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tweet by Johann Hari: The core of addiction is not wanting to be present in life, because pour life is too painful a place to be. This is why imposing more pain or punishment on a person with an addiction problem actually makes their addiction worse.
Yup. It's escapism. Anything to not have to be myself, even if for just a very short while.
A lot of people are in denial about how often they engage in escapism. Whether it's alcohol, binge watching, reading, gaming, porn or their phone.
Personally I swapped drugs for podcasts, audiobooks, and audio dramas (shout out to BBC sounds). Helps drown out all the negative thoughts.
Not sure if that's a good idea either, tbh. But I'm still here, so maybe that's something.
Hope you're able to get in a better place so you feel less need to escape from life. Not happy, happiness is overrated. But just that you want to live, experience your life, and what happens next.
This is why ADHD is so hard to diagnose and treat in adults. You have found your coping mechanisms, it’s never about escapism or denial.
It took me a long time to realize I was doing exactly that, self-medicating for adhd. Even a small dose of proper medication has kept me off everything else. Too bad it cost hundreds of dollars and took months, once realized. Not to mention fighting the stigma of an addict
If you're taking Vyvanse, they just released a generic version that's much cheaper. You might have to ask your doctor to mark that a generic can be substituted.
I understand what you mean, but some people's lives are very shitty, so I feel it's a stretch to say it's never escapism, even among those who have ADHD.
I just want to add a plus one for audio dramas, if which the BBC has some great ones, especially some old horror series. Sure, it’s not exactly a replacement, but every little bit helps. I’ve been clean of anything not proscribed for about six months!
Yeah.
One of the huge advantages for me is that, unlike tv/movies/gaming, you're not exposing yourself to light from a screen.
That means you can distract yourself, but there's also a relatively high chance you actually fall asleep. Light from a screen really messes up your sleep schedule.
IME also better than trying to sleep, and negative thoughts keeping you awake in the dark.
I don't agree with decriminalisation. Only full legalization makes sense. Treat addiction as a health issue instead of a justice issue. It's amazing that we're still stuck with the legacy of Nixon era policies, with 50 years of data to say the war on drugs cannot ever be won through prohibition.
Okay but can we start with decriminalization?
Honestly, decriminalization is possibly worse a drug war (if only barely). Where legalization creates a regulated environment with research and controls, decriminalization increases the use by individuals without giving a legal way to acquire - which just empowers organized crime to get bigger and sell more.
Pot is a weird magical exception because a lot of individuals started growing for their friends and family. But that wouldn't happen with actual hard drugs.
I don't think you need legalization to make the decisions necessary to help the health issue, I think you could work that sort of help in with decriminalization as well. However, people will still be using less than safe practices to get said substances without legalization as well, so I do agree it would be the overall better arrangement.
But I do agree with the other commenter, starting with decriminalization is at least a step in the right direction.
During the Covid lockdown, when there was nothing better to do, I was watching a court proceeding where a judge was really struggling with this while sentencing a person for possession.
He felt like his hands were tied, and he was essentially forced to sentence a drug user to jail, which doesn't normally work, but he had already tried all of the other remedies allowed to him. And he basically said, "I've seen a few cases where people get clean in jail because they can't get the drugs. I hope this happens for you." The sentence was like a month or two.
PSA that, while having said profound things about loneliness and addiction as of late, Johann Hari has a long history of plagiarism and making stuff up, and once really strongly implied in a TED Talk that if you have good social support then it can just vanish your opiate withdrawal symptoms
@5:00 https://yewtu.be/watch?v=PY9DcIMGxMs generally just web search this guy
Vietnam soldiers who were addicted to heroin were able to stop when they came back because it was a different environment. Addiction is usually caused by circumstancely factors rather than actual chemical imbalances that cause them to seek heroin. Like depression would be the root causing heroin addiction not heroin addiction being the root. This means that when those other things are solved the addiction can usually solve itself so I'd say in a lot of cases a good support system could definitely go a long way to solving an addiction. Albeit I don't agree w her other points
people wouldn't have to steal to feed their habit or overdose on laced shit if you could simply buy a portion over the counter barrier free and fairly priced
Also, they wouldn't be financing drug criminals and terrorists, but would actually be supporting legitimate small business and pay taxes.
Legalization, regulation, harm reduction. That's the way.
So much of overdose etc is not having a regulated dose! Not to mention, I bought coke and it was fentanyl instead. Should have known to test, but learned the hardest lesson.
It’s the one time things don’t go right that you don’t make it back
If appealing to empathy worked for convincing the rich and lawmakers into helping the poor and miserable, there wouldn't be (...as many) poor and miserable.
They're too busy, uhmmm *checks notes* fighting abortion or some insanely and inherently evil shit like that
Besides those addicted, there are a ton of people who just enjoy drugs, don't suffer any problems from it, and don't do anyone any harm.
