This is why harm reduction is absolutely crucial. A lot of people will recover on their own given time, but you can't recover if you're dead. A moralistic model based primarily or solely on abstinence-based recovery fails addicts, their families and society.
Without the moralism, harm reduction is a vague term. Here in Canada the government has been pushing safe supply as a part of harm reduction. We still get the same number of overdoses but our cities are now filled with tent encampments and people with addiction issues. It doesn't seem to have helped with anything it's just made things worse
I don't deny that there are some forms of harm reduction which are proven to be effective. But I also think it's a vague weasel word for just give them drugs or just make it all legal. Which is not a good policy as we have seen here.
Ironically just using vague terms like harm reduction without putting forward a specific strategy is a sort of moralizing of its own
No, some local governments have been doing safe injection sites. Safe supply is a political football that's scapegoated despite not being implemented anywhere in Canada. And neither is a solution to the homelessness, addictions, and mental health crises.
Every time I hear a politician talking about safe supply, they say it's not a silver bullet. Which is weird because nobody claims it's a silver bullet. Know what else isn't a silver bullet? Criminalization. Or, everything else that's ever been tried. It's a hard problem, there isn't a silver bullet solution, get over it.
What's harm reduction good for? Reducing harm. It isn't harm prevention, it isn't free housing, it isn't free addiction counseling, it doesn't fart roses.
Safe injection sites keep users close to medical professionals so we can keep people from dying alone. Safe supply would ensure that users aren't going to accidentally OD on kerfentanyl thinking it's ordinary fentanyl. Needle exchanges keep users supplied with sterile equipment to reduce risk of injections such as HIV and hepatitis C. Each policy is an example of harm reduction. The general philosophy is to not let perfect be the enemy of good.
As a former substance abuser I can assure you that criminalization was a strong motivator to stop. Anything and everything that made my behavior seem OK/normal in any way fueled the addiction. Fear of permanent incarceration was significant factor in hitting my bottom.
I think this is true for anyone in a situation in which making positive change works against short term interests. That excessive positivity encouraged in discourse around addiction is quite corrosive and misguided.
We certainly shouldn't shame people suffering from addiction. No one would choose that life if they knew what was coming or if they had sufficient control at any given moment. We also shouldn't pretend it isn't normal, because addiction is extremely common.
Yet it's ironically unkind to encourage someone, in any shape or form, to consider their addiction acceptable on any level. It's purely only welcoming death into life and burdening the world around you. It's a net loss and nothing more. To accept anything about it is absurd. Yes, accept the person and their shortcomings, but don't pretend the state of their life, especially contrasted with their potential, is anything like acceptable.
The hard thing here is that this kind of engagement and narrative arguably demands a lot more support than we're willing to give people. Telling them it's okay and giving them safe sites and supplies is a lot easier if it's financially viable. This sort of calculus, in my opinion, is a major cause of the tear in the social fabric which has lead to such widespread suffering in an unprecedentedly rich society where you might otherwise intuitively expect addiction to be eradicated. We're eager to invest financially before we do so emotionally or spiritually.
And this is a part of my problem with all this. I live in Toronto's downtown core and the explosion in drug issues since these policies came into effect is something I see and live with. And it's the same in our other major cities.
And too often the response from the proponents of these policies is outright misinformation, accusations of moralism. As someone living in an area where I am watching a drug problem spiral out of control, this is frankly infuriating.
This is my city and I see these people with addiction as neighbors I want to help. But these policies don't appear to be helping them. It looks to me like it's making things worse
If it's so good, if it's so helpful, why are there tent encampments full of people with drug issues popping up. We have shelters so it's not an issue of lack of shelters. Why are there so many more people high or doing drugs on our streets, why are overdose deaths the same or higher
Could the gradual impacts of economic downturn, unemployment and unhappiness post-pandemic be a contributing factor? From available data on drug overdoses and homelessness things appear relatively stable but some data from last year is missing. An uptick may be on the cards based on your observations. I'm curious what specifically is to blame in your view and why other factors seem unlikely? What do you suggest should change? Should the drugs be recriminalized? Or is the current strategy okay but needing some supplimentary steps?
