to think that most people are unsympathetic about addiction?

[Ilovedaintynuts]

Within minutes of her death being made public my facebook was full of tributes to Whitney Houston but also people saying they have no sympathy as she only has herself to blame..blah blah.

I find addiction and what it does to individuals, families and society tragic.

My occupation is Oncology and I still find extreme addiction as tragic as dying from cancer.

Whethers it's drugs, alcohol, smoking, spending, gambling it's an illness, isn't it?

Why do people think that these addicts should just stop and that it's their fault they are making themselves ill?

MeltedChocolate, some people don't have that cut-off point. Some people look at their future and see nothing to hope for. Some people can't get away from stuff that happened in the past. Some people have such low self esteem they couldn't care less what happens to them.

It is great for you that you managed not to get addicted, but some people just don't have that self-awareness or whatever it is that stops some people.

I have numerous mental health problems, I luckily am not addicted to anything but I still engage in other damaging behaviours. I'm not going to look down on people who just have a less socially acceptable way of coping than me.

"starting to rely on something is not having an addiction"

Exactly. It's the point before addiction when you chose what to do next. Stop or carry on.

I do not sympathise. I would help though. I tried to help XH as much as I could but people have to make their own choice. He acknowledges that he chose drugs and knew what he was doing.

An addiction never leaves you, it will always haunt you for the rest of your life. But it's a choice, you let it win or you do everything to keep it at bay.

It took me a good few years to get over my former drug addiction. Being an addict is the most miserable horrible desperate existence, it's utterly tormenting. I do have sympathy for addicts, but if I overcame it then surely they can to, or at least try.

"There's an awful lot of people putting labels on here. If you have sympathy for drug addicts it's not the same as saying "oh God the poor darlings, let's set up charity funds to buy drugs for them. Let's shove the coke up their noses ourselves!"

Thats true. But at the same time it is also true that by saying that people do bear responsibility for their own actions is not the same as saying" let them die in a gutter, I couldn't care less".

I don't think I said it did, did I?

but the addiction has already started once you are aware that you are relying on something

it is not that simple to just knock it on the head cut back but it is for those who do not have an addiction

yellow, you were making a point about one side, I made a similar point for the other. I thought you were against stifling debate?

yellow, I know. I was one of those people, that is why I was drinking. I knew that I was drinking too much and CHOSE to stop before it go out of hand. That addictive personality doesn't go either. That is why I chose not to drink at all.

I would totally disagree that people are not self aware in the way that I was. You choose whether to ignore it or not.

So everyone has exactly the same personality as you, MeltedChocolate?

I'm guessing that when you gave up drinking you had some sort of hope for the future? An education, a family, some kind of ambition?

And where did I stifle debate ParanoidAndroid?

Of course there is some element of personal responsibility. If there weren't, then presumably we'd see all the siblings in some families, where they haven't has a great start in life, or maybe have an addictive parent, become addicts themselves. And conversely, all the families where the children had a better start would never have a child who goes down the route to addiction.

Of course, we all know it isn't like that. There may be certain factors which make some people more likely to become addicts but it is by no means predetermined. Some people make good choices and some people make poor choices- that's the reality. I know a few people who battle depression, it's a terrible blight, but they don't all end up as addicts. In fact one in particular has told me that he is exceptionally careful to not put himself in any situation where he might be tempted to drink too much or smoke because he knows that the consequences for him would be worse than for most.

I think it's entirely possible to show humanity while at the same time acknowledging that not everyone is the same and that some people deal with what life throws up in better ways than others.

way too touchy yellow, you need to chill out and stop sniping.

Some of the opinions on here are outrageous. 'no self control'??? You wouldn't hear someone say 'Oh yes, those pesky anorexics with their inability to eat properly' would you? People are complex characters and for many, it is not as simple as just stopping doing something...even if it is killing them.

No I didn't yellow. Everything was still going pretty downhill, but I did not want to be drinking myself away for the rest of my life.

