BS: Role Model Drug users

Subject: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Pro Life
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 07:21 AM

A United Nations report is calling for tougher punishments for drug-using celebrities such as Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse.

Not a day goes by you read some story about celebrities caught on film or staggering onto stage full of drugs.

Authorities are being too lenient on stars,it sends out the wrong message to teenagers.

They get more lenient responses by the judiciary and law enforcemen.
There should not be any difference between a celebrity who is breaking the law and non-celebrities.

Not only does it give the wrong messages to young people, who are often quite impressionable, but the wider public become cynical about the responses to drug offenders.


Authorities should ensure that public celebrities who violate drug laws are made accountable.

All I ever read is some judge telling that weed Doherty, next time I will send you to prison, when is next time ?

Kate Moss has saw her public profile gain a boast due to her involvement in drugs.

---

Please remember to use one consistent name when you post. If you post under a variety of names, you risk having all your posts deleted.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 07:43 AM

In the end, it's each individual's prerogative to mess up their lives if that's what they want to do. Some do it with drugs, some with alcohol, some with overeating and some with self- loathing.

Far worse than these are the ones who arrogate to themselves the right to mess up other peoples lives- with bullets, fast cars, hate, physical or sexual abuse, abuse of power, bullying and lying. Of course, there is sometimes an overlap between the two.

Lets sort out the second lot first, Doherty is rich enough to fund his own tratment. He can pop himself up to cloud level, for all I care - as long as he's chauffeur driven.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Cop-on
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 06:36 AM

I'm fed up with celebrities appearing on chat shows telling us of their drug habits and how they have reformed. The are praised and applauded and a week later they are in the news again for drug related activites.

---

Please remember to use one consistent name when you post. If you post under a variety of names, you risk having all your posts deleted.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Beer
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 07:07 AM

I'll repeat as I have said before in some other thread. There is something wrong with people who go on these T.V. talk shows and air their dirty laundry.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: jacqui.c
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 08:48 AM

I think you're right GUEST,Pro Life.

Anyone who makes their money targeting an audience of young people should, IMHO, be aware of the responsibility that they have taken on. The reason that they can afford these excesses and the subsequent drying out treatments is mainly because of their young fans. These kids look up to their idols, who are lauded by the media as being next door to God, until they fall flat on their faces. In return for the advantages that that audience base gives they should be setting a good example to that audience.

Problem there is that the kids will copy their idols in most things, even to the extent, for some, of drinking and drug taking. 'Amy Winehouse does it - how can it be wrong?'

Maybe if they set a better example there might be less of the problems that PMB refers to.

I do thing that a stronger deterrent for those who have an influence on the young is in order - if nothing else it might show the kids the consequences of that type of behaviour.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Flash Company
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 10:12 AM

Anyone out there read 'Really the Blues' by Mezz Mezzrow?
I did in the late '50s. This is a tome in complete praise of marijuana,
but certainly did not have the effect of making me into a user. The thing is, although Mezz is still praising pot right to the last page, he also details the way it led him to opium, and the ordeal of 'cold turkey' to get straight again. No Thanks!
Someone said in one of the papers today that anyone who thinks that either Pete Doherty or Amy Winehouse in their present state are 'glamorous' must be using a different dictionary to the rest of us

FC

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: pdq
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 10:32 AM

At one time, basketball player Charles Barkley was making the news for drinking, womanizing and fist fights.

When asked if he thought his behavior made him a good role model for his younger fans, Barkley retorted:
"I'm not a role model, I'm a basketball player".

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 11:21 AM

I kind of agree with the Barkley thinking. Youngsters may well idolize - and idealize - the celebrities that are pushed on them so relentlessly. I think it is sad and cynical, because it is the entertainment industry that is doing it - and only in order to make money.

However. When it becomes known that the celebrity is a user, it is up to the parents of those targeted youngsters to stay current with the situation and to point out the consequences, whether the consequences are swinging-door rehab centers, court appearances, late night talk show ridicule or death itself.

IMO

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 11:39 AM

I agree with Ebbie but I still think they belong in jail for breaking the law - like every kid picked up on the streets or at a party whose parents don't have the money or the lawyers to get them off and into temporary rehab.

As to dealers - I believe we should have open season on them, from the smallest to the kings. Maybe even a bounty for killing one.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 11:48 AM

I agree, Sins.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:01 PM

"As to dealers - I believe we should have open season on them, from the smallest to the kings. Maybe even a bounty for killing one."

My son was what you call a 'dealer'. He occasionally sold stuff to people because:-

1) he'd been ensnared into the drugs scene himself and, at the age of 15, needed money to pay for his own supply - money which he had no other means of obtaining.
2) he was terrified of the guy who gave him the stuff and who insisted with a baseball bat that he go out and sell it.

I think that makes him deserving of an element of sympathy snd understanding, not summary execution. And, of course, if your brand of 'justice' had been meted out to him, he would never have had the opportunity to become the reformed character he now is.

I understand where you're coming from, Sinsull and Ebbie, but sometimes it's a good idea to engage the brain before making sweeping generalisations.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: jacqui.c
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:07 PM

The problem is that a lot of these kids don't have parents who are going to watch out for them that way, which is, maybe, why they idolise these celebrities in that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:25 PM

I remember when Bert Jansch brought out It Don't Bother Me - there was a packet of gold leaf fags on the the table on the album cover. All of us dumb little folkie kids started smoking gold leaf. i was 15 0r 16 at the time. You can't really legislate for kids being daft. When you're a kid, its part of the job description.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Beer
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:51 PM

Hell I was smoking at 9. It was the thing to do because other kids were doing it.
Cigarettes that is.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:52 PM

Bravely said Backwoodsman, there is no simple answer to the problems of drug abuse and those who scream "death to the dealers" have no comprehension of drug addiction or dealing with the consequences.
In our area there has been a police purge on street dealers.
The addicts who can't or won't go on the methadone programme are desperate. Prices have gone through the roof and young girls are prostitutiing themselves to get their fix.

Does anyone care ................do they fuck!!
When it happens to your own son or daughter......then you'll care.......Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Peace
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:56 PM

It's a sad world when a kid's 'role model' is someone from the entertainment business.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Megan L
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:59 PM

The question is Sinsull what do we cut of to prove we bagged one?

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 01:35 PM

"...staggering onto stage full of drugs." Half the time it's booze anyway. So are these would-be vigilantes on for burning down supermarkets?

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:00 PM

Thanks Ake.

It's a difficult one, and there's no easy answer. But whatever, murder is murder, and I find it appalling that someone would suggest it as a remedy.

Many drug-abusers (who generally become involved in drugs at a very young age, influenced and encouraged by much older, and very cunning, adults) resort to dealing on some level in order to provide for their own needs AND to avoid severe 'punishment' by those same adults who have taken control of them.

