To have felt a bit sorry for this shoplifter / drug addict?

[Estelvia]

I was in savers this afternoon and a man was caught trying to steal. The staff got the items back before escorting him out of the shop, as he was being lead out of the door he was pleading with them saying that he's ill / withdrawing and needs 'dark' (which is slang for heroin)

The employee told him to sling his hook and get a job, cue some swearing from him and calling them knob heads among other things.

We saw him walk up the highstreet and into Holland and Barretts where he presumably tried the same thing.

My initial thought was "scumbag" but then it hit me just how desperate somebody must be to resort to that and what an miserable existence it is having to steal to ward off painful withdrawals. I'm not condoning theft or any other crimes they commit to fund the habit.

Do you have any sympathy for these types of people?

Absolutely @capsulate.
I think the when depends on a person (except certain drugs). For some it starts with first hit, for some it's when they decide they want more and more.

Interesting thing about rock bottom. There was an article years ago with mum of a drug addict. He lived on streets. She was explaining that he will not seek help until he hits rock bottom, but people giving him money keep him just above it. So she was asking people not to give money but give to charities helping instead.

I've said this before but I can well imagine how it's much easier to have sympathy from afar in these cases

@SnuggyBuggy

I've said this before but I can well imagine how it's much easier to have sympathy from afar in these cases

Yup.

@SnuggyBuggy

I've said this before but I can well imagine how it's much easier to have sympathy from afar in these cases

Of course it is. But that was our choice. We chose not to take drugs/smoke/gamble etc. They chose to do so; they can’t use their past as an excuse for doing so and now must face the consequences.

The opioid crisis in the states is awful though. Those people seem to have been prescribed addictive opioids for ages and for all manner of things, like pain relief. Then when they become addicted, you know, to a highly addictive substance (shocker), they get cut off and it clearly isn't being managed well, as they then all resort to buying the closest thing they can illegally, which is often heroin. If I was in chronic pain and the only thing that touched it was an opioid which I then became addicted to, I don't know that I'd have the strength to resist.

Although, a friend of mine works with people with addictions and MH issues and he said he had a patient recently who was in his 70s, had some pain lingering from sports injuries in his youth.
So he tried paracetamol and ibuprofen, which didn't touch the pain and then a friend suggested heroin. So this guy was addicted to heroin, having made it to his 70s without being a drug user. It's more understandable in the states, where prescription medication costs ££££, but here? I do not understand the logic at all, but then, maybe his MH was pretty bad already.

What was he trying to steal ?
Was it pain relief ?

If it was something very cheap and something like paracetamol I would be tempted to buy some for them. It’s awful trying to steal but something that could help and not cost the earth and would make a difference seems worthwhile .

Also someone mentioned above he could mug an old lady . Whilst this is possible doesn’t mean he would do this

It's more understandable in the states, where prescription medication costs ££££, but here? I do not understand the logic at all, but then, maybe his MH was pretty bad already.

Here it's becoming nigh on impossible to obtain opiate pain relief or drugs to help you sleep. People are being cut off all over the place.

Also I mean buy the pain relief as a fellow shopper not staff. Staff of course correct to ask to leave and lucky police were not involved .

Adultieradult
Addiction has been linked strongly to childhood abuse. It’s not often people with rosy lives who choose to fuck them up and live on the fringes of society

There are plenty of people in their 30s, 40s, 50s with secure lives, families, well paid jobs who have an accident or an operation, are prescribed opiates such a codeine or dihydracodeine (sp) and become addicted.
Not everyone who is prescribed opiates become addicts but some do.
They aren’t down and outs nor are they shop lifting but they are still addicts.
Were they all abused in childhood?

@InDeoEstMeaFiducia

It's more understandable in the states, where prescription medication costs ££££, but here? I do not understand the logic at all, but then, maybe his MH was pretty bad already.

Here it's becoming nigh on impossible to obtain opiate pain relief or drugs to help you sleep. People are being cut off all over the place.

Yes, but is there not a middle ground between paracetamol and heroin, or even prescription opiates? Maybe not! I'm, (quite obviously ), not a doctor.