I mean there aren't enough quality studies to make conclusions either way. But the promise to us was that safe supply would help drug users, and this uptick in homeless drug addicts and more people suffering visibility from drug issues at least seems to run counter to that that should at least give us pause and make us re evaluate
This was done because Portugal did it and people in places like hacker news started pushing it as evidence based because of self proclaimed success in Portugal. Well overdose and drug use is up in Portugal, it's up in Portland and it's up here. How long are proponents going to suggest other factors - this safe supply idea is starting to look less evidence based and more like a religious belief.
Did you read the article you posted? The article states how its beneficial to their patients for stabilizing their use and keeping them off the streets. Additionally the program has a total of 274 patients so it's not some widespread supply occurrence whatsoever, even if all of those people were located just in Toronto. That's a fraction of the addicts out there in that city alone. Or did I miss something?
You missed that I was replying to a poster who said we don't have safe supply in Canada and it was just a political scapegoat. Other papers have written about the more nefarious effects of safe supply but I avoided them because I suspected I was dealing with a group that would dismiss all criticism of it as propoganda from opponents who want to punish addicts with prison. So I posted a supportive article from a government sponsored source to prove safe supply actually exists in Canada and is not just a political scapegoat
Drug use and addiction are complex biopsychosocial phenomena with many causal factors and associated harms. It is to be expected that any effective response would likewise be complex and multifactorial. People living with drug addictions are usually living with a multitude of other problems, many of which would still remain if a magic wand were to cure their addiction instantly. A homeless schizophrenic heroin addict would still be in a dire situation if heroin didn't exist.
Drug policy in North America seems to be ideologically fixated both on addiction as a singular problem, and on singular solutions to that problem. Addiction is an important and very hazardous part of someone's life, but it's only one part. Lots of people who live in tents or behave erratically in public aren't addicted to drugs; lots of people who are addicted to drugs don't live in tents or behave erratically in public.
Giving someone an adequate and reliable supply of pharmaceutical opioids is quite likely to reduce their risk of overdose if it gets them away from a highly variable supply of very potent synthetic opioids, but thinking that it'll solve all of their problems is pure fantasy. Keeping people alive is a prerequisite to fixing the rest of their life, but nothing more than that.
Does harm reduction include safe access to drugs? Basically this is why all substances need to be legal. So it's regulated. So many needless deaths becasue of overdoses that didn't need to happen. People just need to be supported through their low points so they come out the other side.
To many ignorant people have an opinion on this though, as you can see in some of these comments. If you never used drugs, don't know people that died needlessly, you don't get to have an opinion.
>Does harm reduction include safe access to drugs?
Only if it's part of an evidence-based and empirically validated strategy. We know that safe access to drugs can work as part of a harm reduction strategy, but there's also good reason to believe that thoughtless moves towards decriminalisation or legalisation can exacerbate harms. The Swiss model has worked incredibly well after a lot of difficult trial-and-error, but the Portuguese model is increasingly looking like a mistake. Even with the relatively lower-risk example of cannabis legalisation, we're seeing a very mixed picture in terms of outcomes. The devil is in the details.
The Portugal model consists of decriminalisation, harm reduction and rehabilitation, but the Portuguese government has basically defunded the rehabilitation programs. Seems to me no wonder that the approach is failing if you take away the one factor that would reduce addictions, but also disingenuous to claim that the entire approach was a mistake. It worked, and now after defending an important part of it, it no longer works.
Alternatively, for some - most really - the real possibility of death and real consequences is what was necessary to pull out of it. To break through the delusional behavior. But even then, it may not be enough.
The Issue, imo, is when death is not a certainty, but a surprise consequence (or sudden) due to bad or inconsistent supply, etc.
I recently met someone who it
took 6 NARCAN to revive last time he overdid it. Frankly, I’m surprised his body was able to handle it - apparently it was an extremely unpleasant experience.
And, frankly, he might not come back next time.
He seemed to take it seriously. We’ll see.
Not letting your kid touch the hot stove at all is as bad as letting them pull a pot of boiling water down on their head.
Consequences for my own inaction play an incredibly important motivational role for me. I don't get motivated by sunshine and rainbows, I personally get motivated by consequences.
So it's great that we can provide people 6 doses of narcan and act like they're big strong adults who are down on their luck, but it's incredibly harmful to pretend that this is the only possible solution to motivating behavior.
I don't have a lot of personal experience dealing with addiction in either myself or others, but TFA lays out to me a pretty compelling claim that addiction is a developmental disorder. The current mainstream belief of addiction as disease has always seemed to me like it had a great number of holes; it's main purpose was to make people stop stigmatizing addicts for moral failing.
