What is it with this stuff , seems around here every bodys on it , people ruining there lives, you cant find any help and guys that was sucssesful are going bad with it, i remmember when pot was king but people still worked with it , seems the world is just rotting away. just heard of a freinds son that was a good electrition hit rock bottom. sorry i guess im just venting.
Theyre my specialty. Its a breed you dont know until you know em. Hard for outsiders to even fathom how their lives work.
I guess i wont understand any of it , it just seems its getting more and more out of control around here, i feel sorry for these guys ,i hope they can turn there lives around.
Meth sure seems to have knocked out a large segment of the population that would've been functioning people otherwise.
It's nothing new. It's been bad for years everywhere. What is somewhat newer and seems to be big problems everywhere is the Fentanyl, opioid stuff
Heroin is moving in and competing with meth in my region. Its clean for now to let the younger generation that doesnt like meth get a good taste for it once their prescriptions run out and leave them with an itch. In a few years itll be full of fentanyl like up north and theyll all be dying like the crowd i grew up with.
The lot im logging next door is full of needles. Im told theres been 6 overdoses at the next house up the road that narcan has revived. Impressive.
Sure has ruined a generation. Zombies all over.
Meth is at the top of the list for making people crazy. Plus as a added bonus, you get to watch your teeth rot out. Not a pretty sight.
With all the wonderful opportunities in the land of milk and honey [and maple syrup]. What a waste of your life.
Incredibly sad.My neighbor and friend lost his daughter to fentanyl over dose Sunday night.
She left behind 2 children, the oldest in 1st grade.
Hard to pick myself up from that one.
That is just horrible!
The dope is why the thievery is out of control. Hope all you guys with young kids talk to them about a great way to ruin their lives. I talked to my kids when they were in grade school, and none of them use dope now. Some of the kids from my age ruined their lives with that crap, now it is getting more widespread.
It's an insane change in under 30 years. Places are making more and more junk legal and just like in the old Glenn Fry song "It's the lure of easy money - It's got a very strong appeal". Ironically I was offered an in to a completely legal aspect to some of this junk last Sunday. Huge money, freaking huge, more than I have ever seen in my life. Thought about it, but walked away, just can't go there. My wife isn't too happy with me over it but she lived a sheltered life and never saw the things I saw, I won't be a part of walking someone down those roads no matter what the fools who won a popularity contest say is now legal.
Quote from: dustyhat on April 06, 2022, 03:07:54 PM
seems around here every bodys on it
Yup. And/or on their bloody cell phones.
So on those rare occasions when I need to hire someone, I get a local Mennonite. They're not stoned, and their cellphones stay in their trucks until break time or lunch. :)
I live way back in the woods. It is pretty bad here, too, and I stay alert at all times. Sometimes people drive back here (driveway is 1/2 mile long) and if I don't know them, I am extremely wary. Guy drove up a few days ago and asked me if he could catch-and-release-bass fish in the ponds behind my property in exchange for some sheetrock work. What? I don't own the ponds and told him so, nothing more, and he left. I am suspicious about that kind of thing because I feel that I am being scoped out. I watch their eyes to see to see if roving eyes are looking things over. The Sawmill is located 3/4 mile from the house and I have had the roving eye people drive up there before acting like customers.
A couple of years ago I was working in the woodshop at home and a County Deputy Sheriff drove up and told me to be extra vigilant because there was a rash of break-ins into homes that were not visible from the County Road. Every night before I go to bed I make sure that all the doors are locked and deadbolted and keep a pump shotgun standing in the corner by my bed. Woe to anyone breaking into my house at night. I did not used to think about home invasions and that type of thing before but I do now.
I am with southside. Most of my stories cant be made public but i have only ever lived around drugs. Never not been around them in my life.
Im raising children on a road where more people are on meth than not, and where the law is paid to not operate. I cant say outlaws thrive because they spend all their energy on self destruction, but there are regions where they go unpunished and become an insurgency. Scared straight worked better than DARE. All my dead friends had DARE classes. IMO Its best that kids see the horror of the drug life first hand and turn from it of their own free will.
Meth users do lose their sense of reality eventually, forming a sort of schizophrenia, screaming at people who arent there and such. Once gone it doesnt come back when sober. Theyll be in the street wrestling air and screaming at their ghosts by name, i know several imaginary frenemies.
The one across the street periodically thinks he owns my place and i havent paid his rent. Thinks he owns the land beside me that im cutting and i owe him shares. We have had much interaction and ive grown accustomed to it.
Its dangerous at all times, law of the jungle. Youre not ever allowed to be weak or back down or not play the game. Its psychological. 3 burnt houses and one homocide since 2016. Any day could be the day im wrestling for my life so i just live ready for it like any normal combat zone, no big deal. Its people who think theyre safe that get taken easily from behind. We have a gritty peace out here in the snakepit. Everyone is ready to rumble.
