to not understand when people don't have compassion for addicts

[badlydrawngirl]

Hello. First post from a lurker.

The untimely & tragic death today of Amy Winehouse has sparked the usual flurry of comments on messageboards, twitter etc from people saying they have no sympathy, no respect or compassion towards an addict. They're somehow seen as subhuman and/or abhorrent, and over-risingly, that they chose to be an addict, they chose to end up in that state.

I was an addict, it's such an awful state to be in I really thought at one point that suicide would be my only way out. I really really didn't chose to end up feeling like that, I didn't even notic it happening!! It was a slow slippery slope downwards (cliché I know, but so true) and before I even recognised what was happening to me, it was too late - I was well & truly in the depths of it.

After a few unsuccesful attempts to cut down/stop I started to get scared, realising only then the grip I was in. I changed, I was horrible, I was dirty and immoral and put my friends & family through hell - it's only a testament to them that they're still in my life today.

Then with that came the crippling guilt, the anxiety, the hopelessness, the suicidal thoughts. I couldnt live with what I had done to my loved ones. All the things I was doing went against the very core of my being, I hated myself.

Saying "well they could just stop" is kind of like addiction denial. If you recognise the fact that there's such a thing as addiction, then surely you must understand the nature of what that means?

I certainly feel very saddened at Amy's death, there but for the grace of god goes anyone of us, our friends, our family, our chidlren.

I'm sorry but I have zero sympathy for drug addicts.

If people went off and did drugs without bothering anyone else then thats fine. But they don't. They beg, borrow and steal to fund their habit. Unless they are wealthy enough to afford the habit they are quite often CRIMINALS! They break their families hearts.

In my old flat which was an old style tenement, I lived in the second floor and at least once a week I would hear noise outside my door. I'd look through the peephole and see a pair of junkies injecting themselves in the groin! If my dog needed out I would just have to wait until they were finished. They repeatedly woke up DD. I called the police everytime and on the rare occasions they were quick enough they didn't arrest them as they had no drugs as they had already been injected. Then I found out one of them had been sleeping in a cupboard at the bottom of the stairs at night as the police caught them there. (Before I found out I was paranoid there was someone in the cupboard watching me when I took my dog down late at night, was never brave enough to check, but then found out I was right!)

They invaded on my life. Made me feel scared in my own home. Made me scared to go down the stairs. So no, I will never have sympathy for junkies.

I have very very mixed feelings about it.

I have, and have had contact in my life with quite a high number of addicts, albeit less frequently now, and the devastation that is wreaked in their path to follow their course in life is horrific.

I think in a sense that there are people who have addictive personalities, who are tempted by things that most of us come across, but reject, but something in their make up draws them in and the spiral of addiction, selfishness, denial and the havoc that they cause is actually an illness, in the form of a mental illness.

My experience is that most people actually believe that they can and do control their relationship with the addictive substances, so no, it isn't necessarily triggered by something, maybe it is curiosity, social pressure, something missing, but the wiring in their brains doesn't connect and often are combined with selfish personalities and a lack of sense of responsibility is just a recipe for disaster.

And where, indeed, food, cigarette, food and other addictions or disorders don't often lead to a life possibly centred around crime, and therefore limits the potential number of victims, I don't think it is any less painful for a loved one to witness a family member dying of smoking related cancer, or dying from Anorexia than it is for someone to lose a loved one to drink or drugs.

And just as drink and drug addicts 'make a choice' so indeed do smokers, people with food disorders and any of the perceived 'lesser' addictions.

My sympathy and sadness first goes to the family and friends and victims that get caught up in the tangled web that becomes the life of an addict, it is heartbreaking and harrowing, but although I have felt anger and many other emotions at the pointlessness of it all, I have some empathy and sadness also for people that may have travelled a path I did not choose, nor was compelled on any level to take.

My point of view is based on my experiences at the hands of some of the addicts I know.

YANBU a all, and congratulations on recovering- what a huge mountain you must have scaled!

Many other posters with frightening and very difficult personal encounters with people who are misusing drugs are also not BU - it's a thorny topic as I've discovered tonight with no easy answers. Perhaps my views are coloured by working predominantly with dual diagnosis and with people who want help- but bottom line for me is that people with addictions are absolutely worthy of support and help, compassion and care.

But I am very fortunate to have only had a few negative encounters in my time including being badly assaulted by one person addicted to heroin on a psychiatric ward - never out of work time - which helps me maintain my views.

I do not have a lot of sympathy (for anyone, really...I'm far too miserable and cynical).