The comparison to ADHD made in the article is an interesting one: although for sure many ADHD kids do age out of the diagnosis, I know many ADHD adults who still have it significantly impact their lives. What do we do with addiction if you've made it past your brain developmental point and you're still addicted?
The problem isn't whether they can get close to it again, the problem is that for some people, addiction is connected with using an external means of dissociation to obtain instant control over feelings without relating to them on their own terms.
there are ways certainly to return to peace but it's a long and narrow road through your own self's karma. karma is not outside. it s a power sticking to your consciousness which exists by propagating itself and being reinput back into your consciousness through your behavior by modifying your vision to see what was rather than what is. actually opening eyes to reality and accepting it is said to be curative and the thing which can suppress and eventually stop karma. it seems to simply die out when it cannot act. at that time it's explained that your consciousness becomes able to experience nirvana (peace) in connection with the world of origin. some of key things arent well understood by most students of Buddhism anymore. even though someone experiences peace once they have still yet to find out what condition can cause the true rest, which Buddha explained near the end of his life reluctantly.
karma can be made, for example by telling lies, by grudge, and "attachment" in the sense of idealism
The creation of kamma ceases at the attainment of Nibbana.
There is happiness (Sukkha) to be found on the path before then.
I agree with you about drugs being used as a way to avoid processing complex trauma or difficult memories.
The root of the Pāli word for mindfulness (Sati) is Smriti in Sanskrit which literally means "that which is remembered".
If you can be mindful with your direct experience, which will include difficult memories, you can start to purify your mind and view and prevent the future arising of unwholesome (akusala) kamma.
Unfortunately, Nirvana is a passing state - one can attempt to live in a state of Nirvana at all times but it would literally require serene peaceful monasteries with little to no contact with the outside world. If one participates in reality they will be affected by it and we are all human and cannot be perfect at all times - that wouldn't even be a quality life if we tried to be.
Which is what karma is - the sum of what we do, it doesn't stop accumulating, it's like data - you don't stop/can't stop generating it.
The comment regarding drugs being a shortcut to emotional control is fairly accurate. If I have had a bad I could meditate and calm my mind or I could take a hit off my weed vape and not do that. Obviously one of those is superior to the other
it is possible to stop making karma when you act according to knowing what is
It is also possible to burn down the karma you already have by the practice of true love and agony
it doesn't require abandoning your family and living away from society, but it can certainly be experienced while being in society and while having a family.
The same goes for enlightenment. It is not something that you can achieve by abandoning your family, but is something that you can achieve while having a family.
here's a pretty decent article that defines karma. his other lectures explain in more detail some of the other things that I've mentioned. I hope that you have a chance to read it carefully, and that you can get something good from it. If you find yourself struggling with any doubts still, please try to ask me. I have understood things that can take some years and lots of effort.
people think it is reality which entangles them but it's actually the falsehood and karma of our societies and society members combined with our ignorance and we fall into the traps. But what happens if you fill up your ignorance? You experience actual peace.
when you throw away your falsehood and enlighten yourself to the fundamental law of the world and the questions, then you can begin to recognize the traps in what you think and in what people say, and the ignorances that they still have, and you can clarify them for people on the spot as an act of love. You will have to observe what happens when you practice true love for people and eventually you'll understand why it burns down your karma to witness and leads you to perfect enlightenment. but it's quite clear from this, that you cannot achieve an enlightenment by leaving the very place where you must do the work.
The virtue that you need will be accomplished by good deeds by serving the world in actuality.
not to be an asshole but i could stop reading carefully after your first sentence
when you claim something exists you should also let people confirm it by what principle and what problems. but you didn't include anything but words. when you really define those words you will find issues. mindfulness isn't real and a mind can't be puried by your (lack of) means. it's a scam.
nor is nirvana attained and nor did you attain the real nirvana
the nirvana you heard about was admitted to have been made up for people who werent ready for the real truth about it
"The Sanskrit word for mindfulness, smriti, means “remember.” Mindfulness is remembering to come back to the present moment." [0]
"And what is the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma? Just this noble eightfold path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This is called the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma." [1]
[0] Thich Nhat Hanh - The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching
hate to break it to you, but that guy is basically a scammer
you should listen to the Buddha who that monk claims is his teacher. The Buddha was very clear that nobody except for himself actually sees things correctly. after all, everybody is already a Buddha, right? Well, one little problem with that is that that is not claimed anywhere by Buddha and quite the opposite actually.
of course, the reaction of people like that monk is to doubt the Buddha and attempt to deceive ordinary people by getting out of such a categorical contradiction. This is how you can know that he doesn't have good intentions or sufficient humility yet.