Drugs are pumped to america by positive pressure to achieve this lawlessness and ruin without retaliation like if we were bombed. The pump sends fluid to the valve. The valve doesnt suck fluid from the pump by vaccuum. "Its demand for drugs" is disinformation.
This is war where the belligerents are addicted to paying for their unwanted demise.. They all wish they could quit but are defeated by it. the attackers are paid to ruin the targets, by the targets, who fund it by stealing from their neighbors continually. The opium wars have only changed targets. Not techniques.
America did not become the land of epidemics and crises by accident. It is coordinated because at one time, we couldnt be beaten on the battlefield. Well we are getting smoked on the chessboard. All is fair in love and war. Dope and diabetes.
@WDH (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=4370)
You are right, they are feeling you out for future operation. Trying to grow your trust and get themselves invited for tours to meet the dogs. Be on the lookout for trash on your perimeter to indicate they are feeding your dogs.
You better start getting to know them. Its a chess game. Being stern enough to turn them away but friendly enough to collect intel on their associates. Every contact with the enemy should enrich your knowledge. Never let one walk away without milking him for info as long as he/she will dish it. The addict girls will talk even more because the men are whooping them, raping them etc. Their resentment overides their keep quiet instinct.
So this is how you find out whats going on in the enemy camp that steals full time for a profession. In time you can come to know every dirtbag by name, by face, by backstory, by their posture and gait in the dark with a hoody or their tone of voice in the woods from 50 yds. The worst meth abusers talk to themselves which is like a gps tracker in the night. Its when theyre quiet that i grow concerned because i cant locate them.
The more you know about the networks of reluctant associates (they dont like each other but are forced to cooperate to feed the habit) you can advertise your knowledge of one to the other. This is the safest way to confront the trouble, indirectly. You insert information favorable to you into the rumor mill. They get word from another dirtbag, hey so n so knows alot about you and knows people. This gives the dirtbag a deterrent. It makes them uneasy.. Is this dude an undercover cop? Is he related to an investigator? Have conversations that insert the disinfo that best suits your needs. The camera system, your buddy the police chief or game warden nephew etc. Its gotta be subtle to be believed. Not grandious and out of place conversation. You cant do that without 10 and 20 min chats. The most valuable information to advertise is names of people in their network, locating their houses and their kin. For example.
Hi im joe can i fish your pond?
(Dont answer, deflect and chat)
Im danny nice to meet you. (shake) joe who?
Joe johnson
Where ya from joe johnson?
Uhh, i live.. Uhh.. Over on. Up ahh.. Anderson firetower road over there.
Oh really? I thought you lived on shady grove over by the bridge? Didja move? You used to drive a gray dodge. Isnt your brother so n so.
Yeah howd you know that
Oh i just know my surroundings, i like knowing who is who since everyone thinks people on this road are sitting ducks to rob. It helps when my phone dings that the camera picked someone up and then ive gotta figure out who this stranger is. My buddy at the justice center sends me the mug shots every week and i just save em to my phone.
Yeah i appreciate you asking permission to fish but ive got to decline for a number of personal reasons. I gotta get back to work, nice meeting you joe johnson from anderson firetower rd. Be good.
In time you know who is who and who sticks together, who hates who. Say you need to speak to the bad guy face to face, insert a provocation via the grapevine so that they come storming up to your gate for words on your schedule in front of your camera when youve got your dog and pistol and can fight on your terms in daylight and if it goes wrong you had the right to self defense because of location you chose.
Never get baited into their terms at their place. Going to their place is extremely effective at spelling out that you will deal with them if they cross the line, but its a big gamble, very risky. Going to their castle says im not scared of you and its a threat. Some people flight, some people fight. Think hard about when this is a good move and be very in control of your body language, surroundings, distance if you ever have to go to them.
The message needing conveyed is 'we can have war or we can have peace. I am very capable of both. Now choose.' If your warface looks legit they will choose peace.
Theres atleast $5k in scrap laying out back with none missing to prove these methods work. Kevin 2 doors down got robbed 2 nights ago. Knows who did it, did nothing.
Thats a green light. Huge mistake. He wont make war. Now comes the flood of ants carrying off his stuff while he is right there in bed.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13296/No_Tresspassing_sign.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1423953064)
That would be one of the benefits of owning an excavator. Would not hurt to have a few hogs too.