Any kind of addiction begins with a poor choice. You make a poor choice which leads onto more of them.

Alcoholics, drug abusers, over/under eaters etc. I think they need mental stability and support.

Then again if they ever bothered going to rehab and staying put, deaths like Winehouse's would be fewer.

I see a lot of drug addicts in my professional life.
I treat them with exactly the same respect as I treat everyone I come into contact with.

However bitter experience has taught me that they are almost always ( in fact I can not think of an instance when not ) liars and manipulators. I am often struck by their intelligence. They really are master manipulators and I do not trust them . This is my reluctant view from over 20years of working with many many drug addicts.

thingsfallapart, i Don't think it is as simplistic as that - i.e addicts equals those who have a Bad Start in life and by implication those who have 'normal', happy, middle class lives won't become addicted. My DP has a group of friends from school all have similar upper middle-aged class backgrounds. They are all approaching 30 and 50 % of the group have become addicted to hard drugs. One of those has just received a 10 year prison sentence for being involved with drug smuggling. He came from a loving happy home, both parents have phds, one lectures at Oxford. They had great starts in life but i still feel compassion for them because it must be a living hell to be addicted to class A drugs! I feel compassion for my DP's friend in prison because at 28 that's a waste to! He is a nice, sweet man, you never would've guessed he was involved with this. He didn't have 'baddy' written all over him!

YADNBU, however, I think the reason some people find it hard to have so sympathy for drug addicts and alcoholics is because unlike people with actual diseases, there was always a point where there was a choice. No-one drinks or smokes to excess, or takes regular hits of a Class A drug without knowing that it carries a huge risk. Long before the addiction becomes an issue that person is repeatedly choosing to ignore the well documented and well publicised risks for the sake of instant gratification.

Personally I can find it in my heart to have sympathy for them, but I do understand why some people cannot.

Op - really well done on your recovery - that is brilliant.

I have some sympathy for some addicts depending on the situation - it just depends. Do I have sympathy for the fucker who caused all that mayhem and death in Norway? No I do not!

YABU not to understand why others would have no sympathy. Addicts are extremely selfish and deceitful people. They care for nothing & no-one - only for their addiction. If you're unlucky enough to be connected to one and you try to help them, they will sap the life out of you and then spit it back in your face. I admire professionals who help treat addicts and I would always offer moral support an addict that genuinely made efforts to recover. But I'm afraid, after bitter personal experience, I'm very low on sympathy.

YANBU.

My best friend died at her own hands after long term addiction to various drugs. She had a crappy (very middle class) childhood and a crappy adulthood that got worse as her addiction got worse.

Glad to hear you're in recovery, keep up the good work.

YANBU

I've been arguing all over Facebook all night over cruel comments about AW. It has prompted a friends cull, tbh. Can't be doing with these tossers chatting shite about a subject they know fuck all on.

a very good friend of my sister had an awful childhood, was in care, got into an incredibly emotionally and physically abusive relationship and blocked it out with drink for years, when she went for help for her drink problem she got put into rehab and came out with a heroin addiction :( she has been on methadone for 2 years now as has her girlfriend but unfortunately she is still in the abusive relationship with her gf, hangs around with the same ppl who got her addicted in the first place now they are out of rehab and is a shadow of the woman she used to be.

thru her addiction i see she is still the same kind compassionate caring woman she always has been, she is still funny, kind, thoughtful, great with kids just has this god awful addiction that she is unable to beat because of the emotional abuse she suffers from her gf.

with her ive seen that there are 2 sides to an addict and have had my eyes opened in regards to addicts. they are not all bad ppl.

for what its worth, she has never commited a crime to get money for her drugs. she has pawned almost everything she owns to the extent she didnt have a stable phone number for 8 months but she has never mugged a granny etc i think these types of stereotypes are really unfair. it may be true of many but not all.

I am sympathetic.

The taking of drugs is pretty widespread. I'm sure a lot of people reading this will have experimented with something in their time. And if not, how many of us have drunk alcohol? Could any of us truly have predicted we wouldn't have become an alcoholic?

I should imagine addicts start off thinking they can handle it. It's just to have a good time or take the edge off. For some it gets out of control. Look at Kate Moss. We all know she gets utterly trashed but she is still living successfully.

Besides, there is a lot of violence and antisocial behaviour out there and it's not exclusively caused by addicts. Some people are just shits, with drugs or without.

*Smokers, food and exercise addicts do not deliberately go out of their way to harm others to get their fix. There are minor anti-social behaviours associated, but not on the same scale as, for example, a heroin or crack addict.

