Peaches Geldof is dead

[Psychic]

Nearly all addicts claim they are "trying to quit" but very few actually stick at it. Even after months in prison to clean and detox they nearly always fall back in as soon as they are released. If it's as terrible as they all claim, why do they go back on it even after the physical addiction has gone?

It's almost as if they're addicted to it.

[Alvin Flummux]

Maybe shoving them into prisons rather than actually trying to rehabilitate them is what we're doing wrong.

[Qikz]

I just started reading an article on The Guradian about one of their photographers who has overcome heroin addiction, and I really implore Laga to read it:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign ... m-macindoe

There's also this page, where you can hear an excerpt from the interview over some of his pictures which is pretty powerful:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign ... hotography

Interesting read. Fair play to him overcoming the addiction. That itself is worthy of praise, but then I've met so many heroin addicts who just don't care and any pretence they make to trying to overcome it is a lie. That's the thing about addicts, the lies just get out of control until eventually they just don't know how to be honest.

Nearly all addicts claim they are "trying to quit" but very few actually stick at it. Even after months in prison to clean and detox they nearly always fall back in as soon as they are released. If it's as terrible as they all claim, why do they go back on it even after the physical addiction has gone? Lifestyle choice is probably the reason.

lol mate, my second cousin was a prison officer for 45 or so years and from everything he's seen/witnessed/found prison is one of the easiest places to get access to drugs.

[Floex]

I don't know how Daz can be so clueless on the subject.

Detoxing in prison

[Faust]

You can detox anywhere if you choose too.

If you choose the other way, your most probably gonna die way before your time. Not some thing that's particularly hard to work out. Don't get why these people deserve sympathy for making bad choices and becoming a burden on society.

[FatDaz]

Maybe shoving them into prisons rather than actually trying to rehabilitate them is what we're doing wrong.

Where else do you put thieves who literally cannot help but steal to fund the habit?

lol mate, my second cousin was a prison officer for 45 or so years and from everything he's seen/witnessed/found prison is one of the easiest places to get access to drugs.

Yeah ok I'll accept it's not a clean environment, but it's definitely harder than when they are on the streets and have 24hr access to whatever they want.

I've spoken to addicts who had regular drug testing and were clean for over 6 months before release from prison. Now at this point the physical addiction is greatly reduced and if they were truthful about staying clean it wouldn't be as difficult. And yet they nearly always go back to using.


My experience I'll admit comes from dealing with habitual thieving drug addicts. They are the lowest of the low. They wouldn't think twice about stealing from friends, family or even those trying to help them. And they always lie about it even when it's blatantly obvious they've done it

Now because of dealing with these people I have no sympathy for drug addicts. Yes I know there are other kinds of addicts and perhaps they deserve more sympathy and help but criminal drug addicts just don't give a gooseberry fool so why should I about them.

[Igor]

Maybe shoving them into prisons rather than actually trying to rehabilitate them is what we're doing wrong.

Where else do you put thieves who literally cannot help but steal to fund the habit?

You remove the need for them to steal in order to fund said habit. Simple.

[Moggy]

Maybe shoving them into prisons rather than actually trying to rehabilitate them is what we're doing wrong.

Where else do you put thieves who literally cannot help but steal to fund the habit?

You remove the need for them to steal in order to fund said habit. Simple.

Don't be silly. What you need to do is criminalise them and force them away from normal society. Then when they are at their lowest point, you lock them up with other criminals and easy access to more drugs. Then you let them out into a world where they can't get jobs and sit around wondering why these people haven't sorted themselves out.

[FatDaz]

Criminalise the criminals, not the addicts. It's just in my experience they are often the same.

Who here has ever been victim of a drug related crime? Theft, burglary, robbery? Or who owns a shop that loses thousands from shoplifting?

Ask these victims what they think about "criminalising" them.

I know dozens of habitual thieves. They have been offered everything to help them. Needle exchange, methadone, subutex, counselling, drug rehabilitation referrals and social workers, given social housing and enough benefits to survive.

Despite all these efforts at huge cost to tax payer they continue to offend. They steal and steal and keep stealing. They use heroin on top of methadone (replacement) prescriptions. They sell subutex and methadone prescribed to them, to get the real deal. They show no signs of wanting to change.

They steal until they are caught. Everyday they are out of prison they are creating more victims of crime. Honest hardworking members of society who lose to these addicts.

Prison may not help their addiction and it may not change their ways but it does physically stop them committing crime!

I realise that I'm talking about a sub section of addicts and not all fit my above description, but your naive if you think every addict is a victim of circumstance and "illness".

[kommissarboris]

One of her favourite singers was Elliott Smith, who was a heroin addict at one time I believe. She'll have been taking it for some time... she had kids and sacrificed their lives for her own, i.e. I've no real sympathy.

In reality, I have sympathy for every story, I know don't the facts after all, but Peaches is way down there on my general sympathy scale mainly because she had children. If she'd been a heroin user without kids she'd be up higher, but she's the cause of their future grief.