Chickens, AKA Barnyard Buzzards, nobody has ever suspected the chickens..... :D Those eggs are something though.... :D
The young woman who lives with her boy friend just a house away from here had it tough. Her dad died on the bottle and her mother OD's on the hard stuff a few years before him. She has a twin and another sibling. But her grandparents (both sides) where good to her, they remodelled her father's place for her and probably bought her some wheels. She works and boy friend to. She's clean and smart and no wild parties up there. Never here a peep, not even a squealed tire. Saw them out on their porch enjoying the sun yesterday afternoon, 62 F in the afternoon it was. Pretty warm for April up here on the glacier. ;)
Quote from: SwampDonkey on April 10, 2022, 04:09:30 AM
The young woman who lives with her boy friend just a house away from here had it tough. Her dad died on the bottle and her mother OD's on the hard stuff a few years before him. She has a twin and another sibling. But her grandparents (both sides) where good to her, they remodelled her father's place for her and probably bought her some wheels. She works and boy friend to. She's clean and smart and no wild parties up there. Never here a peep, not even a squealed tire. Saw them out on their porch enjoying the sun yesterday afternoon, 62 F in the afternoon it was. Pretty warm for April up here on the glacier. ;)
Thank God for grandparents although it is not fair for them to have do devote their retirement years to do what didn't get done. This young woman was lucky. I should know.
I'm guessing that woman was smart enough she didn't want any part of the road her parents went down. Hats off to her and her grandparents. I've seen it where grandparents help big time to no avail.
I've had multiple friends get sucked into the junk. After trying to help several of them unsuccessfully I've taken a different approach. Now I wait for signs they actually want to make themselves better for them not someone else and ask for help.
Unfortunately when people get sucked in it's like watching a prolonged suicide it just drags on and doesn't usually end well.
Quote from: moodnacreek on April 10, 2022, 08:57:02 AMThank God for grandparents although it is not fair for them to have do devote their retirement years to do what didn't get done. This young woman was lucky. I should know.
Yeah, for sure. On her dad's side, her grampy is a retired farmer and that was about 5 years ago. And he has bad heart issues right now, and her grandmother now has dementia. His two boys, one being her dad, never amounted to much. Can't say I don't know why, put they had opportunities. The grandfather liked the bottle to but was more responsible, he was part of a trio around town that thought they was something. ;) One of that trio lost everything he had in the end for tax default. Left his widow with nothing. He was suppose to be the big investor with the smarts. I never saw the man sober in 40 years, drove drunk the whole nine yards. Cops never took his license, immunity I guess, who knows. There's always a history, if you want to look. As you can see, it's not just peaches and cream. ;)
My eldest Grandson's girlfriend was raised the very same way other than both parents are assumed to be alive, but she has no clues as to whereabouts. She and her younger sister are now with the grandparents, both are the sweetest kids you would ever want to meet.
Well, i never expected this thread to go this far, but it seems we all have a bigger epidimic than what the gov. tells us we have, but all the responses tells me its everywhere, reading responses of people that can overcome it , it is good to hear , and just maby someone out there reading all this just maby can choose the right roads.
Dustyhat I thought the same thing as far as maybe this thread will help people somehow. I'll openly admit I don't get out much and keep my circle of friends small. When something something starts disrupting my bubble it tells me it's real.
The junk has absolutely no conscience from what I've seen, it effects all types people from broken homes right up through "successful" business owners. Been to the funerals of both.
The question I always ask is why in this day and age with all the information out there does someone do it for the first time?
Just don't get it.
Not to point fingers: With overdose deaths at over 100,000 nationally a person would have to have their head in the sand to not know what's happening in the drug arena?
It's not just a backwoods, nor an urban ghetto issue!
It permeates our entire society, meaning all 50 states.
It's certainly not limited to meth heads. Honestly, it's a touchy subject (not for us, as we did treatment for a living) so many families have been touched by this all over our country.
It's also far from something new. My first experience working with drug abusers was in 1974. Even then they drove to FL and stood in line at pill mills to get money and drugs both. Yet newspapers write that up in more recent years like it just began. But there was a time when it was not around, such as most of the entire early part of my life. In HS we didn't know anything about drugs because nobody did them.
At least 45 years ago it's been now, I've seen classmates go down the wrong path. By the time I got to high school there were at least 6 of them missing in action. And before high school there were special guests speakers talking about drugs and tobacco use. One of those was a preacher, he wasn't talking about the bible, just the hard facts of drugs. Oh, it's been around a long time. People keep getting creative and reckless with what they use to get their fixes. So new chemicals get abused that were not the years before. Then besides pharma wanting a piece of the action and using doctors to push hard dope for legal profit. They've known the stuff was addictive for many generations.
I think not enough is made of the legal opiates that doctors are prescribing. I know plenty of people that are as stoned out of their minds as any meth head, but they go to a clinic to get their fix.
Growing up in our rural area, my experience was that marijauna was very available, and other drugs only popped up on occasion. I saw cocaine and LSD a few times, but pretty much just pot and liquor were the mainstays. About the time I was getting away from all of that, meth was starting to hit the scene. I'm glad God got me out of there before I got into any of that, I was a "recreational user" but some of that stuff is so addictive I think everyone that messes with it ends up an addict. The availability of meth and opiates now is frightening, the stuff is everywhere.