Nobody ran over an old lady on a pedestrian crossing because they were in a hurry to get another mars bar. Nobody's house was broken into because someone welched on a deal to buy a mate a packet of fags. And no one was beaten up because they went to the gym twice a day...*

Purplepijin, I'm sorry if I'mw ay off base here, but it doesn't sound like you have much experience of eating disorders and food addiction.

As an anorexic/bulimic I can say with absolute truth that I have inflicted massive emotional damage on other people in the past. If I'm going to be truly honest that damage might even include my own two daughters who are only 4 and 8 years old.

"Nobody ran over an old lady ..." eating disorders DO cause hugely dangerous driving. I have driven before having not eaten at all for 2 days. I have driven numerous times having not eaten that day. That's every bit as dangerous, shameful and judgable as driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Although, I haven't done this personally, I know people who, while driving, have been eating and purging the food straight back into a cup. Hugely dangerous driving.

"Nobody's house was broken into ..." maybe not but stealing IS a massive issue with eating addictions. I have taken food from friends and family and hope they wouldn't notice. That's not extreme. One of my close friends regularly shoplifts £200 of groceries from supermarkets because her bulimia is so severe and she is broke. She says she goes into a haze and almost can't remember doing it. But she is doing it.

I really don't see how food addiction is any less condemnable that alcoholism or drug addiction. An addiction to anything grabs you so tightly that you will hurt anyone who stands in the way of you and your chosen poison. Personally I believe that ALL addictions involve an element of choice but I would never judge someone who at a given time is not strong enough to break free from one.

Do you know what? I've just seen a little boy on the news putting a flower down outside her house. I think it lovely that people can see that there was a lot of good in Amy Winehouse and care a lot about her, even though she had a lot of problems

Goldenbear, I agree actually that my post was far too simplistic a statement. My point was really about it not being stupidity, lots of very bright people take drugs. And most start in their teens, when they still believe they are invincible.

It can be a response to a difficult life or an addictive personality, or myriad other reasons that results in one becoming an addict rather than someone who has dabbled and moved on.

OP thank you for sharing your story and well done on turning your life around.

My opinion and feelings towards addiction have changed through the years. I had no
personal experience despite my hometown being absolutely rife with drugs. And I felt mostly sympathy for drug addicts, more so their families and children who are the real victims IMO.

Then after a couple of years with my now ex, I found out he had been a heroin addict (was clean when we met and has never used heroin since.) Problem is that addiction seems to be hard to shake off and when an addict gets over the curse of one substance, they often transfer to something else.

So now that I'm in the position of being a family that has been destroyed by drug abuse and the mother of those children is previously felt sorry for I have to honestly say I don't feel any sympathy at all now.

YANBU, but many of those who do not have compassion for addict do not know much about addiction. All they know is the damage addiction causes, as opposed to the damage that usually causes addiction. This is summed up in their comments about choice. No one chooses to be addicted and yes at some point the addict did choose to take a drug, but so did most other people of their generation and in their circle, yet none of them became addicted. Everyone I know that is over the age of 18 and younger than me has tried drugs, but none of them are addicts.

Manicinsomniac, I forgot to take anorexia and bulimia out of that quote (or deal with them seperately) because you're right I know very little - I do know they're mental health disorders like depression, not addictions in their own right

Um... it does strike me, having come back to this thread...

all those who have posted that it is acceptable/understandable NOT to have compasssion for an addict?

I assume that they could, NONE of them, therefore give a flying fuck about Amy Winehouse dying? SHe was an addict. Was undoubtedly a pain in the butt to those around her at some time or another? Still. Fuck it, eh??

Just a thought....

I spent my late teens addicted to herion and at the end of those years I was homeless, 6 stone and desparately ill.

I was lucky in that I had a family who supported me while I recovered and got a job and paid off my finacial debts. I don't know if I will ever pay my emotional debts to my family who must have spent many night waiting by the telephone wondering if tonight was the night they would get the phone call telling them I was gone.

I have been lucky enough to go on to have my own family and also volunteered with adults with substance misuse problems - every time I worked with the service users family it brought home to me the pain I put my own family through - and then started a career with teenagers misusing substances and now run my own project supporting young people in all areas of their lives.

I have been clean now for 16 years this year. This is because I have a purpose in life, my family's love and I value myself.

Addiction is not about being stupid, its about not thinking you are worth anything more.

This is why people who have no understanding of addiction have no compassion.

YANBU, and well done on your recovery.