility. Although society has a plan in place for that. He’ll eventually end up with a 4x8 room and 3 meals per day.
Personally, the guy who’s one missed meal away from becoming a crook is not someone I would ever give money to. Stealing is not the only way to feed yourself.
There is no good reason for someone to starve in the US. There are more than enough social programs for people to be well fed. If someone doesn’t want to follow the rules and jump through the necessary hoops to get assistance, that is their problem.
Do you honestly believe panhandlers got pierced and tattooed while living on the streets? Most street people got there somehow. They didn’t start out that way.
You might want to educate yourself on the disease of addiction. Using drugs is a symptom of the disease, not the cause.
Is there some way to catch the heroin addiction “disease” that doesn’t involve taking heroin? Can you catch it from a toilet seat or something? I guess I’m not up on this stuff, but I always thought the cause of heroin addiction was taking heroin in the first place.
This cite is excellent, remains neutral, and is the start of a six page review culling over 100 studies concerning panhandling, and has links to every one of them who want a more detailed report of each study.
In a nutshell, it says that most panhandlers are selling you a polished bullshit story, but nobody was actually that naïve to buy into anyway, right? Most have no desire to hold down employment when they can make as much panhandling, as minimum wage, and quite a few have other supplemental income coming in as well. Most have substance abuse problems; some are mentally ill; most are not. Most panhandlers are not homeless, and most homeless are not panhandlers. In one study, 60% of the panhandlers were failed shoplifters. In another study, 50% of the panhandlers claimed to have been mugged within the past year. This was attributed to street robbers, passerby’s who react violently to being panhandled, and to other panhandlers who often claim certain spots for their own territory, and fights over territory are common.
Check out the links if you’re interested.
razncain
Well, as I say, if you give to panhandlers you will get more of them. More beggars means more dirty streets, public drunkeness, defecation and urination. If you want your neighborhood to be destroyed, hand out the money.
The fake panhandler is hardly new… there’s even a Sherlock Holmes story mentioning the phenomenon.
The physical dependency on heroin is caused by using heroin. The disease of addiction is the cause of the obsession and compulsion and denial that keep addicts using. Meth, cocaine, for example, are not pysically addictive. There are no “withdrawal” symptoms (other than crashing from fatique and a shitty attitude because of the obsession with MORE - Addiction could aptly be called the disease of “one more”) however, for an addict, the obsession and compulsion to use are much more powerful than the person with the disease. The disease can manifest itself in gambling, food, anorexia, bulimia, sex, anything that changes the way I feel. There are people who become dependent on substances, like pain patients who take narcotic pain relievers for a long time, but are not addicts, as in don’t have the disease of addiction. There are people, weekend warriors, who can use cocaine or even heroin on the weekends but are not addicts. Someone with the disease of addiction cannot. If I like the way something makes me feel, if it changes how I’m feeling, obsession, compulsion and denial kick in rendering me powerless over the substance and my disease. That’s why programs of recovery are generally life long pursuits… At least that is the case with 12 step programs. I speak from personal experience. There are many good articles on the disease of addiction, the manifestations, the symptoms, etc. and if you’re truly interested in learning more about it, I’ll be happy to point you to them. If you’ve already reached a point of judgement when it comes to addiction and addicts, you’re probably not open to an education. I’m led to believe that may be the case with the toilet seat remarks. Hope I’m wrong.
Can you back that up with something? Is there some panhandler network, like on the internet or something, where they find out who’s giving and where? Houston is full of panhandlers. It’s also a pretty clean city.
I have sympathy for alcoholics and people who get addicted to pain medicines. But for the life of me I can’t figure out the thought process of someone who decides it’s a good idea to use meth, crack, or heroin for the first time. Especially heroin: you have to stick a freakin needle in your arm! Seriously, what are they thinking? “Meth addicts seem to have a good life, maybe I’ll try it”.
In the end there is only so much society can do for an individual.
I’m sure you can’t. There’s nothing logical about it. It’s insanity. Addicts suffer their own special brand of insanity. I’m glad you can find sympathy for some… Beats a blank.
Again, I offer you some links, if you’re willing to open your mind, that might help you understand. It’s one of the roadblocks we are up against when dealing with the problem of addiction in this country… Stigma which comes from a lack of understanding, lack of knowledge and very closed minds on the topic. We can’t defeat an enemy if we don’t understand it.
Lots of street people should be patients in institutions. As a money saving measure we have released them. They are for the most part unable to keep it together enough to work. they are unable to maintain their medication on the street. The life style does not lend itself to steady taking of medicine and doctors appointments. They are not all junkies or stupid people. Some are educated. Lose your job and your house and you may have a chunk of pavement with your name on it.
Would it make a difference to you if I told you that I first tried cocaine in 1983, when it was still the “rich man’s high, non addictive”? Would that be “understandable”? Would that absolve me of the “stupid” quotient? Would that evoke any sympathy?
Please understand, I don’t seek your sympathy. I seek only to educate. That cocaine is what finally brought me to my knees is inconsequential. It could have just as easily been vodka… I drank plenty of that. I was an addict before I ever picked up a drug or a drink. I have the disease of addiction. Addicts struggle with reality, they live in denial, they are as obsessive and compulsive as the OCD patient who can’t stop thinking they have germs on their hands and then can’t stop the process of repeated hand washings (or lock checkings or oven shut offs, etc). Often an addict has had some trauma in early life that set off the use of a substance or behavior to change the associated feelings. That’s not my story. I just always remember not feeling good enough, not a part of anything, not OK in my own skin. Disconnected from family and I became a chameleon who became whoever I needed to be in order to fit in. I smoked pot early on, dropped acid, tried pills… Needles scared me so they were out but the point is, I needed something outside of me to fix what was wrong inside me… How I felt.
I’ve learned these things. I certainly didn’t know them then. Addiction, like many mental illnesses, is difficult to diagnose, difficult to treat and is progressive and fatal if not treated. It’s not just some asshole who was too stupid not to snort some meth or some heroin (most needle users graduate from some other delivery method).
I think you may have read enough of my posts at this point to acknowledge that I’m not stupid. I’m actually quite bright, articulate and pretty damned charming! By and large, addicts are all those things. We’re people with above average intelligence who make monumentally bad decisions. There is an overwhelming need to change how we feel because we feel all fucked up and we don’t know how to fix it until we run into a brick wall that slams us into reality and find recovery and that only happens for about 1/20 addicts long term… Hence the need for “hitting rock bottom”.
BTW, is it ok on this board for topics to get derailed or should this addiction discussion take place in another thread?