The starting point of true learning is the realization that you're not aware of anything as it is. The only one who is aware of things is the one who is perfectly enlightened. That's the entire problem. it doesn't matter if you doubt it, because you will still be following the law laid out by Buddha, even if it means that he doesn't get the pleasure of your attendance to his lectures.
just because you don't understand what it means that only a Tathagata sees things and neither you nor the monk understand how it could be true, it doesn't mean that it isn't true and that you should go around denying it because your doubt somehow qualifies you, or claiming that such a denial is somehow the teaching of Buddha just because you want it to be, it means that you don't understand it yet and it means that you're not ready yet.
humanity tends to lionize the very same people that they had to murder or isolate just for loving them truly.
it makes me feel very bad for the likes of those philosophers
meanwhile, your birthright is basically stolen from you by the trivialization of the reality of the abilities of an enlightened being to perceive the truth of everything, everywhere, on the spot.
for example, calling the Dalai Lama a living Buddha and his letting people do so is nothing short of a theft from humanity and a grave sin. if i were to guess, he will probably not be able to reborn as a human. not sure.
The fact of the matter is, the eight fold path is not a path at all. It is a set of results that can be arrived at by some path, which is excluded. They are all results that only a person who has arrived at the result, can actually practice. This is just one example of one of the traps in Buddhism and you didn't even notice it. Neither had i until i met someone who wasn't asleep.
The same goes for the precepts. only someone with a very high level can even distinguish between true and false, in order to prevent themselves from telling a lie. How on earth can it be the path to the result?
and Buddha was not enlightened by meditation. That is a serious misunderstanding. it was when he came down from the mountain and allowed himself to calm down that he realized that he had already achieved perfect enlightenment a long time ago by his former practices.
The four noble truth, do not state that you can end suffering while you are alive.
It states that you will suffer as long as you are alive. Suffering is part of being alive. it's only by your repression or by your being invaded by a dead soul, which doesn't experience those things that you can be convinced temporarily that your idea that you can finish your suffering was correct. The only way to do that is to end your rebirths forever.
which buddha never recommended. in fact, if you do some more reading of Buddha's own words as recorded in certain of the most advanced texts, you'll see very repeatedly, and very clearly that Buddha admits that he made up the idea of Nirvana or no more rebirths for people who wouldn't have been able to admit that he's actually reborn continuously. he made it up and he confirms that he did as a skillful device. the entire idea of his death was a fabrication of his own. he didn't tell people this initially, because it was quite clear that they were not at the level of cultivation where they could even understand what it means.
people are the blind with open eyes. And even if they once regain their eyesight through som method, it doesn't mean that they can then perceive everything, even though they suddenly think that they can.
is this starting to form any sort of cohesive picture yet? You've been lied to.
Ok, the Buddha's teachings have been a little corrupted over the years but there is a lot you said that isn't how the Buddha presented things at all.
Plus you seem over focused on enlightenment. This is the best description of enlightenment:
A man was on a quest for an enlightenment and one day he came upon an old man carrying a huge sack of potatoes on his back, struggling under the weight. For whatever, the Man felt that the Old Man had the answers that he sought and he asked him, "Do you know what it means to be enlightened?" The Old Man looked at him and without saying a word he set down the sack of potatoes and stood up straight. The Man looked at him and said, " I understand, I get it - so what happens after?" The Old Man looked at him again and without saying anything he again picked up the sack of potatoes and slowly walked away.
> there is a lot you said that isn't how the Buddha presented things at all.
especially as you're making such a critically important claim about human life, would you please be more specific about anything that you claim I got wrong. I take this seriously so I would be very surprised to confirm that you're right.
> This is the best description of enlightenment
I don't want to discourage you from talking with me, but I didn't find anything particularly useful and contributive in the story koan.
The definition of enlightenment is to open one's eyes to reality.
somebody who is actually enlightened, can tell you exactly how things are in reality and you can check them.
