Addiction Is it possible for others to learn the consequences vicariously or must we each suffer our consequences to fully understand?

[LucidSDreamr]

3) Then to stop repeating those drug myths like 'one hit and you're hooked for life' or 'everyone who uses this or that will turn into an addict'.

Maybe it’s not true for everyone but this happened to me when I first tried weed (I had already been drunk several times but that didn’t hook me). After my first time using weed (the day after when I was sober and wanted to do it again) I immediately felt inside what “monkey on your back” meant when they say that to refer to addiction. All I thought about was the next high and I was instantly a daily pot head.

after that it was just an exploration into every other drug in existence and addiction to the typical ones that ppl get heavy into.

i eventually stopped them all but that was after many many years of punishment from them.

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

Well, being honest, using fear as a tool to make people away from drugs doesn't work. In Brazil, there is a program of the government named Proerd, where police officers visited public schools to teach teens that drugs are bad,destroy life's and families, uses bizarre non sense educational videos that looks ridiculous. They don't explain why is bad, don't explore de consequences... Is just fear. The image of the addicted here is the lazy, criminal, selfish, violent and evil...While things are more complex. The lack of knowledge and the educational approach is failed using fear. Here
The irony is that my step-father oldest son (he didn't live with me) is a coke addict, his father had to pick him at night on dangerous areas. The stories told by my mother and step-father scared me. But when he came to live with us (I was 16)... He looked normal for me. Despite knowing his actions he didn't looked like a monster (okay, after he did some fucked up stuff and his father is low contact with him, but I don't know). The only thing suspisious was some nose sounds coming from his bedroom, but maybe was a normal habit of a coke user... Never gonna know. Had no interest that time.
Anyway, I'm the proof that fear culture doesn't work. My first time doing coke I was so scared of that white line... To become a monster. In the end, my fear seduced me. That happens with some people from my circle.
Another thing that shocked me is de demonization of weed here. Which is bizarre.
Education and transparency is the basis of prevention. An interdisciplinar team with health professionals, teachers, policemen, users, former users... Information and honesty is important. Is necessary to work with this stigma.

Haha my fiancé told me about this. He said it was basically Brazil's version of DARE. Nobody took it seriously and his class of 12 yr olds were sitting there openly smoking and drinking during the presentation just to take the piss XD

 

[LucidSDreamr]

Haha my fiancé told me about this. He said it was basically Brazil's version of DARE. Nobody took it seriously and his class of 12 yr olds were sitting there openly smoking and drinking during the presentation just to take the piss XD

Unfortunately they’ll only understand when they experience liver failure or lung cancer for themselves 1st hand.

But I doubt whoever was presenting had a fucking clue about all the different consequences drugs bring both physical and psychological.

Unfortunately it seems there isn’t really a solution to this other than first hand experience of pain and consequences.

 

[Puff]

Haha my fiancé told me about this. He said it was basically Brazil's version of DARE. Nobody took it seriously and his class of 12 yr olds were sitting there openly smoking and drinking during the presentation just to take the piss

Not to mention the memes of this program. Is a total joke.

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

It’s seems from the answers here that those that are truly addicts are going to have to run that gauntlet themselves, and experience the consequences themselves. It’s all kind of inevitable.

Yes ; up to a point.
The thing is without the indoctrination that you absolutely CANNOT use heroin or crack etc and NOT 'inevitably' be an addict, less people would paint themselves into that corner. It blew my mind when I first met and found out about long-term non-addicted recreational opiate users (yep, this included H intravenous), because that was a categorical impossibility to me. I wonder what path I would have taken if I had been aware that that was even an option.

And while addiction will always be a thing with some of the population regardless, those people could be helped MUCH more readily and comprehensively without the added stigma of being either a criminal or somehow 'diseased'. Legalization, or I should more correctly call it RE-legalization, to my mind is the best way to curb the 'drug problem' and to regulate future use.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

Yes ; up to a point.
The thing is without the indoctrination that you absolutely CANNOT use heroin or crack etc and NOT 'inevitably' be an addict, less people would paint themselves into that corner. It blew my mind when I first met and found out about long-term non-addicted recreational opiate users (yep, this included H intravenous), because that was a categorical impossibility to me. I wonder what path I would have taken if I had been aware that that was even an option.

And while addiction will always be a thing with some of the population regardless, those people could be helped MUCH more readily and comprehensively without the added stigma of being either a criminal or somehow 'diseased'. Legalization, or I should more correctly call it RE-legalization, to my mind is the best way to curb the 'drug problem' and to regulate future use.

If you’re actually a drug addict you’re fucked. I’m not talking about people that dabble in drugs and move on.

This thread is about people that are drugs addicts.

They were drug addicts before ever trying drugs; it’s why the became active users rather than dabblers/experimenters; and they are drug addicts if they’ve been clean for 40 years.

Doing drugs or not isn’t the core of what makes someone an addict. It’s obsession with imperfection; refusal to accept suffering. This is the core of it.

This is a very subjective topic so The above are just my opinions. I haven’t studied the psychology of addiction academically so I can’t offer a professional analysis on the issues or back up my claims using that. It’s just how I see it in my selves and others that are drug addicts.


Lastly there was a thread a few years old where we were discussing likelihood of someone becoming a crack addict just from trying crack once or twice.

The consensus in that thread was that pretty much anyone that gives crack cocaine 2 or 3 tries is going to have a problem.

Crack is one that doesn’t seem to require an “acquired taste” the way other drugs do so imo it is somewhat of an outlier in how dangerous it can be.