What a topic!
I was a meth addict for many years and can hopefully answer some of the questions, ideas, thoughts and what not.
I started smoking pot in my freshman year, I would say to be cool or fit in. The same year I started with speed in pill form and loved them. Somehow I could stay focused enough to get away with life and nobody knew any better. By my sophomore year it turned to meth. Meth turned things into a daily habit that costed money. I was locked up for being a little thief several times, before ending up dealing to pay for it. I will freely say right now that I should have been shot dead for the person that I was!
I graduated high school right at 16 years old while incarcerated in a work ranch with a GED, mainly so I didn't have to go to school any more and could permanently work in the woods until my release when I was 18.
Newly released, I went to work and then straight back to meth, stole a semi, went to prison, got out went right back to meth.......etc. etc. Same routine with different stories until 2004 when I'd just had enough and left everything behind and moved to Montana. OUT OF PURE STUPID LUCK I WASN'T AROUND METH FOR AWHILE OR THIS MIGHT BE A DIFFERENT STORY! It took some time to get the feelings/desires over with and I somehow managed to stay clean long enough to build back some confidence and self respect.
After a felony dui up here I was sent to prison and a 6 month live-in rehab called the WATCH Program. Afterwards I went back to drinking again until August 3rd 2012. The ranch that I worked for beforehand hired me back and had someone drive me around to do my job with the condition that I'd quit drinking. They hired me a co-worker that other that the basic chores he was to drive me around so I could turn wrenches, weld, fix something or whatever. I'd cracked a beer after work one night and the boss called saying my driver would pick me up, that we had a fire. I slammed the beer and went to the fire and did my job. While on that fire that night I decided that I was tired of the game and the only way to fix it was to quit! I've never looked back since.
The one biggest thing that I've learned through all of this is not that I'm this kind or that kind of an addict, but I'm just a flat out addict, meaning that I have an addictive personality. Whatever I decide to do I'm going full tilt with it. I have to stay busy or I get bored, complacent, irritable and a few more, but nothing good.
I can't change who I was, I can only keep working on today and tomorrow. My biggest piece of advice for anyone wanting away from it is to find something to do and STAY BUSY. Set goals that you can achieve and stick with it until you do. Teach yourself that you can succeed again and go to bed tired from work. That's the one and only thing that has worked for me.
I certainly can't blame anyone for saying I was a piece of crap and there are some that may say I still am for what I did back then. I can't change that and don't blame anyone for any bad feelings.
If anyone has questions, please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer them as best I can.
I'm glad to hear you've turned the page justallen1. I wish you nothing but the best from here forward. Keep up the hard work
I should have added that I decided to post this for the purpose of possibly someone reading this that's going through what I put myself through can relate and hopefully find a way clear of it themselves.
We all say things differently, so if the way I say things can help one person out there, then cool. 8)
Allan, thanks for sharing that! I agree with what you say about addictive personalities- I see it all over in my own family, and in myself, too. It takes different forms, there are a lot substance abuse issues, but also a lot of gambling addiction. Different stuff gets people going, I'm glad for one that the thought of losing money gambling puts such a pit in my stomach that it never got a chance to give me a rush😊 That said, I have stuff that I am drawn to like a bug to a light that would ruin my life too, if I went after it. I'm glad you're figuring yourself out, and how to keep yourself pointed the right direction!
It's easy to blame society, parenting, weak personalities or whatever makes you feel better for the problem but much of it lies in the amazing ability of the drug itself which is a total human concoction. Humans have never seen such an evil drug before.
I used to buy lumber from a large [for the place and time ] sawmill. My contact was a good person, totally honest, took care of me, likeable to say the least though maybe could have used a more progressive upbringing. Probably had addictive propensities to start with but he told me once he'd tried meth that it was so fine for him that being straight was like not being alive. Despite being in an upper income [again for the time and place] family he found himself with felonies, prison terms and no family.
I guess my point is empathy is appropriate and what ever we are doing to try to change things doesn't seem to be working.
Allan, thanks for sharing your story. I really hope it is read by many and helps spread the help.
I have lost to many ppl I know to alcohol or drug related accidents.
Quote from: bluthum on April 10, 2022, 08:02:25 PM
I guess my point is empathy is appropriate and what ever we are doing to try to change things doesn't seem to be working.
That and realizing that there but for the grace of God, go any one of us.
QuoteAllan, thanks for sharing your story. I really hope it is read by many and helps spread the help.
x2.
The best counselors are former addicts. Addictions start with a bad choice, recoveries start with a U-turn heading in the right direction.
Thank You justallen1 for opening your heart and sharing your life's experiences. Sadly every one of us reading this have had or have the potential of having family issues with this dreaded tragedy.
That took courage to put that out there Allan. I respect you for sharing that. I bet you reach more people than you imagine.
Thank you all for the good words.
I feel it's something that needs to be talked about, by everyone.