Yes, but is there not a middle ground between paracetamol and heroin, or even prescription opiates? Maybe not! I'm, (quite obviously grin), not a doctor.

No, not really. But there are many threads on here about poor pain relief in the UK.

I have empathy for addictions. But because I have had heroin addicts in my family and know what they've done to get the drug and the help they've been offered, I don't over sympathise with them.

It's the biggest reason why vulnerable people can't live independently in the community. These people prey on them and too many people with LDs/ pensioners have been murdered by addicts for me to see them as victims. That besides them making life miserable and more difficult for those on minimum wage and benefits, who scrape together enough for bikes for their children, for them to get robbed.

My DDs as children, have been friends with children of addicts and I've ended up feeding and washing their clothes. They see their mother out prostituting and their father beating her if she doesn't make enough. Children neglected sometimes to the point of death. Working in CP probably didn't help.

I've seen women ground down by alcoholic men, taking regular beatings and the house being smashed up. Children with nothing. As said, I have empathy with their personal struggles, but I don't feel sorry for them, as such.

You can have sympathy for the person but also not condone their actions. Of course I would feel less sympathetic if this person had mugged an elderly person. I still feel sorry for them and their situation, who would choose to live like that

@InDeoEstMeaFiducia

Yes, but is there not a middle ground between paracetamol and heroin, or even prescription opiates? Maybe not! I'm, (quite obviously grin), not a doctor.

No, not really. But there are many threads on here about poor pain relief in the UK.

That's as may be, but I still seriously question the logic of going straight from OTC painkillers, not even paracodol, then straight to heroin. But maybe the message that pain relief is non existent on the NHS is being spread quite successfully! So he maybe thought, "why bother, since it's so bad"? I can empathise for sure, but the problem with saying "why bother?", is that you bypass any help with physio, steroids or nerve treatments, which might help. It is terrible though, that once those treatments have been exhausted, stronger pain relief isn't available to those with chronic pain.

My SIL is a GP though and she had to cut people off when her predecessor had been giving them very freely with few questions asked. That was the opposite problem. She had patients presenting with what she said were longterm, minor niggles, who had been prescribed larger quantities of now controlled drugs. I also know a pensioner who had amassed a huge stockpile of valium, codeine and zopiclone and was definitely addicted to them, as she was just taking as many as she fancied. She had to be weaned off them and she didn't really suffer from chronic pain, she had mild anxiety and insomnia. So, obviously there needs to be a balance. The problem in the states seems to have started with them being prescribed too freely, which is possibly the reason for the crackdown here. Although, maybe, as you suggest, that crackdown has gone to far the other way now. Very difficult.

Too far*

How desperate and/or mad must you be to take heroin as pain relief? Most people know how dangerous and addictive it is.

I agree, it must be absolute desperation or a significant MH problem to try heroin as pain relief. It could also be ignorance. Someone in their 70s, like my friend's patient, may not believe heroin is as addictive as people make out, or they may think they've come this far in life without getting an addiction, so how could they get addicted now? Or they may think "how bad can addiction be? I've lived my life, I don't care about extending my life much further so don't mind if it's unhealthy". Or, as I said, they may have heard that the NHS is rubbish at dealing with pain relief, so they won't even bother trying with them. There are many, possible thought processes. None of them is exactly right obviously, but that's easy for me to say, as I don't suffer from chronic pain.

And to add to my list of anecdata re the over-prescription of now controlled drugs; does anyone remember how easy it used to be to get valium for stressful situations? For example getting on a plane or doing exams. It used to be so common. I believe that now you are more likely to get beta blockers instead? Not sure how the two compare, but even to a lay person like me, handing out valium so someone can go on their hols to Tenerife, (actual scenario I recall a friend having them for), seems a little...irresponsible? Especially now that people who genuinely seem to need it, have tried physio, steroids, whatever else and still have chronic pain, aren't able to access them apparently, through the NHS.