I strongly suspect that, if Sinsull and Ebbie made the awful discovery, as I did, that one of their children was involved in drug-use and/or dealing, their attitude and their solution to the problem would be VERY different the the one above.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:09 PM

Wrong, Backwoodsman. Had you read any of my posts over the years you would know that my son was involved in serious drugs by the age of 16 and a dealer by 18. I WOULD NOT MOURN THE LOSS OF HIS FIRST DEALER NOR WOULD i BLAME THE PARENTS OF THE CHILDREN HE HAS DESTROYED WITH DRUGS IF THEY TOOK HIM DOWN.
bEFORE i GO ANY FURTHER - i LOVE MY SON. i PRAY EVERY DAY FOR HIS RECOVERY. aND RESIGN MYSELF EVERY NIGHT TO HIS DEATH WHICH WILL BE VIOLENT.
dAMN cAPSLOCK!
dIDN'T SEE IT THROUGH THE TEARS.
mARY

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:17 PM

Apologies Mary, I had no idea. I'll PM you.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:20 PM

No apologies necessary. We have been down the same road. Our children owe us an apology. No one else.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:33 PM

Thanks Mary. I've PM'd you all the same.
Pax.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Pro Life
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:41 PM

Stay strong, stay together. It´s a hard one on any family. Still we see it´s acceptable for those on tv to escape the law,the police should act on these creeps in the public eye and set an example, but they don´t, it was like the sick remark Elton said on stage in Brazil regarding young boys. The icons of tv,film and music must be brought down first and show the older generation have teeth. youth culture today sees anyone over 30 as the problem, except for our money of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:58 PM

Thank you for the kind PM Mary. I've responded.
J

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Wesley S
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 03:31 PM

If it helps - I have a good friend who's son was a cocaine user and addict. He was living on the streets for a while and they suspect he dabbled in prostitution. But he cleaned up his act and has been clean for over a year now. I know that for a fact.

So it can happen. Don't give up hope.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 04:40 PM

Thanks Wesley. My family and many friends are fed up and don't want to hear about my son. I am grateful for a place to talk and an ear to listen. I wish I could give up hope but it just isn't happening. This isn't a whining or pity fest. My life is very good and very happy. Hopefully, some day my son's will be too. I can't afford to lose sight of the last 20 years. It is bitterly hard but I have to put my happiness and safety before his. There are goals he has to achieve before I can allow him back into my home. Meantime, he knows that I am only a phone call away. And call he does when life gets too tough for him or he needs cash. I don't give him money ( I know where it goes) and he knows that but he still asks.
For anyone in a similar situation - if you don't laugh, you cry. So find the humor in it...even if it is black humor.
M

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 05:03 AM

Yep, me too M.

The reason I get so angry at both the "Legalise..(insert your drug of choice)..." and "Hang all druggie scum" brigade (and, I guess, why I initially bristled at your post) is that they seem to forget that each druggie is someone's tragic child, a child who used to be drug-free, and a treasure.

Few young people go down the hard-drugs road completely of their own volition - they are influenced and encouraged by highly manipulative people, and frequently ones who are much older and street-wise, who start them on the 'easy' stuff and roll them along into other things.

Sadly, the process seems to be happening very publically in the case of Amy Winehouse and her Druggie-Control-Freak Manager/Husband.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 11:19 PM

One: Anybody who claims to understand the words coming out of Charles Barkley's mouth is stretching the truth.

Two: Seriously, one does not stop being a role model just by saying "I'm not one." I remember him saying that line too, but I don't believe he's right. Kids aren't going to stop using him (weren't, that is; I guess he has quieted down) just because he said, "I'm not a role model." How many smokers' parents told them not to start smoking?

So whaddya sayda that? Huh? Huh? Huh?

B#B#, formerly CC

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Bert
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 11:26 PM

I see where you are coming from Backwoodsman, but I know of two beautiful babies who would not have been born if their Mum hadn't taken puff or two of pot to help her through the difficult pregnancies.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 02:44 AM

Don't go there Bert, there are, and have been, far too many lives wrecked by this crap - not just users, but their entire families. You may have been there, I don't know, but I suspect not. If you haven't, I doubt you are in a position to judge.
Pax
J

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Ageing Hippie
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 04:38 AM

I am using a non-constant pseudonym in the hope that it saves the young relative I am about to discuss from identification.

As a child he was hopelessly hyperactive. His mother, an occasional drug user since the 60s, who used drugs by choice and not constantly, managed to get him to take some control of his hyperactivity, rather than to use it as an excuse.

When he first went to university (reading acoustic engineering) he found it too prescriptive and dropped out. A few years later he went back to read philosophy. He found (he said) that marijuana helped him control the hyperactivity. He got a first.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 08:24 AM

Not even going to discuss with you, AH. Pot **may** have been **beneficial** to some people in certain, specific ways, but the downside to its use, and the adverse effect of consumption in an uncontrolled environment (not to mention its position as the No. 1 route of entry to use of "hard" drugs) is well-documented. Period.

My final words. It's too painful to go any further.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 10:20 AM

I am surprised by that. I know and knew a huge number of people who have smoked marijuana, to the extent that I would be suspicious that anyone who was there in the 60s and claimed never to have used marijuana was being unduly evasive. There might be some, but there were not many. Quite a lot used speed, acid, methedrine and ephedrine (sp?) and various uppers and downers. Statistically the number who suffered from addiction was insignificant.

If the situation has changed today (and I think it might have done, I think I see more young people who appear to find non-use difficult) then something has changed. It is not, surely, that drugs are more glorified - flip through any 20 sixties songs and about half will be about drugs - nor even I think that recreational drugs are more done. I think it likely that if you go raving today the majority of those present will be using or will have used E, but in the 60s if you went to any mod event the vast majority would have been up on pills.

Neither the majority of users in the 60s nor the majority of users now descend into addiction. Some modern drugs are more addictive (eg crystal meth, and crack cocaine, but I do not speak from knowledge or personal trial).

Nicotine use is down. I don't think I'd even go along with the idea that alcohol use is much up. A few loonies and a lot of social drinkers is what I see - apart of course from folk festivals where the highly addictive real ale is consumed in vast quantities. I've seen and smelt quite a lot of puff at modern folk events, but I don't see many apparently harmed or addicted.

But the inner city seems to be a different place. I don't remember the inner city being so dangerous then. Parts of Nottingham's lace market were pretty iffy - but now parts of Nottingham are VERY edgy. You needed to be careful (slightly later) of the GLC (the Greater London Casuals) but now there are parts of London that are worrying.

Is it really true that all modern youth are more at risk - or is the risk concentrated into some groups and some locations? I suspect the latter and that it is too easy to create misleading generalisations.

I have of course seen the stats that indicate that the levels of THC in modern cannabis are much higher, but I can only think of one or two people I know who cannot face the world without a spliff. I know manymore whose funciton is impaired by alcohol or health is impaired by tobacco.

Any personal tragedy is one too many, and I have seen a couple - I remember an old friend of my late wife's using our house in the 80s as a refuge in one of her (unsuccessful) attempts to quit (I can't remember if it was heroin or cocaine). Curiously she is still alive while my wife is dead - killed by nicotine and Medway Maritime Hospital. I remember one of my secretaries being very broken up when her boyfriend OD'd. But I wonder if the biggest difference is that we are older.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 12:43 PM

I've never heard any evidence that suggests that Alcohol and tobacco are not jointly 'the No. 1 route of entry to use of "hard" drugs'. Alcohol is generally the first mind-altering drug people in our societies come up against, and tobacco is generally the first smoking experience. Cannabis can be a next step, but equally well it can be glue, or ecstasy or whatever is available. (And some people start there.)

And for many people who drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes of course they never take that next step - and the same is true for cannabis. (Which doesn't of course mean that for some who stick with any of these three drugs the results may not be disastrous.)

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 12:56 PM

"I would be suspicious that anyone who was there in the 60s and claimed never to have used marijuana was being unduly evasive."

I never did. Nor any other illegal substances. Never. Absolutely never. Absolute truth. No Evasion. OK?

