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It is a continuum and that is why it is not a disease like measles which you either have or you haven't. Calling it an illness takes some of the responsibility away from addicts. It makes them think they've got something like measles which they can't do anything about themselves.
I think you will find it's an addiction and an illness
Someone who drinks seven pints every saturday night and gets into a fight and works nine to five is a pain in the arse
The abused woman who hides behind the curtains drinking gin to hide her pain is self medicating an illness
The weak-minded consciously volunteer to become addicts.
There's alleged addicts of all kinds out there. Gambling ones have become quite trendy. Then there's those debt heads who can't stop spending someone else's dough. As previously mentioned, gluttonous fatties are everywhere. Most seem to have an excuse for their rubbish choices such as a traumatic childhood experience when after just one week of ownership someone swiped their bicycle or their dog had fleas and their constant scratching made them sad.
It seems none of the druggies or alkies sought solace in music or exercise, etc, they headed straight for a crack pipe or cans of Carlsberg Special Brew.
The new world wants others to fix thier problems or blame others for the very same problems, there is a famous saying "it comes from within " trouble with todays world its it's easier not to fix thier issues as others are continually making exuses for them , or blaming someone or someting for thier predicament.
Outside of this is the issue of mental health, and that is what needs support and resolution.
I'm an addict. Have been for donkey's years and am determined to remain one because I enjoy my addiction. My vice is tobacco. Each morning I could represent Britain at coughing. My ambition is to cough all through the night. The only way to do so is to puff more. Revenue from tobacco taxes is a great earner for .gov. I know a fraction goes to our dear Queen via her Sovereign Grant payment. Some of that is spent on filling the grub dishes of her corgis. By ensuring I'm enveloped in yet denser clouds of smoke I hope she'll occasionally be able to treat her furry companions to something better than that Pedigree Chum shite.
The Sassoon family were the 19th century equivalent of the Sackler family. Their business was getting people addicted to drugs. When Mao came to power there were 20 million drug addicts in China. This was mainly thanks to the Sassoon family and the British Government. It didn’t take long for Mao to cure the drug problem.
The psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple explained it very well :
"Mao Tse-tung was by far the greatest therapist of drug addiction in world history. He threatened to execute opium addicts if they didn’t give up. Threats to murder were about the only utterances of Mao’s that could be believed, and 20 million addicts duly gave up."
You can get addicted to anything. If you are addicted to posting on this site does that mean you are suffering from an illness? If you looked at my link you can see that you can get addicted to various foods. Are these addicts ill? Of course not. Addiction is not an illness in the same sense that measles is an illness. Most of those Chinese addicts gave up without "expert medical help".
Both my parents clocked out years before their projected life expectancy number came up because of their addictions: old girl 5 years earlier because of smoking and COPD; old man nearly 20 years premature due to grog and a knackered liver. Both knew they'd peg out early but weren't prepared to change and made no effort to do so. I respected their choices and gave up cajoling them to do so. Like me, they also enjoyed their poison.
I don't know any drug addicts but suspect they are of the same mindset.
Organ you are right of course, but if you are going to start on about your vices and addictions then keep it clean. Don't forget there are children on this board and also many posters with the minds of children.
For as long as their desire to remain the same is stronger than it is to reform then they won't. As Dai pointed out, the prospect of taking a bullet between the eyes proved a remarkably powerful motivator for millions of Chinese to travel the cold turkey route absent of anyone fussing over them.
Until it impacts on you personally most people don"t realise how bad social care now is in this country.
Tis very true , it used to be that local authorities had care homes for the vulnerable , now they are mostly private and the owners take in massive profit
My old man was in one in barry , it was filthy and the only hoist they had was broken
We eventually found one nearer to our home near bridgend which was better but still had its faults and was 800 quid a week
Now my old dear has mobility problems after coming out of hospital and after six weeks with the local council care team who have been coming in and waking her up , showerwe need ing her , making her breakfast and doing her shopping they contract it out to a private care firm and the difference in quality of care is staggering ......they turn up late , forget to open her curtains and leave early ......and the council are paying this firm for the pleasure of doing something they do really well , all to save money because central government says so
Luckily we can get as much care as we need in wales up to a cap of £90 per week , god knows what it's like in England
You can see why wales is voting Tory now, the levels of ignorance, stupidity and lack of empathy in this thread are staggering.
Some of you have spent your whole lives living in a bubble and seem to have no idea how the wider world works. It’s only going to get worse too.
Theodore Dalrymple was a prison psychiatrist who dealt with thousands of addicts. In this clip he says the physical effects of giving up heroin are "trivial".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MTmpbVgn7s
This is a quote from a summary of his book “Junk Medicine: Doctors, Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy” :
"Almost everything you know about heroin addiction is wrong. Not only is it wrong, but it is obviously wrong. Heroin is not highly addictive; withdrawal from it is not medically serious; addicts do not become criminals to feed their habit; addicts do not need any medical assistance to stop taking heroin; and contrary to received wisdom, heroin addiction most certainly IS a moral or spiritual problem."
Here's a review of the book :
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...ut-heroin.html