I am not saying everyone has the same personality as me but I would argue forever that there does not come a point where you know, even if you couldn't admit aloud, that you are getting to a bad place and you have to decide whether or not to carry on, or sweep it under the carpet and pretend it isn't happening.

Exactly calmemrs, like your friend I know it would not be good for me to allow myself to drink. Something bad happened recently, I thought 'oh just get drunk' but I would not do that to myself and these days I have DS that I could not do that to. Some people can drink with no worry. I am not one of those people so I have to be responsible and not put myself in that position.

Also it's not like suddenly bad things happened before and I just started drinking. It was a casual thing that developed. Yet there still came that point when I knew that my wanting a drink was because I had been drinking and didn't want to get sober.

Hammy, no one said it was simple to stop. It still is a choice though.

Anorexia is a mental illness though. Addiction is not.

I was just trying to get across that some self-destructive behaviours get more sympathy than others.

They are opinions, outrageous is in the eye of the beholder. We're all complex characters, we don't all wreck other peoples lives with our addictions and accompanying behaviours.

I don't know the answer, and I suspect nobody else on this thread does, though, despite the confidence of some of the replies.

My guess, though, is that it's not about having an addictive personality but having an addictive physiology. That's why lots of people can drink alcohol without becoming alcoholics, but a few do. I don't suppose anyone chooses to become an alcoholic, it's just that there's something in their physiological makeup that makes them need alcoholic once they've started. I'm pretty sure I could never be an alcoholic however depressed I was because the thought of having a glass of whisky, say, at 11am, turns my stomach!

But then I suppose there is also an interplay with personality and personal circumstance too. People with unhappy lives seem to be more likely to become addicts.

yy paranoid- completely agree that we are all complex characters. Its not black and white. It's not like some of the population are doomed to a life of addiction while for everyone else it's a bed of roses.

belgianbun - you've summed up perfectly my own feelings having grown up with an alcoholic parent.

Hopes get built up and then crushed again; sympathy and understanding turn to anger and bitterness. I find myself lost within the latter emotions at the moment and look at the man I once loved with disgust some days.

I remember well the sick feeling of despair from my childhood when the whole family begged Dad for the umpteenth time to stop and the whiskey would disappear for a week or two. And then reappear, a little at first and then just the same as ever. The feeling that we mattered less to our father than the contents of the bottle. The fear when it made him ill and he still didn't stop. The contempt when I heard a crash from downstairs in the middle of the night and knew it was him falling off his chair and snoring on the kitchen floor. The embarrassment when we brought friends round and he treated them as an audience for his drunken ramblings, or picked on us in front of them.

All this and more has permently coloured my approach to life and relationships. It's easy to make grand and generous statements about how addicts need support and compassion, not judgement, if you haven't lived through years of betrayal with an addict in the family. And if there's one hard lesson from my childhood it's that no amount of support and compassion will make an addict stop unless they want to. In the end it all comes down to choice.

Dad stopped in the end. It wasn't thanks to us. And I still judge him for that, and for what he put us all through before he finally pulled his finger out.

Thats almost the worst thing isn't it? Knowing that they can stop, because thay have done, but not when you needed it, and not for you.

I come from a long line of alcoholics. The thought of a drink mid-morning doesn't turn my stomach, and I could easily drown my sorrows in booze. I don't though. I choose differently. A lot of alcoholics are selfish and self indulgent people when sober, never mind when drunk, they care first and foremost about themselves.

belgian - only you can know what the right thing is to do in your situation. I'm sorry things are difficult for you though

My beef here is with easy generalisations about compassion and support, that imply human individuals are helpless automata with no agency at all, in the grip of some inexorable physiological compulsion (perhaps combined with a difficult childhood or whatever), and gloss over what addiction is like close up for everyone surrounding the addict. I would be surprised to see people posting on threads in Relationships, where a partner is struggling with an alcoholic DH or DW, to say 'You should have more sympathy with them, addiction is an illness.'