We weren't all sheep, some of us were capable of individual thought, even in the '60s.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 01:07 PM

Not that many though (leaving aside whether that is a fair description).

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Barry Finn
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 01:08 PM

As for dealers, there are 2 kinds, the ones that sell to support there own use & those that sell purely for profit. As to the 1st they should be treated with the viewpoint of rehab, the 2nd should be treated as a career criminal, & should get the punishment due them.
It's a crap shoot as to what make one kid who smokes pot go on to harder things & another to go no further or quite altogether. Loving familys, education, need to self medicate, there are any number of individual reasons that someone decides to take the path of drug use. But the best deterrant is drug education, which is sadley lacking.
There was a war on drugs that was fought yrs ago, we lost & we gave up. There hasn't been a real war on drugs for many yrs & it doesn't look like there's one on the horizion. Just laws that deal with only the symptoms & none of the causes or preventions. Methadone programs are for control of the addicts behavior only & jail time is the other option, neither helps the situation they only hide it for the present.
There's no desire to fund for programs, education or treatment so the problem will continue to exist & the lives of all those afficted will sadley go on.
As for clebs, they should be treated just like any other poor sap that got caught walking down the same road, except that they should pay more to help fund the aid for those that can't afford help. They should also serve the same time as the poor street junkie & they more than any others should be forced to do community work with drug dependant youth. They should be made to make use of their status for the betterment of others & be forced to do it for a long time. While on the subject of time, 30 days does not qualitify as treatment. Treatment is an "in-house" program with all the trimmings & lasts for anywher from a year to a year & 1/2 before "out-house" (sorry about the pun) begins. This "I'm clean" doesn't hold water until they can say that after at least 5-10 yrs & even then they still need to walk lighty for another 5-10 yrs. It's not an easy road & most will never walk it for that long, not without a complete shift in the social. Which starts with the home, the community, the schools, the government, law enforcement, the medical community & funding.
I've only seen, & I can count them on 1 hand & have a few fingers left over, a few that made a complete recovery, without treatment (where they can say to themself I'm not an ex-addict any longer, just like everyone else). But they have a daily struggle, just like alcholics, for the rest of their lives. The amount of recovered addicts from treatment programs that I've seen probably/might (on a very good day) triple this which when one knows or has known in my case a good 1000 or so junkies & they IMHO fair far better because they don't have to fight daily for the rest of there lives, they cn because of treatment get past that. The odds would be far greater if we had a true war on drugs but we don't & that's the heartbreak for every affected family, that it doesn't have to be this way. To me it's a waste of so many good lives that the cost is nothing compared to the benifits that proper funding would bring.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 03:09 AM

"Not that many though"

You surprise me McG, I wouldn't have imagined that stereotyping was something you go in for! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Megan L
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 04:23 AM

Any victim support volunteer can tell you how it feels to sit beside some pensioner who has been mugged beaten up and put in fear of their life by someone who wanted money to feed THEIR habit. They can also tell you of the anguish felt by families who can't understand why the person they loved is now lying in the morgue because some thoughtless pig felt they could drive a car while drunk.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: alanabit
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 04:32 AM

The first paragraph of Barry Finn's post makes more sense than most of what I read about drugs. At the lowest end of the drugs pyramid, users become sellers to survive. They also are at risk of becoming thieves, violent robbers (if they have the strength), couriers or prostitutes.
The drug laws drive up the price of the product. This is very convenient for the criminal and very hard for the user. It can hardly be stated strongly enough that making the price high does not reduce addiction. It simply protects the profit margins of the drug barons.
In fact, pop star drug addicts are no better or worse than street addicts. They just have enough money to make survival easier. They can afford something, which is too expensive for most people to fund with a normal lifestyle. When we hear calls for retribution against drug using pop stars, we are really just hearing resentment that they do not suffer as much as those at the bottom of the pile.
We can not impose our "moral" values on potential drug takers. This approach has failed for years, just as it has with gambling, prostitution, alcohol, smoking, boxing or just about any other socially undesirable form of behaviour. However, we do have the option of allowing market forces to bring down the prices and devastate the profits of the drug barons. When there is no profit to be made from encouraging drug abuse, who do you think will supply drugs to kids?
It's hardly the pop star's fault that expensive illegal drugs can appear exotic to some people. It was not the pop star who made them expensive.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 06:02 AM

Megan, drug-abusers, their families and friends are victims too. Everyone who is personally touched by drug-misuse, including alcohol et al, is a victim.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Appaloosa Lady
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 06:45 AM

Maybe we have 'educated' our children so far away from the spiritual side of their beings, that they are all lost in a world of confusion, 'celebrities' and 'our chldren' alike. Celebrities, whatever that word means now, and whoever they may be, are also someone's much loved children. Amy Winehouse's Mum said just recently that every time the phone rings, she expects it to be the call, the one telling her that finally her daughter has died. A terrible thing for any mother to live with.

Reading Mary's heartbreaking words above brings it home even more. I so hope that your son is finally able to turn his life around Mary and it's one of the bravest things for any mother to have to do, stand back and let him make those mistakes, whilst being there to catch him, time after time. May you both find peace through all this eventually.

We cannot live our children's lives for them, only be there as best we can to help, guide, and love them, when they need us. But they are ALL living in a world that has seemingly ceased to care. They are stressed from such an early age these days, with tremendous pressure poured down on them, by the Corporate Soul Eaters, who see them as nothing more than banknotes. It is a pressure we never had as young people.

We are, I feel, living through one of the worst World Wars we have ever endured. One that has more casualites that the last two put together, but this time, those casualities are our children. The enemy is coming at them from every single angle, unidentified, hiding behind crooked politicians and pwwerfully controlling corporate industries, de-humanising and de-sensitising their souls. They are helped along immensely by a deeply twisted media, who report only the bad things that happen, and glory in the 'financially over-rich' but 'spiritually destitute' celebrity who staggers towards a death the media so long for them to reach. This will then enable them to sell more papers, get more viewers to their channels etc. They have no concern for the inner turmoil going on inside that fellow human being.

They have no concern to the message they are putting out to young people. That is not on their horizon, they have ceased to care and sold their souls to a bad place.

We need people back again who CARE, but *where* have they gone?

Hey, just look in the mirror....because no-one else is going to turn it all around.

"WE are the ones we have been waiting for" - Mark Thunderwolf


"I'm just a human being trying to make it
in a world that is very rapidly losing its understanding of being human." - John Trudell


And until we change our idea of what the word 'celebrity' actually stands for, things won't improve.


"Our system of "people fame" values self-centeredness and wealth. I want to live in a world where people become famous because of their work for peace and justice and care. I want the famous to be inspiring; their lives an example of what every human being has it in them to do — act from love!" - Dr. Patch Adams

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 07:23 AM

When we hear calls for retribution against drug using pop stars, we are really just hearing resentment

I think there is a lot of truth in that. In my experience the courts, on the whole, deal with celebrities in the same way as they do other individuals, it just seems as if they don't. A lot of non-celebrities lose their jobs through drug misuse, not only because of convictions but also because they lead chaotic lives and it is difficult for them to hold down a job. Celebrities are not only more likely to keep their jobs but to be applauded at the same time.

In the UK some of the measures put in place to help addicts are badly funded and not well thought out. It is difficult enough, in the first place, for addicts to get to the point where they want help. Once they do get to that point there is not then sufficient help - recovery is a long process.

Drug addicts are victims.

Families and loved ones of drug addicts are victims.