You never hear about those who know how to properly use drugs because they blend in with non drug users. Nit that there are many of those as caffeine is one of the most used drugs anyway.
I smoke weed sometimes. I haven't smoked in almost two years and was given some for free and two nuggets will last me a month because I make a bowl last several days. I use it to sleep or enjoy good more. If I don't have any I don't think about it.
Isn't there also a chemical element to it that makes trying to get a heroin-addict to go cold turkey kinda like shaming a diabetic for using insulin?
Yes. The withdrawal symptoms are real and physical.
I have a nerve disorder and the original neurologist kept trying different opiates on me (they didn't work). I never got mentally addicted, but there must have been some physical addiction because I definitely had withdrawal symptoms when I switched to another type of medication and it was not a pleasant few days. I can't imagine what it must be like for people with serious heroin or fentanyl addictions.
"I eat because I'm unhappy. I'm unhappy because I eat." - fat bastard from Austin powers.
Also me.
This is anecdotal, but I think it's a good qualitative example. When I was marginally employed I was routinely drinking, smoking, and getting high. Well as routinely as I could afford. Even when I was homeless, first thing I did when I scored $40 for a day's work was go and buy a tallboy and a pack of cigarettes.
Fast forward, and now I have a fancy WFH job with good bennies and a future, and I no longer drink, smoke, or do drugs. Part of that is age, but it's not like I didn't want to quit those things. It's just that it got easier when life got more relaxing, and I could just chill out rather than try to escape.
It's not necessarily your life, but your mind. You could be living in objectively sweet circumstances, but coping with past traumas via addiction. The problem is that by trying to hide from your problems, they just get worse and bigger, which turns into a self-reinforcing cycle of addiction. Breaking that cycle takes an extreme amount of courage and sustained determination.
Author of this tweet (I dunno maybe it is copypasta) is a trip.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari
Example: Hari is gay. He wrote an article claiming he had sex with men who were members of homophobic far-right and Islamist groups, stating that with drugs and "a lot of flattery" he "coaxed" a nineteen year old Muslim into "wild gay sex.
So he admitted to raping a probably-closeted gay man?
Sounds like, yeah
Here is what he wrote. Judge for yourself.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/13/gayrights.thefarright?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Now, I doubt that many of these blokes were shagging each other, not least because, for religious reasons, none of them drink, so it was hard to lower their inhibitions. But after a long smoke and a lot of flattery, Mo was fairly easily coaxed. Of course, he seemed a bit hung-up about it afterwards. Since I was nearing the end of my undercover gig, I tried to persuade him that perhaps gay people weren't evil, especially in light of the fact that he had just been having wild gay sex.
Slam-cut to LA and Russ. He was a harder nut to crack, but at least he could (and did) drink an awful lot of vodka. I'll spare you the details: suffice it to say that Germany did successfully invade Poland. So what's the moral of this tale? Part of me wants to trumpet it as a victory for gay rights. Even in the most intense centres of homophobia and gay-bashing, you can still find the odd bit of sodomy. We are, quite literally, everywhere, including (literally) inside homophobes. Part of me is a bit ashamed - in the cold light of day, both Russ and Mo have some pretty repulsive views. But there's something uniquely rewarding about bagging a homophobe. In fact, I reckon that this should be the new path for the gay rights movement. Every gay reader of the Guardian should henceforth dedicate himself to seducing every gay-basher they can find. Our response to hatred shouldn't be to hate back; it should be to give them a jolly good seeing-to.
One of the best books I've read on drugs is by him. If you read Chasing the Scream you'll truly understand this post.
I'd agree but feel the need to highlight a difference between chemical addiction and addiction for the sake of escapism. Though both can absolutely be present at the same time. I am neither a psychologist or neurologist, but have some experience. I've largely dealt with addiction in the forms of self harm, as well as an addiction to sugar.
Self harm absolutely was about escapism. And the addiction was not chemical other than the brain creating a need for it in order to soothe negative thoughts and feelings (anxiety, trauma, stress, sadness etc...).
Sugar on the other hand was a mix of escapism and chemical addiction. When I felt worse I naturally craved more sugar. But even when I felt glad or elated I would still crave it.
I can't speak on addiction to drugs like heroin, opiates, cocaine, among others. But in my experience of addiction to self harm and sugar. Punishment would only end up deepening the addiction as I sought to escape the punishment through addiction as well. Even if that punishment was self-inflicted.
Or, hear me out, help those consuming them get out of that addiction and crush those who prey on them by selling drugs. They are the actual evil ones here.
war on drugs is a jobs program for prison employees with minimal education requirements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4L20t8Dvlg
I get the sentiment, then after thinking about it 10 seconds, I thought "hold on, what about all the CEOs that snort cocaine on top of naked women? Is their life painful, too?"
Because they aren't addicted? They're mostly social/opportunistic users of recreational drugs