I'm betting that I find more folks that agree with my thinking on this site than I have in quite a few settings telling my opinions on stopping this mess.
My #1 gripe is our criminal system. I've said that from the first time that I was ever locked up as an adult and I still say it today. There is no punishment in our jails and prisons other than the time lost. When I started going to the juvenile hall at 14 years old I thought I'd hit the lottery. We had great food, cable TV, I could hang out with my friends and on and on. THERE WAS NO PUNISHMENT or reason to worry about going back there.
After that I saw a work ranch, jails, state prisons and federal prison. If a guy can hold himself in check just a little bit and show that you weren't going to be a victim or mark, it's not hard to get by real easy. To be fair I was mostly in low level prisons. I wasn't a killer, rapist or child molester, so I could go through life in there without the problems that some see from staff or other cons.
My #2 gripe is that addiction is a business in this country. In my opinion they don't want to fix the problem, think of all the folks that would be out of work!
I've been through every last kind of treatment, counseling, AA and NA that there is. AA and NA can be a great tool in getting your life together, IF and only if you want to change and you can find a good group, as for the rest that I've seen it's a slight inconvenience and the county and state where you live make money.
Please know for sure that I'm not anti government, I just feel that we're doing it wrong and have been for quite some time.
The last rehab I was in was a 6 month court ordered live-in facility and was a great program that did things different with lots of successes. To be sent there you had to be a multiple offender and have a felony DUI. While there we were all asked once what could "the system" do differently that might work better. It was unanimous that stricter laws sooner and tougher incarceration facilities would work for most. It was said to cut all financial aide to drug offenders, it was unanimous to shut down methadone clinics. Bottom line is that there are too many chances given, with little consequences if and when caught.
I will add that I don't in any way blame anyone else for the things that I've done and who I was. I had people all around me that were always there to help me out, offers that I should have taken. I was never abused, beaten or mistreated and I have no excuses. I've had great jobs, been a boss a couple times, owned 2 businesses....this can happen to anyone really easy if you let it.
Just so you know, you are an inspiration!!!!! Thank you!!!!
I have wanted to move to montana for quite some time. I do plan on visiting and would love to get to know more people in the area.
Allan is in a great area out there, too! A hidden corner that the world has passed on by👍👍
I'm in the south east corner of Montana and absolutely love it.
I work on an 80,000 acre ranch that has decent weather (for Montana) good hunting and they don't mind that I make money on the side sawing lumber and this ranch is the reason that I bought my road graders.
I'm certainly not griping any.
Out of vet school I looked at a job in Circle Mt. How far are from there Allan?
Quote from: Nebraska on April 11, 2022, 10:34:27 PM
Out of vet school I looked at a job in Circle Mt. How far are from there Allan?
I'm guessing probably about 150 miles.
Allan, as the others said, thank you for opening up. That takes a massive, massive amount of courage and confidence. Policy makers truly should be listening to folks like yourself who can offer such insight. My hat is off to you sir.
I lost a cousin the same age as me 15 years ago to overdose.
Left behind 2 young children and a wife he was separated from, she was inconsolable at the funeral.
I don't know what he OD on, never saw or asked about the tox report. He had a good job too as CNC operator making custom prosthetic limbs for wounded warriors in Braintree MA.
It was very sad, and happened very quickly -though he was always interested in getting high I never thought he was into the deadly drugs.
JJ
Quote from: SwampDonkey on April 10, 2022, 01:57:04 PM
At least 45 years ago it's been now, I've seen classmates go down the wrong path. By the time I got to high school there were at least 6 of them missing in action. And before high school there were special guests speakers talking about drugs and tobacco use. One of those was a preacher, he wasn't talking about the bible, just the hard facts of drugs. Oh, it's been around a long time. People keep getting creative and reckless with what they use to get their fixes. So new chemicals get abused that were not the years before. Then besides pharma wanting a piece of the action and using doctors to push hard dope for legal profit. They've known the stuff was addictive for many generations.
My perspective as mentioned was for a high school student who graduated in 1961, being myself. My home town had a large section of Mexican-Americans who began settling there when the US railroads were going west in the mid 1800's. In my own youth there were a very few in that group who used weed-meaning the kind common back then not the powerful stuff that's common now. We also had classes in history, really. We knew of drug use in Asian cultures from that. Beyond those e.g.'s, drugs were not known of in common use in my state or city-excepting alcohol of course.
I can vaguely remember a KS Highway Patrolman who came to my HS and gave a drug talk-for100% of us it was most of what then knew about drugs, period!
In the military I was around a number of users and saw what it does to people. Alcoholics, I've seen my share, top say the least, but not in my own household ever, except uncles who came around.