Tough love is one of the hardest things in the world.

The government has failed miserably in this area.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 07:32 AM

AL, eanjay - respect. Great sense and sensitivity.
Thanks guys.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 10:48 AM

Not all users and their families are sufferers. Only those who have gone beyond choice and now have no choice but in stead addiction. Those who can and do use other drugs as well as (or if by choice in stead of) alcohol and tobacco but have not become addicted have in fact experienced an additional experience and not been harmed by it.

Well, Backwoodsman, taking you at face value, you are a rarity. An extreme rarity. Was it because of the illegality, and since everyone breaks some laws why did you choose those to obey?   If it was for some other reason, what? It may be relevant to ask your age during the hippy era. Did you know no-one who used drugs, or did you think you observed a sizeable proportion who suffered harm? Oh, and did you never have a cigarette or take alcoholic drink before the legal age?

I got into using alcohol as a matter of social convention, and I still use it. I got into using tobacco likewise and gave up a lot later. I tried some drugs but did not like them. I never tried acid - that scared me. Alcohol is still my drug of choice. I hope I am not addicted!

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Barry Finn
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 01:24 PM

alanabit, you bring up the issue of price & cost.
I haven't a clue as to the costs of drugs now but
In the New England area it costs around $7,000-$10,000 (price as of 1980's) to get one's self into a residential treatment program. This used to be covered by Welfare, now all public assistence funding has disappeared. If a junkie has that kind of money (which celeb's do) then they're not going to spend it on treatment, they'll spend it on drugs. Only when a junkie's at they're worst will they seek/agree to treatment/recovery. As I said above the Methadone programs DO NOT help to cure the problem of addiction, they only help to control the prolem of the addicts behavior. The 1st Methadone clinic in Boston was opened at Whitter St in Boston's South End/Roxbury area in the mid or late 60's I don't believe that there's anyone alive today that was in that program, I knew a good few of them, they were my age & older. Methadone is a cheap way out for society, the junkies can't get high on any other drug because the methadone is so strong it overshadows all other drugs, it also is almost impossible to kick once dependant, it can take over a month, with he help of other drugs it can take longer than half a yr to whine off of it. Other hard drugs take a week or so. It may be possible but I've never know anyone who's succeded in kicking Methadone without becoming addicted to a substiute drug. They pick up their dose early in the morning & then late in the afternoon, they don't need to hussel, work (though many do) or commit crimes to get there money to buy drugs it's free. Drug controled modified behavior.
The residental treatment programs are the closest thing so far that works & not only is the cost to high for most (in the US, is this covered in Canada & the UK under medical coverage?), the waiting lists are usually many months long. Trouble is junkies can't last that long, when there's a break in the clouds & they can finally see there way towards recovery there's a limited window of opportunity for them. If they wait to long their will can't take/make it & they fall back down on their faces. They may never see that break in the clouds again. So drug treatment accessability needs to be made more widely & readily available. You'd think that the government & social programs could see their way to funding this during a war on drugs but there is no war on drugs.
That's the part for recovery, where's the money/funding for prevention/education? In this war on drugs where's the backing for all of this? If just a small bit of what's been poured into the wars in the Middle East was spent here we'd see a much better return for our mis spent-cash. MORE THAN 3,000 AMERICAN LIVES HAVE BEEN LOST TO DRUG ABUSE. MORE THAN WHAT WE'VE LOST IN IRAQ & AFGANISTAN HAS BEEN LOST TO DRUG ABUSE. I'd say I've passed through/by at least 1,000 junkies or more in my life time & I'm saying that most of them are now dead, most of the rest living are in jail, a hospital or are still surviving living as drug users waiting or ready to die, on less than both hands I can count the ones who are drug free (beyound what I call ex's). Not all drug users become addicted. Some stay just far enough away to be on the fringes, some only are recreaction users, some just use as a special treat but those are the odd ones that can keep doing this without eventually falling victim to drug dependancy. I don't address pot smokers & smoking, they're in a class all by themselves. My fathers best friend smoked pot with my father since they were young kids, he died healthy & sound of mind in his 80's probably smoked at the very least a couple times a week, most of the time a lot more than that, I never knew what he did for a living. I've known many who smoke & there's been no ill effects on their health, social or work life, so I leave them to their own. My father knew a lot of old timers like that. My only gripe about pot is that it put's one closer in touch with the underworld of drug life & that can turn into an avenue towards more drug use, I won't say that one leads to the other though.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 01:33 PM

"taking you at face value, you are a rarity. An extreme rarity"

Richard, I don't lie and I don't like the doubt inferred in your comment above.

I was not a rarity amongst my (wide and varied) circle of friends - alcohol and tobacco were acceptable, illegal drugs were not, by any of us. As I said, I was, and still am, capable of individual thought, as were my friends, and we saw no reason to addle our brains with substances which carried a legal risk, when we could do it just as cheaply with alcohol. I was offered the usual weed and pills many, many times, and politely declined on EVERY occasion. I also declined tobacco, apart from one 'go' at a party.

Since you ask, my first alcoholic drink was maybe three months before my 18th birthday, my last one was in December 2005. My first (and last) cigarette was at 21 - whatever those two facts have to do with anything.

If you want any more information about my past life, you'll have to wait until my memoirs are published. They'll make good reading :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 02:12 PM

Well, I am by reason of this being the internet, Backwoodsman, I am bereft of the usual clues about whether someone is lying or not. I am however puzzled by how your direct observation could be so contrary to mine, if they were contemporaneous.

I see from another thread that you are in the borders of Lincolnshire whereas I have always been from near London (apart from 3 years in Australia), although I spent 6 years at university in Nottingham and a bit later 6 months in Chester. I would be commenting on the period from about 1962 to about 1978 - when I turned 30 and so became officially "old and boring". So it looks unikely to have been geography making the difference. I am however talking about a pretty middle-class crowd, but I don't know if you are also talking about such a then crowd.

Pretty well everyone I knew of tried something at least once. Maybe half would have been fairly frequent casual users. Now, I'd say, less than 10% would still be users at all (except of alcohol) and not one that I ever knew before they were an addict went onto become an addict.

One of my late wife's friends was an addict from before I knew her. Larry the Loon and Mad Mick were addicts from before I knew them and still were when they dropped out of my ken.

With respect to the period after I became old and boring, I have one relative who was a pretty heavy and eclectic user (as was his girlfriend) - but now they are boring middle class parents. I knew one folk musician who was a heavy and eclectic user from before I knew him - but dropped teh lot including his 9% cider when he became a father. I know one rock musician who still puts stuff up his nose in bursts every few months - but he did that from before I knew him.

I know several pretty dependent drinkers.

That is not consistent with the picture painted on this thread of cannabis being the no1 entry route to hard drug addiction.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 03:44 PM

Obviously, I mixed with a better class of person. :-) :-)

In the 60's, my teenage years, illicit drugs were virtually unknown in the small market town I grew up in. the only times I was offered drugs were in nearby large towns and cities. Until I started work as a Youth-Worker in 1983, I'd never met anyone who was addicted to anything other than cigarettes and alcohol. My introduction to substance misuse (alcohol and tobacco excepted) was amongst the 14-21 year-olds I was meeting through the job, and busting my balls to keep them on the right track. Several died in their teens or early twenties of heroin O/Ds, one drove a stolen car into the Trent and drowned after using illegal substances, a few went to young offenders' institutions as a result of crimes committed in order to feed their addictions. My son has been a heroin addict for ten years, although he's been clean for the past three or four.