I can see why FatDaz would have less sympathy. I knew a policeman who once found a dead baby in a bag and it changed him dramatically. Here I think he's a bit justified, although I know you also have no sympathy for suicides FatDaz, which imo you should have. 'Mental illness' is going to cause a lot more. But then the people I've known to have died from suicide where amongst the greatest people ever: ER nurses, very intelligent/kind students, etc.

Even that policeman actually, who found the baby, hanged himself less than a year later.

You have no sympathy for people who die from a drugs overdose (if they have kids) but you do for suicides?

Did any of the people you knew who committed suicide have kids? If so, did that change your sympathy?

I have sympathy for almost all the stories.

If someone has children and dies of an accidental overdose or suicide, it'd depend on the bigger story how I felt about them. In Peaches' case, taking heroin when she had two tiny children is almost unforgivable.

None of the people I knew who killed themselves had children. Still, I know many parents do commit suicide and I have sympathy for them (the mind is a fragile thing) but usually it's to a lesser degree than for those who didn't have children.

Most of the time I'm just annoyed by the lack of foresight. When you have a child you should be dedicating yourself to that no matter what. Illness, war, mental illness etc are all things that can happen and you should be aware of the risks beforehand.

Sometimes people have children who really shouldn't. My uncle was massively depressed for a decade then turned around and had a child out of the blue.

Are they still alive?

[Faust]

Found out afew hours ago my cousin has committed suicide. Afew months ago he had a job, a toddler and a girlfriend. Then he started drinking a bottle of scotch a day and she kicked him out. Now he has killed himself. All due to not sorting his gooseberry fool out and stop drinking. Sad as strawberry float but hasn't changed my opinion. Such a strawberry floating waste. Feel worse for the ones he's left behind than him. It's only on him at the end of the day though, he made bad choices, and couldn't take responsibility for them.

[Johnny Ryall]

Your view on life seems very black and white.

[Knoyleo]

Then he started drinking a bottle of scotch a day

People don't just start drinking a bottle of scotch a day. Something will have led him to that.

[SEP]

Your view on life seems very black and white.

Seems to have no concept of how mental health works.

[Faust]

Then he started drinking a bottle of scotch a day

People don't just start drinking a bottle of scotch a day. Something will have led him to that.

Always been a drinker but it just spiraled.

Somebody else, I don't think you really understand the nature of choice and being accountable for those choices.

[SEP]

Somebody else, I don't think you really understand the nature of choice and being accountable for those choices.

Oh I do. But I also understand that mental health is an extraordinarily complicated thing, and people's choices often aren't their own, but are instead that of a nagging little voice in their head telling them that they're worthless gooseberry fool who should just give up and die already, and what's the point of living because nobody ever truly loved them, and people are talking behind their back.

And you can't shut this voice out, because it's always there, buried deep in your head. Constantly nagging. Preventing you from sleeping at night. It gets a little quieter when you drink though, and when you drink you pass out, so you can get at least some semblance of sleep. So you drink and drink, because that's pretty much the only way you can see to go on. But then one day the voice really gets to you. After years of being told you're worthless and should die, and of never having proper relaxing sleep, the only way you can see to stop it is suicide.

The world isn't as simple as you seem to think it is, Faust. Unfortunately for you, it takes somebody with an IQ of more than 10 to see that.

[1cmanny1]

This thread is a great way to see what problems particular members have.

The worst sin is naming your daughter Peaches. Who would do that?

[JediDragon05]

This thread is a great way to see what problems particular members have.

The worst sin is naming your daughter Peaches. Who would do that?

Bob Geldof?.

[Faust]

Somebody else, I don't think you really understand the nature of choice and being accountable for those choices.

Oh I do. But I also understand that mental health is an extraordinarily complicated thing, and people's choices often aren't their own, but are instead that of a nagging little voice in their head telling them that they're worthless gooseberry fool who should just give up and die already, and what's the point of living because nobody ever truly loved them, and people are talking behind their back.

And you can't shut this voice out, because it's always there, buried deep in your head. Constantly nagging. Preventing you from sleeping at night. It gets a little quieter when you drink though, and when you drink you pass out, so you can get at least some semblance of sleep. So you drink and drink, because that's pretty much the only way you can see to go on. But then one day the voice really gets to you. After years of being told you're worthless and should die, and of never having proper relaxing sleep, the only way you can see to stop it is suicide.

The world isn't as simple as you seem to think it is, Faust. Unfortunately for you, it takes somebody with an IQ of more than 10 to see that.

You can dissect it as much as you like, but it doesn't change that people have given in and succumbed to it. That in itself is a choice.

And of course peoples choices are their own, unless you are talking very extreme cases. That voice in the back of your head is still your voice, it's not as if you are being possessed by demons.

No one ever said life was meant to be easy, and if they did they lied. Life is a struggle every day, life is more suffering than joy, giving in just proves it really is Darwinism that rules this world in the end, no matter what rules society comes up with to try and structure our lives.

Just found out that it wasn't suicide however, he choked on his vomit blind drunk. In a way it's better than suicide because he didn't choose to take his own life, but still such a waste for him to let alcohol steal his life.

[False]

That Darwinism point is ridiculous.

Natural Selection is still in effect whether or not we have the tools and society to direct our own evolution.