But I am also wary of spreading the "NHS are rubbish for pain relief. Might as well not bother" message as well, as I do think people might say this off hand and some people will take it very literally. I remember being told similar about childbirth and pain relief, "ooooh, you'll have to fight for an epidural, midwives will just ignore your pain, you'll have a real battle on your hands. Even if you and your baby might die without a CS, they will insist you try a VB" etc. As a result I was up to high doe when I gave birth to dc1 and found none of that to be true for me. They were pretty free and easy tbh with epidural and whatever the hell I wanted, within reason. So, I can only imagine, it varies from hospital to hospital and from clinician to clinician. So, I would imagine that giving them a go before you resort to heroin would probably be the best thing.

You can't even buy Solpadeine without getting reminded that it's addictive, only for 3 days' use etc. I have chronic pain. I don't know what the fuck else I can take and it's the only thing that works - Amitriptyline gives me terrible restless legs and makes me feel like shite.

@PhilSwagielka

You can't even buy Solpadeine without getting reminded that it's addictive, only for 3 days' use etc. I have chronic pain. I don't know what the fuck else I can take and it's the only thing that works - Amitriptyline gives me terrible restless legs and makes me feel like shite.

How awful! And that makes it even worse that they used to hand them out to anyone who asked for them. The pensioner I mentioned up thread used to get her prescription twice over, somehow, so she had a huge stockpile .

The other thing with that was that she ended up almost delirious. We thought she was dying or extremely sick because she just wasn't making any sense. Then we found out how much of this she was taking, she actually had to have them taken off her in a care home and rationed to her while they weaned her off and suddenly she could string a sentence together again.

You also get rebound pain with some painkillers I believe, so giving people loads of them and then suddenly cutting them off, will cause their original pain to come back with interest! So, no wonder in those circumstances, people take matters into their own hands.

I have some sympathy. The biggest issue, however, is that people aren't willing to help themselves. Every single town, city, Borough will have a drug service. Waiting lists aren't as long as people seem to think (unless it's a badly managed service and then they won't be the provider for long). Methadone, buprenorphine etc. Are given as take home. They will only be supervised in a pharmacy for a reason.

So yeah, while I do have some sympathy, I don't have that much.

@HunterHearstHelmsley

I have some sympathy. The biggest issue, however, is that people aren't willing to help themselves. Every single town, city, Borough will have a drug service. Waiting lists aren't as long as people seem to think (unless it's a badly managed service and then they won't be the provider for long). Methadone, buprenorphine etc. Are given as take home. They will only be supervised in a pharmacy for a reason.

So yeah, while I do have some sympathy, I don't have that much.

I agree that ultimately, it has to come from the addict and services can only do so much. Using my mum as an example, she was going to AA and she was in rehab twice but she still drank. The thing that made her quit was when my brother went to visit her and on being picked up by my stepdad and told that Mum had been on a binge, my brother was so angry he just got the next train home. That was a wake-up call and she's been clean since.

I'm going to tell you about X, a teenager I know.

She was born when her mum, a child of two heroin addicts, was 17. She was horribly abused as a toddler and it was only after one of mum's partners threw her against a wall that social workers took her away....and then put her with her grandma who was on methadone. It was then discovered she had also been sexually abused by this man.

She was moved back to mum, a procession of stepfather and four siblings, one of whom was stillborn, arrived.

Every single person in this kids life was a druggie of some sort. Her parent, grandparents, stepdads, all of mum's friends and her mum's twin has been to prison for drug offences. The kids were eventually removed from mum's care (grandma had died by that point) after the girl had stopped going to school because she was scared to leave the siblings alone during the day. The kids were split up as nobody could take all four of them.

Mum has been spotted begging for drug money.

Nobody has cared for this girl, nobody has shown her a different way of life. Being surrounded by drugs is all she knows, she has never had a role model who has gone onto further education or worked. Hopefully she now has some stability in foster care but would anyone be surprised if a child like that became the third generation of drug addict?

On one hand I have sympathy for their circumstances, I don't feel sympathy for their actions when they cause stress, anxiety, pain or disruption to people and businesses.

Sorry but I don't have any sympathy for drug addicts. You know what you're getting yourself in for when you start shooting up heroin or smoking crack. No one's fault but their own imo.