Regarding the entry route, the only people I hear speaking in praise of cannabis are the 'tired, sad old hippie, The 60's Were Fab' brigade. Every young person addicted to 'hard' drugs that I've ever met (and that's quite a number) told me they'd started on pot because they were told it was 'safe', and wished they'd never got involved with it. That's evidence enough for me. Out of the mouths of horses and babes.....

My final contribution to this thread, I've never used illegal drugs in my life, yet for 25 years my life has been dominated by drugs and addiction. I'm sick to fuckin' death of hearing about drugs and druggies, and I'm sick to fuckin' death of pot-smoking idiots who deny what's right in front of them.

Backwoodsman has left the building.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Bert Fegg
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 04:23 PM

Funny how those who go on and on about 'illegal drugs' never mention the harm caused by the inappropriate prescription of tranquillisers, anti-inflammatories, etc. by tired and bored medics, not to mention the vast number of psychotropic drugs given to those unlucky enough to be diagnosed as 'mentally ill'. Many many more people have suffered harm from these medications than the entire worldwide casualty rate from coke, smack, opium and dope put together.

There's nothing wrong with any of those four substances per se. The problem is that they're cut to make a profit. Organised crime and governments that benefit from it are the problem - not drug users.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 05:51 PM

I think that's going a bit far Bert. Backwoodsman, my late wife was a social worker and one of my current closer friends works now as a drug and alcohol counsellor. IMHO you were dealing with train wrecks (your son excepted of course) who were likely to come off the tracks one way or another. I think you are confusing cause and effect as far as your clients were concerned, but I cannot speculate on your son and it would not be appropriate for me to do so given your close personal involvement.

Some people do suffer from addictive personalities.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 04:53 AM

"IMHO you were dealing with train wrecks"

IMHO I was dealing with young, impressionable, vulnerable and very badly-used and abused young people, whom we could touch in a way that the social workers can't. They were someone's sons and daughters. Never forget that.

Now Backwoodsman is truly out of this particular building.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Windsor Knot
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 08:55 AM

I can never understand the newspapers referring to the like of Winehouse as "troubled" why not tell the truth and say "drug addict or waster".

Stiffer prison sentences and the public turning their backs on these creeps would be a start.

I see Backwoodsman digging a big hole for himself on this thread too ! Stop before you get too far down buddy. Foot in Mouth can help.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 09:31 AM

People who live with addiction should be carefully listened to, but in my experience people who write to the government with their concerns and experiences do not always get even the courtesy of an acknowledgement let alone a considered response. It is not surprising that some of the measures put in place for people with dependency problems are poor. This is where a celebrity can benefit; they often have the money required to fund treatment and proper rehabilitation when they get to the point where they are desperate for help.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 11:14 AM

You really are a complete, 110%, gold-plated, diamond-encrusted piece of shit, Windsor Spunk-Bubble. Go fuck your shitty self.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Bert Fegg
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 02:25 PM

Richard - what was 'going a bit far'? In my real life I work as a forensic pharmacologist. Might it just be possible that I know far more about drugs and their effects than anybody else posting to this thread?

Oh, and there's no such thing as an 'addictive personality' - such a concept is hugely simplistic, utterly unhelpful and has been rejected by most authorities.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Barry Finn
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 02:30 PM

Knot Head
We've turned our backs on this problem long enough, it's time to face the problem & deal with.
That's the same kind of treatment that put AIDS where it is today!
Another village idiot that's lost in the jungle.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 03:33 PM

"coke, smack, opium and dope put together.

There's nothing wrong with any of those four substances per se. The problem is that they're cut to make a profit. "

That's what's going a bit far. Incidentally cannabis (at least grass) is not usually cut. Shit is often adulterated. Coke, H and opium (and relatives) are not good for you and can be addictive. That is something that is wrong with at least them per se.

But what no-one answers is why 99.9% of my drug user friends and relations turned out OK, but Backwoodsman's didn't. If it isn't a difference in the users, what is it? If it is the users, what do you call it other than a proclivity towards addiction?

Incidentally, I quite agree that Whinehouse is an untalented waste of space, and the idiot boy is worse. But it's not down to that. It's something different about he person. Ozzie Osbourne could turn up off his face on god knows what and the reactions was "Oh, he'll be good tonight". Sly Stone simply never turned up at all. Some alkiefolkies puked on the audience. Those two stand there and sing out of time and out of tune. How's that going to attract a youngster to use drugs, or progress to harder ones?

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 04:46 PM

I have had to read and re-read some of the posts on this thread to try to make sure that I understand exactly what is being said.

I can never understand the newspapers referring to the like of Winehouse as "troubled" why not tell the truth and say "drug addict or waster".

Is this saying that she is a drug addict and also a waster or is it saying that she is a drug addict which means that she must also be a waster?

I have often been concerned that some people treat people with dependency problems with little or no respect. I have seen this done by some (not all) professionals, who were supposed to be caring for them, as well as by other people. Sweeping generalisations do not help anything.

Some of the most talented people have been drug users.

People do not choose addiction. Life is not an easy option (as some people would like to think) for drug addicts, their whole day (every day) revolves around getting drugs. Certainly it can be easier for celebrities - but then so can housework and many other things.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 06:52 AM

Amen.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Windsor Knot
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 08:10 AM

Oh another blimp appears ! B.F. a very apt handle ! Yeah that´s a good point, tip toe around those that create the problems you speak of and give them a shoulder to rest their head on and blame their mother or father´s lack of interest when they were young.

Judges should bang them up for at least 25 years, media should block all coverage of those convicted of a drug related offence and you and I start and treat them like the scum they are.

Regarding Aids, don´t start me on that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 09:00 AM

Richard Bridge, IMHO you were dealing with train wrecks (your son excepted of course) who were likely to come off the tracks one way or another.

I have to disagree with you there, this is one of the sweeping generalisations that I was referring to.

I also think that Amy Winehouse is talented but I did post that on the thread about her, so I won't go on about it now. It is a good thing though that we don't all like exactly the same thing.

Windsor Knot (8.10am) - that is exactly the kind of thing that I was meaning. I can understand that some people may feel like that but really it does not and would not help the situation, it is not a reasonable way of dealing with the issue, it is unfair etc. etc. This government (IMO) has already written off a whole generation of addicts - we don't need everybody jumping on that bandwagon. Also, when you resort to calling people scum then you have already lost the argument. I prefer it when people treat each other with respect.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Windsor Knot
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 02:57 PM

eanjay, I was the one subjected to name calling, no problem I can live with that.

So can we agree then that sod all is going to be done and my views on handling it don´t go down well with you.

Right, we will just sit back and watch as those sellers,dealers and addicts reach the final chapter of their vile crime ridden pastime.

Soft glove handling and sweet talking do gooders in rehab centres are a total waste of time. By the way, I have lost two members of my family to drugs. Both started as users, both became sellers, both ended up dead. One in a house belonging to a guy that never knew his surname or where he was from (he lived there with him for three months), the other at the wheel of his car out of his head into railings around a church. At least he never took anyone with him.

Did we try to help them ? yes, until our own lives suffered.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 03:49 PM

eanjay, I was the one subjected to name calling,

I did notice and I know that you were name calling in a different way (using the same term to label all the people being discussed). I always feel sad when people lose anybody close to them to drugs and it is a real shame if you think of them in that way. There is a good book called "Today a Better Way" available from Families Anonymous. It encourages tough love and standing back, both of which are very difficult to do. It is hard living with addiction but I think of it as an illness from which people can recover. The trouble is that families feel helpless and isolated with the problem and it takes its toll - there is no doubt about that. Everyone DOES suffer.