My first work in education was teaching shop classes for male juveniles who were brough to me. At that time in 1974, many used weed, quite common was huffing-gasoline, solvents, glues and paints. I then transferred to a job as a counselor in the tech school at what was the 2nd minimum security prison in the entire USA in 1976. I had several hats there, including a sit down interview with every resident who came there to determine their educational track or not, most were young and needed training, a few were there too little time to take use of it though. Many/most were substance abusers, mostly alcohol, but very commonly prescription drugs, almost never heroin. Opioids weren't the issue nor was crack out yet. Later, I returned to treatment work as superintendent of a juvy treatment program. By that time crack babies were coming into our place as 14 year old's and up to our 17 yr old limit, mostly we had ages 14-16 first timers. Weed was common for most and we still saw huffers.
When I was a counselor again in public tech schools I periodically used speakers from the KY Alcohol Speakers Bureau, who were 100% recovering alcoholics. Many of my adult students had the problem. Most of our male night students were Vietnam war vets and many female adult students were their exe's or spouses, not to lean too far there, either.
Quote from: barbender on April 10, 2022, 03:21:29 PM
I think not enough is made of the legal opiates that doctors are prescribing. I know plenty of people that are as stoned out of their minds as any meth head, but they go to a clinic to get their fix.
Growing up in our rural area, my experience was that marijauna was very available, and other drugs only popped up on occasion. I saw cocaine and LSD a few times, but pretty much just pot and liquor were the mainstays. About the time I was getting away from all of that, meth was starting to hit the scene. I'm glad God got me out of there before I got into any of that, I was a "recreational user" but some of that stuff is so addictive I think everyone that messes with it ends up an addict. The availability of meth and opiates now is frightening, the stuff is everywhere.
While I tend to agree with you it's very easy to point fingers that don't solve a thing. My current knee doc was also my hip doc for two replacements. his policy for most is that you walk out the day you get a new hip-which I did. That hospital pharmacy gave me a large bottle of an oxycontin/opoid with 200 tablets each time. They make you feel crappy once you get past a few days of surgical wound pain plus constipation issues. I flush most of whats in the bottle-not because I'm a macho pain tolerant guy or anything special. I just didn't need them all, maybe some do need more? My septic system has very little pain. My ortho doc is a world class surgeon and me thinks he's got enough sense to know what he's doing.
The surgeon who did my "butt job" gave me a few morphine tabs and believe me when I say I wanted more based on pain not in abusive way, but it was a weekend and none to be had! I've heard women say it's more painful than even their first childbirth! Thats was in 1990 before the opoid oxy thing came around.
Only lately have drug stores who fill massive numbers of Rx's in tiny burgs have come under scrutiny. This is such a huge problem in our society there is flat out no way to discuss it fully here.
It does touch, most all of our lives in some fashion.
In my county if you get jury duty, odds are you'll never see the courtroom. OTOH, Our meager court news page has common place DUI's, various drugs and drug paraphernalia. Obits here and elsewhere we see way too many young adults.
Many in our society see legalized drugs as the direction to a solution. That doesn't work for my mind.
I don't mean to paint with too broad of a brush about doctors over-prescribing pain meds. I know people that absolutely need them, and especially people that have surgeries and such. Maybe it is that the docs don't get enough education or there aren't robust enough procedures in place...all I know is I've seen up close some cases of people that are prescribed WAY too much of the stuff.
From my Finland Swedish horizon it looks like this:
We Swedes in Österbotten have noticeable less drug and alcohol abuse than the Finnish mayority population. We have a very significantly lower suicide rate and rate of mental illness. The average lifespan is several years longer among us and the average nomber of healthy years is at least 10 years longer. Financially we are statistically as well off as the Finns though on average we have a higher percentage of our money tied up in land and buildings and less in other assets.
What puts us apart from the Finns is that we tend to live in villages where everybody know each other. If you move to another village there will always be a few friends of friends living there. Rich and poor live side by side in our villages and get along with each others in our daily life. The successful businessman may have a best friend next door who is an odd jobs man struggling to make ends meet.
Looking at the highly mobile and highly segregated and highly anonomous sink or swim American society I think that is a clue to the push factor. Pushing lots of people into drug use because they live their rootless uncertain lives in constant fear of not being up to standards and dropping out of their carreer and their class and their neighbourhood and their friends. With drugs and the drug gandgs as one of very few alternatives.
The pull factor I know nothing about but justallan11 makes points that correspond surprisingly well with the story of an aquintance of mine who was a full time drug addict and jailbird in a big city before he made up his mind and sobered up and moved back to his father's home village and got a job and saved money to set up a small business of his own.
Hats of to you two!
justallan1, it takes courage to get out of the cycle you were in AND courage to share that story publicly. Thank you for sharing and helping put some perspective on it. Some people can and do change if the addiction doesn't catch up with them first.
