I really suck at knowing when I'm being trolled. I'm not the one in the screenshot but I'm in the thread. This comment was just particularly egregious.
Drinking is still a major problem in america, like huge, it's second to opioid deaths.
As bad as it is now, imagine what this was like:
By 1810 the number of distilleries in the young nation had increased fivefold, to more than fourteen thousand, in less than two decades. By 1830 American adults were guzzling, per capita, a staggering 7 gallons of pure alcohol a year. . . In modern terms those 7 gallons are the equivalent of 1.7 bottles of standard 80-proof liquor per person, per week—nearly 90 bottles a year for every adult in the nation, even with abstainers (and there were millions of them) factored in.
From Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, by Daniel Okrent
How did they even function, jesus
Mind you in my country they were happily providing red wine to children in elementary school cafeterias as late as 1956. Parents would give them like half a bottle to carry to school in cases where the schools didn't provide it
I would bet you that your country has less problems with alcoholism into adulthood than the US though, from stats I've seen places that tend to have more relaxed drinking ages and customs like you say have fewer issues later on.
That's what happens when drinking from the local river can give you cholera and dysentery.
People don't understand how awful opiate withdrawal is. Especially pressies made to be bad to withdrawal from.
He was saying they deserved it for even trying. It got pretty bad further down the thread you go
Unfortunately this is something people actually believe. Drug users are the last marginalized group that it’s “OK” to openly genocidally hate.
I think it's much more prevalent than people even realize. I was riding in a car with the owner of a restaurant I worked with, the city council had been discussing safe-injection sites and similar issues, my boss casually said "they should just overdose, I don't see why they are arguing about this." He was generally a nice enough guy, kind to people, it was pretty appalling to hear. And then not long after I heard Trump mention 'in China they execute drug dealers, that's why they don't have a drug problem there.' It turns out a lot of conservatives believe in the death penalty for selling drugs.
All of my closest friends—who are in fact the only “close friends” I’ve ever had—use hard drugs, and my de facto best friend started out as my dealer lol. The love of my life, the most deeply beautiful person I’ve ever met, has been on and off homeless and addicted to heroin since they were 18. So hearing shit like that really fucks with me.
Same, so many of my friends have been the exact people that he was talking about. My family was homeless when I was young, not related to drug-use or any sort of crime, and people like him would still want us to be condemned to that life. It motivates me to fight more than most attitudes. This guy was a business owner, not the 1% or anything, but that dehumanization is so prevalent among the wealthy.
Give drug users the supports they need to get to a place where they stop using drugs, or at least continue using drugs as safe as possible (methadone users in their 60s living fairly normal lives)?
Absolutely not, we can't support those druggies because under our capitalist hell system we get no support to do anything either!
God, I can’t stand these fucking ghouls who want people to starve and die because they don’t want “their tax dollars” spent on that.
Malnutrition isn’t fun. It’s destroyed my life more than drugs alone would’ve, and in fact it’s possible that most of the bad effects associated with meth, etc., are more due to how often its use is comorbid with homelessness and pre-existing mental health issues (I know for a fact that “meth mouth” is because of poor dental hygiene and the mostly-sugar diet of most tweakers/junkies*).
* There’s actually a stereotype that junkies love candy. I watched a room full of heroin/fent users having a conversation about their favorite candy, and how this one kind of extra sour Warheads dissolve the roof of your mouth.
It's classic social darwinism, these people would have agreed with Nazi propaganda about wasting funds on disabled people. I've heard that stereotype about candy, I wonder if there really is any difference versus the average. When having issues with emotional regulation I find myself consuming tons of sugar and wanting to smoke a ton of weed, I could see the drive for drug-use and candy consumption having similar causes.
People just cannot properly empathize with others in these states if they haven't experienced them, like severe drug addiction or malnutrition. One of the big things they focus on during in-patient treatment for acute emotional or psychological distress is eating well. Even if people are getting enough calories, I wonder how their mental health is being affective by lack of certain nutrients that the brain uses. The majority of people in the US at least probably don't have very balanced diets.
Most days I eat barely 1,000 calories. Once or twice a week maybe, I eat a decent meal, and this keeps me from dying/actually starving. Instead I live in this purgatory where I’m mentally fucked off, my skin and hair are gross and fucked off, etc. I don’t have interests anymore and I’m always stressed out and bitching and I’m shitty to be around.
Worse still, when you don’t eat, you don’t really get high.
Cool trick: if some reddit brain begins their comment with "meh, " then you're wasting your time
If we definite addiction as "most likely to be hooked", then nicotine is much more addictive than opioids.
If it's defined as "most difficult to give up once addicted" that's surely pretty obvious (it's the opioids y'all).
breaking news: redditor thinks caring about other people is a waste of his valuable time
It honestly doesn't matter whether they're being sincere or not, they're only getting down voted and they don't even care enough to make an argument (therefore they don't care enough to read yours).
This person is indistinguishable from a 4channer who makes the anti-humanist, contarian arguments, so just assume that's what they are.
I second the pro tip about sentences starting with "meh"
Nah I'd take this person seriously.
If they are fucking around I'd still want to take it seriously for the sake of making sure responses exist that cover important points for the sake of other people that might not realise they're fucking around.
It's the internet. Always assume it's trolling and then move on with your life.
moralists when they realize that people can use their scolding idealism to rationalize social murder of them as well
I've heard from multiple ex heroin addicts that quitting smoking was harder than quitting heroin.
Nicotine isn't super physically addictive like heroin, but smoking definitely ingrains itself deep in your brain.