However, I like to think that we are at a more advanced stage than "lock them all up and throw away the key". Although I would agree with that treatment for dealers who do not use themselves.

I don't agree with the view of some people that all drug addicts are already total wrecks before they become addicted and that's why they start using. People become addicted to drugs and alcohol for many reasons; they cannot all just be lumped together. I know of one addict who went to his local drug agency for help. He was horrified because they would not believe that he did not have a dreadful childhood and even asked him if he was a member of the IRA - what on earth was that all about? Things need to improve. Keeping addicts in prison costs a lot of money which would be better used for providing rehabilitation. Many people detox and there is no suitable help available for them afterwards and inevitably they relapse. Some people come out of prison clean and there is little or no support available for them. This government has done nothing to improve the situation.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 04:12 PM

I've just got my copy of "Today a Better Way" out. Each page is devoted to one day of the year and finishes with TODAY I WILL .......

March 11 finishes with "TODAY I WILL give myself credit for doing my best with the knowledge and skills I possess at the time." It is trying to encourage families not to feel guilty because a loved one has an addiction problem.

I don't plan to do every day of the year :-)
but February 2 finishes with "TODAY I WILL accept addiction as a disease and lay my feelings of hostility aside." I think that's me LOL.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 06:24 AM

Amen.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Windsor Knot
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 08:10 AM

eanjay, All to often a well intended level of support is used and abused. Addicts take take take of the services provided and give nothing back. There should be a court order slapped on them to do some form of (unpaid)communtiy service. Thousands of pounds are spent daily on rehab services and abused by many.

There is a softly softly approach, I know I saw it first hand. I watch a well raised boy with a degree go in and out of rehab being told HE was not at fault, they blamed everyone from his teachers to his grandmother. Do you not know that someone who wants to go through life "stoned" is not responsible for their actions, it´s always down to someone or some event in their past life. THIS IS BULLSHIT.

Please don´t use the word illness in relation to drug users, Cancer suffers and those with heart problems suffer from an illness. You don´t find them stealing to maintain their "illness".

I am sorry if my approach to this problem seems harsh to you, but you must accept all the hugs and blame your granny crap hasn´t worked up until now and figures released for NHS rehab and support groups show they should be binned.

If you know you have a problem, face it. If you see the problem threatens your life and could possibly ruin the lives of those around you face it. If not and you won´t then don´t expect society to hug you.

In my two cases, who do I blame ? both of them, no one else. Great parents tried everything, gave up their lives to support them, sold a home to clear their debts and pay for private treatment and it was thrown back in their faces as the drug users went to drug parties and stole money to fund the HABIT. My sister, the mother of one of them died 16 months later of cancer which I feel was brought on by the stress she suffered.

Cancer is an illness, drug use and abuse is not.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 08:18 AM

Windsor Knot, I respect what you have said and the way you have put it. This is what I meant when I said that people who live with addiction should be carefully listened to. We may not all agree but everybody's experiences should be taken into account.

it´s always down to someone or some event in their past life. THIS IS BULLSHIT.

I totally agree.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Barry Finn
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 03:46 PM

Knot Head, sorry this is long, please bare with me.

It seems that your two close run ins with the addicted didn't go well & maybe were a bit to close to home. You've colored the problem with the same brush that was handed to you. Sorry that things weren't different for those that you loved.

Not taking responsibility for their (the addict) actions & the causes of their addictions is one of the symptoms of addictions. That's a early part of recovery that they need to understand, it comes with the terrority. They don't just except this, they need help opening their eyes to many things that are unexceptable to them in the beinging of recovery not just this.

If there were more understanding about the problems of drug addiction & treatment & of the causes & not just fighting the symptoms by sweeping it under the floor boards we wouldn't have the costs of their incarcerations, the cost of the crimes commited by them, the medical costs to care for them (you don't think they pay for their own health care), the drain on social services, the costs to their loved ones (this is the rational for Methadone programs, control not treatment). The cost of education & proper treatment would be a fraction of the costs if properly funded & implmented.
They (the addicts) will not try it on their own, they cannot do it on their own, they cannot fuction in society on their own. Even when they want help they don't have the tools nor the knowledge to do it on their own. They need instruction, guidence, understanding, proper handling, plenty of time & an ounce of care. They need help & lots of it. Not someone or something that's ready to toss in the towel at the 1st sign of hardship, they need help that's ready to go the distance with them, the whole distance, the whoile 9 yds & they need lots of time.
Granted many won't except help & that's where the family & the courts & a drug advocate can play a very important role. To start with you need to let them fall, free fall, you can talk all you want & not support but until they've hit rock bottom MOST won't be ready to even think on recovery until they've hit the "Dead End", they just can't see it. Even then many aren't ready, it's the luck of the draw but the most that help the better their chances are. But that's were you/us/society needs to be there for them, "when they are ready". It may be yrs & it may never be but when they're at this point that's when the window of opportunity is opened. That's when a program can work. That's their chance. Again, no one can make it happen for them. But it helps when they have help.

Maybe a bit more of an understanding of addiction would help to see what they need to do to get past they're dependency. Once addicted, drugs becomes their only focus. A junkies thought process is focused on making their addiction logical (in their mind). Our behaviours are all modified by us so that we get something that's a benifit to by our behaviour. It's become their best & only friend, their only true companion, their wife/husband (they give over all sexual drives in preference to the drugs), their only source of excietment, their relief from boredom, it's the only thing they trust (in their mind every thing & every one is against them & doesn't understand them), it's their spiritual light, their religon, their God, their goal, their pet, the only thing it isn't is it's not their child & God help the junkie that has to choose between that). It's their reason for living & dying. Nothing else matters, THIS IS A TOUGH THING TO BATTLE. It took many in most cases yrs to get to this point, 30 days in rehab just doesn't cut it. What's taken yrs to build will take yrs to break down. On the norm I'd say a year at least to 2 yrs in a residental program is a start. Every day they'll think about drugs & every day they'll miss them & the life style that they've grown so accustom to. Only after they start their weekend releases from the resident facility & venture into the world will they realize what they're up against. They now have to enter back into society, SLOWLEY. They're like newborns in a new world, they will instinctively want to run & hide in the shadows of a world that they're familiar with & that will readly & knowingly except them, with welcoming arms, they need to know they have to fight this. After they get past this they'll need to relearn how to be responsible for themselves & find a job. So the now they venture from their daily program again like newborns & learn to live in the world of the workforce. Eventually if all goes well they'll need to join the outside world for good but as in the other steps they'll still need to go back to their programs & seek help in adjusting while still learning to this new step just as they did with all the other steps that they've taken. They can't go back to they're old hunts, they're still to weak. They may have to be far from their homes, where they grew up, the places that they've always gone to, other wise they may be setting them selves up for failure (they're still walking on shaky legs) that's a lot of work down the tubes at this point in their recovery but you wouldn't believe how many fail at this point. They've got to find replacements for all they got out of drugs, like a hobby, freindships, maybe in time even a lover, a job that doesn't push them beyond their limits, most of the time they sense that they don'tt fit in & they need work on this too. They, in the process of all this need to relearn how to cope with being lonely & lonelyness, boredrom, how to add a healty & constructive excitement into their lives, they need to relearn how to relate to others in their new world style. They will be finding they're way about this new world for years before they're able to stand tall, strong & on their own. It'll be ages before they can refere to themselve, if ever, as not an ex-addict but as a normal preson. But when that times comes they'll know it, you'll know it & no one else will know unless they choose to let them know it.

