In my previous gig I encountered a lot of people with substance abuse problems. One of my alcoholic taxi passengers called me back ~2 months after her fare. Eventually her kids helped her finish sobering up. This one is doing quite well today, in spite of the State’s earlier attempts to punish her perimenopause-associated alcoholism away.

Dissident science has a pretty good understanding of ‘addiction’, but these findings are NOT widely implemented. Wikipedia’s article about alcoholism is mostly worthless.

Walking down the street ~3 years ago I found a prescription cast aside unused. It was thiamine (Vitamin B1), prescribed by a Veterans Administration doctor. This treatment was to hopefully prevent alcoholic brain disease: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6668887/

I was reminded of my previous experiences ~2 weeks ago, on my new gig with YCombinator. The ‘batch’ consisted of 2.5L of cheap liquor. My job was to get the 2 bottles from the grocery store and deliver them. The customer was nice enough to talk to, but everything about him said ‘lonely alcoholic’.

I often think of the blog post I never finished, about the sober passenger who helped me realize the simple fact of alcoholism in America: politicians need alcoholics & addicts to justify their protection racket. That was ~10 years ago. Nothing’s changed.

ASK HN: Why hasn’t “science” figured out how to effectively help people with the variety of addictions?

ASK HN: Does your country also implement a haphazard approach to substance abuse?

With the help of my passengers I basically figured out why people compulsively consume alcohol, and how to gently help them get their alcohol use under control.

But I don’t have a platform or credentials. Our beloved politicians haven’t reached out to me to help transform their make-work approach to addiction into something that would have a chance at getting people sobered up.

POLL: ARE YOU INTERESTED IN MY WRITE-UP ABOUT DISSIDENT SCIENCE’S UNDERSTANDING OF ADDICTION?