tabby I'm very shocked that every homeless person in your area has been offered suitable accommodation. Because that's the key really isn't it? Many homeless people won't go into hostels where drug taking is rife. Because they're ex addicts and know if they lived there, they would use. For some people, like the chap 8 spoke to the other day, they'd rather sleep on a cardboard box than be in that unsafe environment.
What about pets? It's easy for people to scoff but it's true. I love my dog, I've had her since she was a pup. She's my angel. If I was all she had (and she's very clingy, follows you to the loo), there is no chance I would dump her in a shelter. That's cruel on the poor dog.
A rehab place can take a year to materialise. There's ridiculous waiting lists and most rehabs do a minimum of 3 months so hardly a quick turn over. Plus it's fucking terryfing! People have compared rehab as worse than prison. Told when to get up, when to shower, you have to talk to people and engage with groups, other people on at you all the time, zero sympathy when you're rattling, no TV or computers and not much books other than recovery... I am a nice person but I imagine I'd go fucking mad in rehab. The lack of any semblance of control mut8ve awful. It's not a nice comfy option.
What about if the place is too expensive, or too far away from anything? What if they can't take drugs or alcohol or have to obey bybscrict rules? I appreciate it must be frustrating, I do get that. But for many addicts, myself included, getting clean isn't that simple. Sober living houses are scarce, have ott rules (people chucked out for giving another a jokey goodnight kiss ffs), and the places that do allow active addicts aren't properly regulated. Rather than 2 extremes - hostels where drugs are rife and no one gives a fuck, or dry houses where too many unwashed mugs mean you're out... There should be proper support. Of course that costs money and of course no one will do that.
Then consider if you've been street homeless for years, how hard and scary it must be moving! I don't blame you for getting frustrated, but there's other reasons for it than 'they like sleeping on cardboard'
Aw for why do people use drugs or alcohol? Trauma. I've yet to meet a single addict who hasn't experienced trauma in some way. Family environment, peers, self medicating, a way to manage your emotions or be happy at a hard job, a way to feel OK when living with abusers, witnessing DV or loss or injury or.... The list goes on. Then societal views of addicts as being all hopeless and thieves and junkies. Then when you do try and get help, you wait weeks for a script then people tell you you're still a junkie just to something different. Or you wait for 12 months for a place in rehab, unable to progress. Or you can never get pain medication for your injury because you've an addiction past.
Funding is so bad. Services are cut to the bone and waiting lists are absolutely ridiculous. You try rattling and waiting a week for an appointment, and not use to relieve the physical agony. Then the pharmacies who quite frankly are shitty. My old pharmacy was lovely - 3 pharmacists, you went in and had a chat, they got your script ready, they were nice. Current pharmacy is a boots in town. I go there 3 x a week and yet no one remembers my fucking name. You're served behind a hatch to make it more fucking dehumanising. They won't make small talk with you but will happily finish their smiley conversation before talking to you. They'll take their sweet time, checking the same details 50 fucking times, then they'll moan if you take too long to dissolve the medication. That hatch is so dehumanising. Also I assume you need an address to receive a prescription?
So yes, the government are at least partly to blame for addiction rises. Not least for the lack of services actually available to help and support addicts.
I'm sorry but I find it hilarious that a worker in the field thinks disposable income has any link to addiction? Maybe at the beginning when it's a few lines on a weekend. But no hard blown addict is using because they have money. Most of us don't have the money! I did sex chat work, I escorted, I stole my baby jewellery, I got into loans for drug money. Having a disposable income had fuck all to do with it.
More 'silly people to take them'. Thanks. I'd always assumed it was only the homeless, jobless addicts with a problem too. Made worse by the fact that I took painkillers not gear. People who get addicted to drugs don't do so because they're 'silly'. They take them because of trauma, because of DV, because of death, to keep their mask on, to keep horrid emotions locked away, to keep past experiences firmly in a box under the stairs, to be happy and good at their job, because they're pressured into it... Thousands of reasons but silliness has f all to do with it. Possibly get yourself on a substance misuse course