All this takes care, funding, time, intellegance & education, something that's not being offer here by anyone any where except in tiny pockets here & there, to few & to far inbetween. If the government would fund these programs we'd all be better off, safer, richer in many ways, the community & society as a whole would benifit, they would be productive menbers of our society/community & it would save so many lives that are worth saving & save so many families from loss & hurt. How could we throw away the key when such an opportunity COULD exist.

You may have had the benifit/curse of having known/seen a few family members affected by this "ILLNESS" but you don't know what hell they live in untill you've lived in their shoes, your hell that they've put you through is only a part of the hell they live (they live your hell additionally knowing what they've done to their loved ones & it makes their suffering all the worst for it, don't think they don't know), Dante's Inferno is a holiday in comparison, you would never want know what their life is really like, IT WOULD BREAK YOUR HEART ALL OVER AGAIN. If you can't understand them then listen to someone who does.

Here's what becomes of tossing away the key.
My close younger cousin is doing 33-55 yrs, he's been in for near 20yrs already, hopefully he'll have a parole hearing in the next few yrs (he eligable after serving 2/3's of his early time. Prior to that he served 5 yrs. for a crime driven by drugs (the same as his present crime) but not drug related. So he couldn't get drug treatment in prison, even though he sought it. He again won't receive any drug treatment prior to getting out nor will he get any after he gets out, even though IMHO he still needs it, though he's
done well while he's been in jail all these yrs, not an easy task. Between his last sentence & his present sentence, he knew he was free falling back into a life of drugs & asked my help. He came to live with me, my wife & our 2 kids. He wasn't any trouble & was not a problem & he stayed clean as long as he could, it just wasn't long enough. I went everywhere trying to get him into a program. The only close possibility was if I could come up with $7000 (if he had $7000 it would've went into his arm first) & there was a waiting list for that, we didn't have that kind of money so I didn't have to think about weither or not I would take a chance on him, if I had it extra I probably would have but refused to do the same for my brother, my brother wasn't ready, willing & asking for help. All the other programs had waiting lists of 3-6 months & he had to be clean before coming in. He just couldn't hang in there. We lost him. Now 20 yrs later, he still needs to have drug therapy & treatment. So the state has housed, clothed & fed him for 20 yrs, thank God he was a great carpenter before he went in, he may have a shot of staying out. He still needs a program, they should (if they release him) release him into a program (but he still doesn't quilify). They'll send him out broke, without a place to go (he's welcome again to say here, just as my brother is). I don't believe they give any comupter skills, though I'm not sure (my brother can't get them), so forget him trying to do any searches in order to help himself, he's been set at a disadvantage. It's one thing to punish or to keep society safe (where's the rehabilation part come into play??), but if society wants to stay safe it also needs to put in the extra 2 cents it costs to offer skills & to educate so that society doesn't keep falling victim to the same crime over & over again & to prevent our prisons from becoming just another "gladiator school" with revolving doors. So he's spent most of his adult life in prisons, he'll be coming out, hopefully in a few yrs, again with about as much chance as he had when he was a teenager & a good kid at heart when he wasn't "drug sick", a wasted life full of all the heartbreaks & costs. It would've been cheaper & better for all involved, including society if there had been treatment & funding for these types, espically for the younger ones who'd have a better chance while they're still green.

If you're interested in what qualifies me to speak to this PM me.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Barry Finn
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 04:07 PM

BTW, my cousin robbed 16 stores on Newbury street in Boston over the course of a couple of days, he didn't kill anyone but he's serving a longer term that a murderer, in fact no one was harm phycially but it was a very bad crime, none the less. Drug treatment for him would've been the cheaper & better route for eveyone one involved. The shop owners & their customers, the law enforcment agencies, the courts, the prison system, society, his family, me, & himself.
I don't excuse his actions but I do recognize that he was "Drug Sick". He owes society a debt but it's been a debt that he's payed twice over & it's cost society 5x cost just to extract it from him. Where's the logic, when society's cost would have only been a fraction with a win/win outcome had it spent a little in the beginning & instead of extract a debt & doling out a punishment offer a funding & programs to those that are in ennd & are sick themselves.
Enough, sorry
Barry
Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 12 Mar 08 - 05:15 PM

Barry Finn, absolutely brilliant posts.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 05:58 AM

God bless you Barry, spoken like a REAL man - thank you very much for that.
Openness and open-heartedness like yours cost a person dearly, as some of us know. you clearly have both of those in abundance, and you have my respect.
John

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Barry Finn
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 08:07 AM

Thank you both but it wasn't worth the knowing

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Windsor Knot
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 08:21 AM

Very little needs to be said after reading that Barry.

Firstly thanks for taking the time to write it.

Secondly, You have my respect and admiration.

I watched two sisters lose their sons. I lost my sister shortly after to cancer. I saw several lives ruined due to the actions of two people. Yes I am bitter and sore. I worked my ass off trying to keep two really nice well brought up kids on the right path and failed badly.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Big Mick
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 08:26 AM

The little man's a pretty big fella, is he not?

Well done, buddy.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Mar 08 - 08:38 AM

He certainly is, Mick. Barry said all the things I've wanted to say, but somehow don't have the language. And some great words from eanjay here, and on other threads too. A pleasure to have been touched by both.

Best wishes to the three of you.
John

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 08:55 AM

Got a letter from a lock-up in Florida yesterday. My son is back in jail and headed once again to rehab. All good thoughts, prayers and St. Jude medals welcome.
This time he was only missing for a year. So once again he is safe, fed, seeing a docotr and I am relieved to know that he is alive and hasn't hurt anyone.
SINS

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 10:55 AM

Holding him in my heart, Sins.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 11:20 AM

"All good thoughts, prayers and St. Jude medals welcome."

Can't do the St. Jude medal, but my thoughts and prayers are his and yours sincerely and for free, Sinsull.
J

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 01:28 PM

Good thoughts and prayers, Sinsull, from Yorkshire. You must be so relieved.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 01:29 PM

{{{{{SINSULL}}}}}

Glad you once again know where he is and that he is relatively safe.

I have friends who still do recreational pot, the way some might have a glass of wine, and it has not led them into anything harder. I think Appaloosa Lady may have a point about spirituality and our kids. All of my friends who use pot started out using it to "tune in" with some sort of spiritual connection desired. They didn't use so much to get high, but to "connect."

However, I instinctively know it would never have been good for me. For some reason, I never have tried it or any other illicit drug. The legal crap I've taken over the years has given me plenty experience with bad side effects, I don't need to muck up my system with any thing else!:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 01:51 PM

All the drug abusers I know (and there are far too many) started in order to turn off reality and "kill their emotional pain". The only time they feel good is when they are high. That is followed by a low equal to the high so they go for some more to ease the pain or for something harder.