As an educator, I was "voluntold" I would be part of a school-based team to work with students with substance problems. Later I became more enthusiastically involved. We saw we helped about 10% of the students we engaged with. Another 10% or so later have told us that we planted the seed of change that later made a difference in their lives. The other 80% have had varying degrees of success - some are addicts, dealers, habitual felons and sadly some are dead. One common thread I saw was that those students lacked self discipline in other areas of their lives too.
Allan mentioned something to the effect that addicts won't/can't change unless they WANT to change. I fully agree. The change has to come from within. Learning to manage one's own addictive personality takes time and an inner strength. It is tragic that some never have the time to find that strength, the substance abuse either puts them in to a vicious cycle that's never broken or they are on a one way street to death. Often that vicious cycle starts early and permanently shortens the trajectory of a young person's life.
The reason we, myself included, have difficulty understanding an addict is we have different values. When we measure an addict against our values, we have a hard time understanding why they do what they do. Doesn't mean their values are valid, misguided as those values are, those values define the reality of an addict. Those values can put a hardened shell around an addict that is hard to break by someone who doesn't know what's happening.
Put the skewed values, an addictive personality, lack of internal courage and lack of self discipline with the highly addictive synthetic substances and there's a recipe for wide spread addiction. Layer on a society that is unfortunately more tolerant of behaviors that lead to addiction and we have the mess we are in now.
nearly all the accidental ODs we see are drugs like fentanyl and heroin bought off the street. I get called names daily for refusing to prescribe narcotics, unless needed. the person saying, they need them does not count, but then you get a bad review. oh well. we give 12 pain pills at a time, and they need to see their own doc for more. some come to get pain pills to sell on the street. a norco 5 goes for 5 bucks. 7.5 is $7.50. ect. the combination with other sedative drugs potentiates the risk.
TW,
We had several foreign exchange students including a Swede, 2 Finns, A Noggie, 2 Germans and a Serb. All were 16-17 when they came to spend a school year with us. My wife was an area placement rep and we dealt with many more hosting parties and counseling and sometimes moving to new families or home if needed. One thing they noticed and advised us was the different attitude about alcohol in their countries where they had teen bars and were allowed to go have a beer or two. They told us in America the kids drank to get drunk. It was illegal and they were pretty much in as much trouble for one beer as a 6 pack. In Europe they said getting drunk was more socially unacceptable and the kids would not put up with it so they were pretty self-policing.
I worked and lived a couple of years in Southern Norway and we had problems with druggies there. Some camped in the woods behind our construction project. There were many organizations that would help them and they would take advantage of them for a while then go rejoin their pals using and abusing again.
I think you make a good point about the closed society and small villages where everybody knows everybody. Very little goes on that is not quickly common knowledge and there is a better or at least more personal support group.
I have all the respect in the world for reformed addicts of any description like Allen. As he mentioned there were many opportunities and groups available to help but many individuals never took them up on their offers.
Unfortunately, I am not a hugely tolerant or patient person and if I encounter anyone harming or threatening harm to me, my loved ones or friends there is a good chance they will not get another chance to turn themselves around. I know there is always a chance for everyone but I don't think it is fair to everyone else to repeatedly continue to suffer abuse from them until that time comes. If I am on the jury called to judge a thief trying to support his habit at others expense I am not likely to be too forgiving of them and if the property owner is charged with defending what he worked for I am probably going to be very tolerant of his rights and actions.
Quote from: doc henderson on April 14, 2022, 04:39:33 PM
nearly all the accidental ODs we see are drugs like fentanyl and heroin bought off the street. I get called names daily for refusing to prescribe narcotics, unless needed. the person saying, they need them does not count, but then you get a bad review. oh well. we give 12 pain pills at a time, and they need to see their own doc for more. some come to get pain pills to sell on the street. a norco 5 goes for 5 bucks. 7.5 is $7.50. ect. the combination with other sedative drugs potentiates the risk.
And this very thing (trying to source drugs via medical visits) was going on in the 1970's when I first began to have contact with drug abusers via my work. I had many inmates who did the FL pill lines way back then.
Prior to my work in corrections or treatment the only abusers I knew were sitting on a bar stool.
By the time my educator gig ended in 2002, I had a few drug using HS students, not many. Mostly it was weed or weed and Rx pills.
I will say this, in any contacts I have with my own medical providers, in particular when we are new to each other, I make it very clear I'm not chasing pain meds but a solution, of sorts to my malady.
With the Finnish example vs. Swedish, I wonder if the Russian occupation of territory realities among Finland's society are at play?
I just finished a book By a Polish journalist wherein he travels extensively in the eastern far reaches of Russia and the alcohol abuse he talks of often is far beyond anything I've ever seen or read about. That said, I'm trained to work with alcohol abusers and have extensive training.
Quote from: SawyerTed on April 14, 2022, 03:20:08 PM
justallan1, it takes courage to get out of the cycle you were in AND courage to share that story publicly. Thank you for sharing and helping put some perspective on it. Some people can and do change if the addiction doesn't catch up with them first.