"before enlightenment, it's hard to see the truth. After enlightenment, it's hard to see falsehood"
If you're not enlightened, try to be careful how you speak about the truth because you might accidentally compromise your future happiness and peace.
Ok, this is the best example I can give - you clearly are along the path and have fallen well into the rabbit hole so I'm going to skip a lot of stuff. That story is the entire reality of our lives post enlightenment, it is very significant to understand this - enlightenment is a realization, not a state of being - there is a state we can attain of true clarity and supreme perception that is often referred to as nirvana but it's just a state of supreme focus, it also passes. It's like this.
If this reality was World of Warcraft and you born a dwarf running around whatever that world is called - that would be your life, everything aside the game would matter most, etc. That is your reality. Now along comes another player, they inform you that WoW is just a game and your not really a dwarf, your a person sitting at a computer (or VR or however you need to get it) the Player explains the true nature of your reality and it explains lots of things that you've noticed and feels right.
Then he leaves. Then you are still in WoW, still a Dwarf, still just playing the game. But you know the true nature of things, so you see everything different now, far more correct than you did - you still have no idea of what a person is, so you can't possibly know the actual true nature of things but you know the truth of your reality.
This is why is in the Gospel of Thomas Jesus says, "Those who learn the truth will be troubled" Enlightenment doesn't necessarily even make things easier if you don't truly embrace reality for what it is.
I've got a lot of things that I would like to say in reply to you but I can only share some of them.
> enlightenment is a realization, not a state of being
If you say something is "not" a state, that is a state. ... no?
If you say it's beyond words, then it's not.
If you don't know how one might state it, then it's better to be able to know and say so.
> there is a state we can attain of true clarity and supreme perception that is often referred to as nirvana but it's just a state of supreme focus, it also passes
This is not totally true. It is true that karma can be reborn. But who says the "state" has gone anywhere?
What you're referring to seems to be the temporary nirvana - the magical city, for example - made up by the Buddha as he is recorded has having admitted in the White Lotus Sutra of the True Law.
If it were actual rest then you would also be at ease as to the question of how to not let that state pass. And the answer is: omniscience.
But he knew while pacing around his tree that beings wouldn't be ready to accept this, would doubt it, become afraid at it, or exhausted about it, or think themselves not the inheritors of it. So he made up the temporary nirvana as one of the benefits you get from one or more of the "vehicles" he also made up at his tree as a device to lead beings to the time they'd be ready to hear his disclosure that there are no three vehicles, no multiple nirvanas, but the singular Buddha-yana and the one actual nirvana.
> Then you are still in WoW, still a Dwarf, still just playing the game. But you know the true nature of things,
Contradiction. Check out the Diamond Sutra. There are no living beings. What we call living beings, aren't. Actual living beings aren't like that. Quite a good one of his. The Diamond Which Cuts Through Illusion.
> This is why is in the Gospel of Thomas Jesus says, "Those who learn the truth will be troubled" Enlightenment doesn't necessarily even make things easier if you don't truly embrace reality for what it is.
Yessss high five
"If you know the truth, you will be lonely; If you tell the truth, you will be under a curse"
and ... those who know of the true way... do not speak of it as if it is such a great thing.
Things like that.
After enlightenment, someone's life becomes harder. You will be obliged to do things bound by duty being the only one who can see, like a parent, in whose hands the future resides to some degree.
How much more so when you face the ridicule of those of small virtue.
Everything was essentially made up by the Buddha - he expanded upon the teachings of the Brahmins before him but much of what we think of as Buddhism was made up by people other than him.
Truth is revealed as can be understood. He was limited by the capabilities of those to whom he was speaking, that is evident everywhere in his sayings.
The teachings he left were sufficient for the people of the time but today I think them more a trap than a gateway to truth. There are many aspects of the commonly accepted beliefs that I flat out fundamentally disagree with - the cessation of karma for example. I also believe that Buddha was primarily talking about a singular life when he was speaking about things like reincarnation - we live many lives within our one life, we are constantly changing and being reborn - it is controlling this cycle of rebirth in which we attain our best iteration of ourself.
I'm not sure that I can explain things from a purely Buddhist perspective as I have have lifted from everything the truth I found within and now I have view entirely my own.
The Buddhist teachings will only take you take to you point.
I'm glad you can identify the state of mind I spoke of as whatever he made up - notice I didn't place great significance on it. That goes by many names and were I trying to convince that could not possibly understand but I needed to give them something they could do that could validate, that would have been what I would have given them also, as anyone can attain it with limited effort.