This is like the difference between pigging out on a whole pizza because you are down and eating 10,000 calories every day to numb yourself. Actually a better example is the difference between enjoying a glass of wine to relax and downing two bottles of vodka at work just to get through the day.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 01:56 PM

Those are really vivid analogies, Sins, thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Wesley S
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 02:47 PM

I'm going to a funeral tomorrow for a friend of mine. A sucessful businessman with a great family. He's supposed to walk a daughter down the aisle this summer. And he drank himself to death. Wouldn't go to the hospital because "he was just fine". But his liver just couldn't take it anymore. He had everything to live for and he prefered the bottle over life itself. Only 55 years old. What a waste.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:57 AM

When drug abuse is treated as a medical problem instead of a crime, we will be able to stop trying to assign blame. Blame never cured anybody.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 04:03 AM

I think Sinsull has the truth of it. We look for ways to switch off that 'emotional pain' - like a light switch. Dig ourselves little holes we can crawl into and shelter - perhaps the addictive behaviour started out as an adventure - but thats how it ends up, an ever shrinking little scrap of anaesthetised existence that we cling tenaciously to - to avoid reality.

The original question about celebrity drug users is an interesting one. Theres no doubt, being a musician does make you selfish in many ways. You need focus, you need to cut out the outside world just to get some decent chops together. It a similar sort of process - it has at its root, cutting off from the outside world and its demands.

Yeh sure, you can point to open hearted types like Pete Seeger and Cliff Richards - who by all accounts, have never been nasty to anybody. So its not a job requirement. Makes you wonder what those guys have got and I haven't. Probably effortless talent!

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 06:35 AM

The first point on drugs ...

Addiction is a recognized form of mental illness.

Mentally ill people do not make decisions in the same way as non mentally ill people. People with addictions are driven by them and this affects their behaviour in ways that shock and appall the rest of us.

Otherwise nice people turn into monsters.

There is nothing you can do to help an addict until they accept that they have a problem and decide to do something about it themselves, in which case you can support their efforts.

Never underestimate the lure!

People like Winehouse and Doherty have genuine problems that will be with them for life.

Point two

As regards drugs and high profile musicians, it is interesting to note, without trying to make any point one way or the other, but purely on an observational level, that many of the most influential musicians and authors throughout the ages have been users of drugs.

From Byron to Lewis Carrol, From Charlie Parker to Billy Holiday, the symphonie fantastique by berlioz is all about a massive Opium trip and concerns itself in a disturbingly modern way with surrounding issues of psychosis, fear and obsession.

Whether you agreee with the argument or not, it is certainly arguable that the evolution of art and music and the use of drugs have gone hand in hand over the centuries.

I am not for one minute advocating careless miisuse of drugs as I believe that it leads inevitably to deep and lasting unhappiness.

But maybe there are those who have been able to maintain a healthy relationship with them.

Billy holiday died very unhappy through alcohol abuse. She had come off the drugs a year earlier. And she is not the only person for whom theey have helped achieve a tragic end.

But would she have been any happier without them considering the nightmare she endured from the men in her life not to mention the racism she encountered.

She certainly impacted heavily on the art of the Jazz vocal and sang with her soul in much the way that many addicts have been known to over the centuries.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Barry Finn
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 11:36 AM

Lox, I'd have to disagree with you on the above. Drugs affects the artist as well as the artisan in the same ways, neither recieves a gifted guide to the soul or to creativity. The artist may have a better outlet in their cry of pain though.

Mary, I posted a repy earlier but it seems to have been eaten along with the pizza. Anyway, glad you've got news of your son that's not bad news, maybe this is his time, well, hopefully, good luck on another roller coaster ride, I have no wish to be in your shoes but if I can help you while you tripping through this, call.

Byron, Lewis Carrol, Charlie Parker, Billy Holiday, they were artists, ya, they had drug problems ya, but that didn't make them what they were, they were already that to begin with & IMHO they could've been more if the drugs hadn't gotten in their way. I see them as arrested artists, who even very talented were prohibited from reaching their full potential because of their problems. The saying that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" applies here. Had they been able to get past their addictions they would've have a valuable insight into a different side of the human condition not often experienced & a new & deeper well to draw from. They already had the talent to draw from their other wells. Maybe it seems that there's some kind of connection that draws artists to drugs but I don't see it any different than the attraction to it posses to the rest of society. I do see that artists play/paint/expose/mirrors to society it's all encompassing conditions in a way that shows them off as mediums though.

Mary, you're "dead on" about the addicts need to turn off reality and "kill their emotional pain". Who knows why they each have that need but it's one of the most compelling urges for them, excepting for those that have the compelling need to self medicate, which can be one & the same at times.

The attemps to rehabilate is a painful journey too. Each attempt is an extremely hard reality to face. There's the realization (the 1st time that "I am addicted, I am an addict") that one's become a sub-human, "I am a vampire of sorts". They face a very ugly reality, then they try to quit, & way too many fail. The failure only reinforces the futility of their situation, their pain becomes that much worse. So each attempt & failure is accompanied by the additional pain of being beaten back down again, into the inferno. There's also the pain that those that they once loved & who still love them have been "once again" been let down. Their last rememberances on a self once of worth has again disappointed & again broken the hearts & hopes of those that they still (even though it's buried & ubseen) see as a love lost to another time. They still love but it's mostly an image of what once was, it's the "feel" part that they've tried to drown in the drugs that's gone.
Anyway each time is much more painful & harder than the last. It's harder & it takes more drugs each time to get past it (1 of the causes of many accidental(?) overdoses). It's up side is that it gets easier to try & the odds get better & with each attempt there's more willingness & there's something that's learnt that'll help with the next time.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 11:54 AM

Another excellent post Barry.

My son's been off Smack for four years now, he's currently trying to kick the Methadone. It's not fun watching the suffering of the child you watched come into this world, cradled in your arms, nurtured and loved (STILL love).

Thanks for your insight and compassion on here Barry. Also to Eanjay and Sinsull, with whom I've had some insightful and sensitive off-line correspondence.

Prayers and good wishes to you all.
J

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:54 PM

"Lox, I'd have to disagree with you on the above. Drugs affects the artist as well as the artisan in the same ways, neither recieves a gifted guide to the soul or to creativity. The artist may have a better outlet in their cry of pain though"

I didn't say they did.

I said:

"As regards drugs and high profile musicians, it is interesting to note, without trying to make any point one way or the other, but purely on an observational level, that many of the most influential musicians and authors throughout the ages have been users of drugs."

The correllation between drug use and creativity cannot be ignored, however we wish to explain it, something I am cautious of trying to do.

__________________________________

On the question of addiction,


I think the realization an addict needs to have to overcome their problem is:

"I am ill and need help to get better"

There are taboo's surrounding drugs which are responsible for the idea in addicts minds as well as everyone elses that addiction is somehow equated with being subhuman.

Addicts often have serious self esteem problems from which they hide in drug abuse. So the idea of facing up to being subhuman is not helpful. And the idea that addicts are subhuman is wrong.

However, the question of addiction in the light of psychological explanations has been shown to my satisfaction to be a peripheral matter.

Addiction is a chemical issue and takes a strong determined person to overcome, and can drive lovely people to behave in nasty reckless vicious ways.

My credentials here are that I have sole custody of my little girl after a long protracted battle with her mother who has a chronic drug addiction.

Her addiction is so powerful that when the courts gave her the opportunity - three times - to make a clear choice, the drug came first each time.

She is not a bad person. She is very ill.

She has an illness that only she can defeat.

Until the day comes when she plucks up the courage to fight it, there is no point trying to defeat it for her or even to persuade her that she needs to do it.

My days of throwing endless support down a bottomless pit while being on the receiving end of associated abuse are over while the risk to my daughter has been contained as much as the law allows.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:55 PM

Sorry - that last post was me