Do you know someone that has "ruined their life" without getting involved in drugs?

[cowardescent]

Do you know someone that has "ruined their life" without getting involved in drugs?

I always here people who buy into drug propaganda that "drugs are bad for you and will ruin your life". I've tried to imagine that if people simply couldn't access any legal or illegal drugs (in particular those just beginning their life such as the youth, 20s), what stories would we see of people losing it all...etc. Would crime be down or just shift to another arena of life?

I imagine people who go on school shootings like Kip Krinkel but remain alive behind bars sentenced to a century. Kids who pull pranks and someone dies etc... All lives ruined with no drugs.

This question has two aspects that may be confusing so let me break them down:

1.) Do you think that a government that could magically remove alcohol and other drugs from society would see benefits in that society, things worsening, or no difference.

2.) Do you have examples of people ruining their life without ever getting involved in drugs (or other criminal activity).

 

[Jabberwocky]

anorexia nervosa....

many people with drug problems, myself included, have trauma they can't cope with. i don't think i'd be functioning any better, i'd just be doing something else fucked up. like starving myself into hospital, which is what i did before i got into drugs. i think the same goes for other people.... they'd be bingeing on food or hoarding or obsessively washing or in some other way just not functioning in a way that was destructive to themselves and awful for those who love them.

 

[Xorkoth]

There are countless ways to ruin your life, and yes, people do so for many reasons besides drugs. Of course, drugs are one way that a lot of people ruin their lives. To be honest though, usually there is an underlying reason people ruin their lives with drugs, or with anything. The drugs are just the vehicle, not the actual cause. This isn't always true... sometimes drugs take over even there isn't an underlying cause. When I felt that my life was ruined by drugs, it was really because I was masking the pain of a long-term abusive marriage. Once that ended, I got off opiates forever within 2 months and I've never felt the desire to go back. I still use other drugs, too, and my life is pretty great.

If drugs could magically cease the exist, I think it would prevent a lot of harm, and also deny a fundamental aspect of human experience, the intentional altering of consciousness. Likely the benefits would outweigh the negatives. However, we already know prohibition doesn't work so governments removing them from society wouldn't work unless they ceased to exist. Prohibition only exponentially adds to the harm that drugs cause to individuals and society.

 

[Rachella666]

Sent you a pm! Anyways, my underlying cause is a severe phobia of vomiting, known as etemaphobia, it's ruined my whole life completely and still rules it to this day. Noone has taking me seriously with it and it has led me to use hard drugs/opiates to cope with it. In Ireland, it's very hard to see what the govenment would do, let alone cope with a sudden disappearence of drugs, half the population is doped up, well in Limerick where I am they are. It's a sad state of affairs in my city dude