millions die of drug addiction

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Supramundane
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millions die of drug addiction

Post by Supramundane »

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/maddie-just-j ... ories.html

i'm a total softie, i guess i have to admit it. this article moved me deeply. i have lost many close friends to drug and alcohol addiction.

they remain an enigma to me; when i was young i often found their self-destructive edge endearing, but over the years i take it for what it is: slow suicide. what is the despair that is so deep?

i will never fully understand.

i guess it is egotistical too on my part because what i really miss is the glimmer of hope that i held out for them, that they would break free and find a better tomorrow.

i guess some doors must open from the inside and we can only observe.
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: millions die of drug addiction

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Supramundane wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 6:12 am https://www.yahoo.com/gma/maddie-just-j ... ories.html

i'm a total softie, i guess i have to admit it. this article moved me deeply. i have lost many close friends to drug and alcohol addiction.

they remain an enigma to me; when i was young i often found their self-destructive edge endearing, but over the years i take it for what it is: slow suicide. what is the despair that is so deep?

i will never fully understand.

i guess it is egotistical too on my part because what i really miss is the glimmer of hope that i held out for them, that they would break free and find a better tomorrow.

i guess some doors must open from the inside and we can only observe.
I work in the treatment field. Things have improved in some ways, lots of insurances pay for treatment now, and we are beginning to have a bit of an evidence base for what kind of treatment is most effective as well, now if only the field follows it. We are in trouble though, the social state of the country, the anxiety, the opiate saturation, it's a toxic combination. I've lost people too, it's one of the saddest things to watch isn't it?
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Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

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Supramundane
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Re: millions die of drug addiction

Post by Supramundane »

yes my friend it is

the closer they are to you the harder it is to understand

the better you know them the more inscrutable the problem is because you can never seem to get into their head and understand.

there is a method to quit smoking (the Carr method?) someone once told me abut and which i always remembered. it was conceived by someone who couldn't quit smoking no matter how hard he tried. he went to his family doctor and asked why it was so hard to quit. the doctor gave him an answer that jolted him into a satori moment; the doctor said, "you smoke to feel normal".

he couldn't believe it. he was spending all that money and damaging his health to feel --- normal?!?!?

yes, the doctor replied. you need the drug and your body craves it so it can feel normal again.

armed with this realization of how futile it was to smoke he created a method based on this simple fact ---after all if you wish to feel normal, why bother smoking in the first place...? you already feel normal without it!

addiction is complex; it is not only chemical. the victim of addiction must have a psychological predisposition to begin with perhaps? and so it is difficult to buck. for a friend of mine who died of alcoholism, a big part of it was lifestyle; all his friends drank and every time he was with them he was expected to drink. to quit would mean ending ties with all his friends and significant others. he couldn't do it.

kudos to you JD for the work you do!

there is such a thing as Buddhist therapy; does it produce good results or better results than standard therapy?
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Losal Samten
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Re: millions die of drug addiction

Post by Losal Samten »

Supramundane wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 10:10 amthe victim of addiction must have a psychological predisposition to begin with perhaps?
Genetics and epigenetics platy a decent part in it as does neuroplasticity in response to drug use.

There was a fairly comprehensive study on the latter; I think this was it but can't confirm right now.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4046255/
Last edited by Losal Samten on Fri Oct 19, 2018 10:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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kalden yungdrung
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Re: millions die of drug addiction

Post by kalden yungdrung »

Supramundane wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 6:12 am
i'm a total softie, i guess i have to admit it. this article moved me deeply. i have lost many close friends to drug and alcohol addiction.
Tashi delek,

Drugs can be many.

The victims of the Pharma must be counted to general drugs.
We call it legal addiction like alcohol, but never should forget the casualties of wrong remedies or "mistakes".

A good friend of mine, died because the Psychiatry prescribed too strong medicines to that person.
End of the story, she felt down from a high building .
The doctor explained, we never know in the Psychiatry what the prescribed drug will cause.................
We make always a try .
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Losal Samten
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Re: millions die of drug addiction

Post by Losal Samten »

Additionally China has been fairly successful recently working with gene modification and medication to reverse cocaine addiction (in rodent subjects at the moment).

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015 ... 364537.htm
https://academic.oup.com/ijnp/article/21/7/697/4948030
Lacking mindfulness, we commit every wrong. - Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche
འ༔ ཨ༔ ཧ༔ ཤ༔ ས༔ མ༔
ཨོཾ་ཧ་ནུ་པྷ་ཤ་བྷ་ར་ཧེ་ཡེ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།།
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shaunc
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Re: millions die of drug addiction

Post by shaunc »

I'm very fortunate to be sober 30 years from alcoholism. The one thing that we all have in common is that we all know some dead people. Unfortunately it's the nature of the beast.
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kirtu
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Re: millions die of drug addiction

Post by kirtu »

What extent does familial and social trauma play in this? The few people I have known with this problem have all had trauma from family or society in general inflicted upon them.

Kirt
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shaunc
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Re: millions die of drug addiction

Post by shaunc »

kirtu wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 1:41 pm What extent does familial and social trauma play in this? The few people I have known with this problem have all had trauma from family or society in general inflicted upon them.

Kirt
I suppose there's a fair amount of truth in that, there was in my case a certain amount of both family and societal problems, I also believe that breeding comes into it, alcoholism on both sides of my blood lines.
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Losal Samten
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Re: millions die of drug addiction

Post by Losal Samten »

kirtu wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 1:41 pm What extent does familial and social trauma play in this? The few people I have known with this problem have all had trauma from family or society in general inflicted upon them.

Kirt
Probably an important factor that gives the addictive disposition a deep nook to grow from, in giving the person relief from their suffering, versus simply experimenting with drugs and getting addicted out of the sheer pleasure of it.

The latter style being most potent with opiates imo, and if somebody's giving those a good shot they likely have either had an injury or are in a desperate situation to begin with (in the UK at least, since the only viable opiate options are either codeine or heroin; we don't have all the intermediary variants readily available for use unlike the US).
Last edited by Losal Samten on Fri Oct 19, 2018 2:21 pm, edited 8 times in total.
Lacking mindfulness, we commit every wrong. - Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche
འ༔ ཨ༔ ཧ༔ ཤ༔ ས༔ མ༔
ཨོཾ་ཧ་ནུ་པྷ་ཤ་བྷ་ར་ཧེ་ཡེ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།།
ཨཱོཾ་མ་ཏྲི་མུ་ཡེ་སལེ་འདུ།།
narhwal90
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Re: millions die of drug addiction

Post by narhwal90 »

Trauma is often present but by no means universal. I've heard a number of alcoholics talk about family history with caring parents in reasonable neighborhoods and no abuse, then the drinking starts and goes out of control.
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Re: millions die of drug addiction

Post by Misty »

This might be of interest

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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: millions die of drug addiction

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Really dig that video, i hope the evidence from places like Portugal have an influence in the US.


On who is an addict: There is no "addict profile", there are some commonalities, but mostly people are seeing what they want to see when they claim there is a "type", people from all walks of life have issues with substances, you don't see just one kind of person with one kind of life experience, one set of circumstances, or one version of "rock bottom". Obviously people with severe hardships might be more likely to use substances as a coping mechanism.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

-Khunu Lama
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