As an educator, I was "voluntold" I would be part of a school-based team to work with students with substance problems. Later I became more enthusiastically involved. We saw we helped about 10% of the students we engaged with. Another 10% or so later have told us that we planted the seed of change that later made a difference in their lives. The other 80% have had varying degrees of success - some are addicts, dealers, habitual felons and sadly some are dead. One common thread I saw was that those students lacked self discipline in other areas of their lives too.
Allan mentioned something to the effect that addicts won't/can't change unless they WANT to change. I fully agree. The change has to come from within. Learning to manage one's own addictive personality takes time and an inner strength. It is tragic that some never have the time to find that strength, the substance abuse either puts them in to a vicious cycle that's never broken or they are on a one way street to death. Often that vicious cycle starts early and permanently shortens the trajectory of a young person's life.
The reason we, myself included, have difficulty understanding an addict is we have different values. When we measure an addict against our values, we have a hard time understanding why they do what they do. Doesn't mean their values are valid, misguided as those values are, those values define the reality of an addict. Those values can put a hardened shell around an addict that is hard to break by someone who doesn't know what's happening.
Put the skewed values, an addictive personality, lack of internal courage and lack of self discipline with the highly addictive synthetic substances and there's a recipe for wide spread addiction. Layer on a society that is unfortunately more tolerant of behaviors that lead to addiction and we have the mess we are in now.
Very well put! One seriously true aspect of counselor training (thrown at us often!) is that you never ever impose your own value system upon the client.
Kudos to this post!!!
When I worked in corrections, most of our inmates in a minimum security setting came from what we all call working alcoholics. Once they become "dried out", they were by far easier to be around than some of our own co-workers to be truthful. They turn back into their nice self.
In minimum security, inmates tend to be first offenders and young. In todays world drugs are very likely more commonly seen in that group than my day.
In my own e.g. above, you can see that my ortho doc giving me 200 oxy pills has zero chance of becoming an issue as I lack an addictive personality. My doctor has to know that among his patients there are those who are different. I'm giving him that much sense based on who and where he is situated. He has that training and knows people well enough to make the call on Rx issues.
Quote from: WV Sawmiller on April 14, 2022, 07:03:14 PM
TW,
We had several foreign exchange students including a Swede, 2 Finns, A Noggie, 2 Germans and a Serb. All were 16-17 when they came to spend a school year with us. My wife was an area placement rep and we dealt with many more hosting parties and counseling and sometimes moving to new families or home if needed. One thing they noticed and advised us was the different attitude about alcohol in their countries where they had teen bars and were allowed to go have a beer or two. They told us in America the kids drank to get drunk. It was illegal and they were pretty much in as much trouble for one beer as a 6 pack. In Europe they said getting drunk was more socially unacceptable and the kids would not put up with it so they were pretty self-policing.
I worked and lived a couple of years in Southern Norway and we had problems with druggies there. Some camped in the woods behind our construction project. There were many organizations that would help them and they would take advantage of them for a while then go rejoin their pals using and abusing again.
I think you make a good point about the closed society and small villages where everybody knows everybody. Very little goes on that is not quickly common knowledge and there is a better or at least more personal support group.
I have all the respect in the world for reformed addicts of any description like Allen. As he mentioned there were many opportunities and groups available to help but many individuals never took them up on their offers.
Unfortunately, I am not a hugely tolerant or patient person and if I encounter anyone harming or threatening harm to me, my loved ones or friends there is a good chance they will not get another chance to turn themselves around. I know there is always a chance for everyone but I don't think it is fair to everyone else to repeatedly continue to suffer abuse from them until that time comes. If I am on the jury called to judge a thief trying to support his habit at others expense I am not likely to be too forgiving of them and if the property owner is charged with defending what he worked for I am probably going to be very tolerant of his rights and actions.
We ran into that "hard to like" individual all the time when I ran a juvy treatment program. We had tolerance, but it was logical. Our boys were mostly 14-17 group and typically the first timers. Of course many first timers had many LEO situs long before they were sent to treatment-mostly when social workers were too lazy to do their jobs. It's no accident that among KY state jobs, social work and juvenile treatment lead the way in turnover. it often involves working with kids who've become very unlikeable, irrational and any other negative adjective you can think up.
Physical restraint was a near daily event. More than a few kids will stay imprinted in my mind forever. But we weren't there to like them, of course, which is great cause some had learned long ago to not trust anyone nor be willing to open themselves up to help.
Our program was based on a system of rewards and penalties for behavior. Some who judged our approach would say we were far too strict, but in fact my program was the least restrictive or punitive in the entire state programs by design. One lady told me were too gregarious! Maybe in her eyes but should she have seen a typical lockup program it might have got her really flustered. Many of our kids attended public school, which was not true mostly in juvy treatment here.