You place too much faith in what you know you know
> Everything was essentially made up by the Buddha
obvious self contradiction, fwiw
Besides, do you really think he made up his loneliness, having to travel to find anyone who really wanted to learn, and then die as an old man on the side of the road? I doubt he would have chosen that, after all, why come to contribute to this world if everything were already hunky-dory,.. and frankly, it seems abusive behavior towards him to pretend he chose to suffer our stubbornness, ignorance, and pride. Again, girardian scapegoat mechanics.
> he expanded upon the teachings of the Brahmins before him
He referred to himself clearly as self-born and someone who saw the world on his own. One can't expand on something that doesn't contain a teaching.... sort of like your own descriptions, actually, if you don't mind my directness.
> but much of what we think of as Buddhism was made up by people other than him.
> The teachings he left were sufficient for the people of the time but today I think them more a trap than a gateway to truth.
You need to know the fact that when people tried to transmit his teaching, they couldn't help but damage or change it. This is an unavoidable consequence of the fact that they had a lower level of consciousness than his or didn't have the ability to verify singular points of knowledge and control their karma. Maybe 1-2 people could transmit it without damaging it terribly.
You and others today also can't always tell the difference between his words and what his words were changed into by many people - because you aren't yet sufficiently familiar with the law of existence and disillusioned with lies.
An apple, no matter how nourishing when fresh, becomes poisonous when rotten (degenerated). Instead of poisoning your body, the deteriorated truth poisons your apparatus of awareness - your consciousness. So you're right that you can't study his teaching and probably can't recover the real teaching or a sufficient teaching for saving your life if you're in danger, as far as I know - unless you have the help of another Tathagata. Chances are if you contact Buddhism without a truthful guide, you will lose yourself. That's why I wanted to tell you what the Lotus Sutra says and I wanted to tell you that it is clear that an actual Buddha has to appear in the world in order to reveal the dharma. Until then, people forget what the teaching is, far from being able to even enunciate it without damaging it. So please do not cheat yourself by believing your thoughts.
I'm not sure that you will see this reply but you've given me a few things to think about.
I already fell into it all without a teacher and lost myself along the way but I found myself again and I have no issues with identifying truth, none. My thoughts are not my own, to blindly follow them would be quite foolish. I think we believe similar things when all is said and done but I find your faith in external Tathagata to determine truth concerning - there is no need for anything outside oneself, if there were there would be no prophets. You are plenty capable of discerning truth for oneself. This is bc although there is only one truth it is itself is only a limited truth - we can know the true nature of reality from within reality but we cannot know what reality is wholly until we are outside of it, this is an obvious truth - as it works everywhere that it can be applied without exceptions.
To know something one must be able to see all of it, fairly basic but impossible for us to achieve - hence some of my favorite teachings like the analogy of the sweeping of the floor or language like, "Have you found the beginning bc the end is the beginning" so it very important to realize that this is why there multiple religions able offer their own way out.
We need only a working model of reality as we cannot have a functional correct model of reality, simply an understanding that encapsulates certain truths and presents them in a way that allows for individuals and a society to arrive shared understandings and behaviors that incorporate those truths.
True followers of Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha or others are very similar people in the way they act and their core beliefs are the same - that this is a created thing, that we were before and will be after, that death is not the end and that there is an assessment of how we lived that transpires at some point.
Today I can essentially create a working model of reality that utilizes science and things like the Internet and games - this working model incorporates all the core and necessary truths needed to provide a way/path out but is in a language I can naturally understand - this is what I meant by the Buddha made everything up. I have, in a sense just made up my "religion" but it's built on all that which have come before it to be a functional working model of reality, which is all I believe it needs to be. That's all the prophets have ever done - say the truth, as can be heard, in their time and place. I've just done that for me.
The Buddha didn't imagine his loneliness - nor do we need to as we are privy to the human condition and of course we now live in a time and place where all I need to say is "human condition" for us to get what he was going on about. People are smarter over time. You are inherently more capable of understanding these things than anyone in the Buddhas time bc you literally know more than any one and all of them.
I'm not attempting to mislead you or steer you astray, I understand your warnings. I've merely noticed throughout our conversation your deflection/utilization of external things that I don't believe you need, you are plenty capable of discerning truth for oneself and knowing right from wrong and what to do or not to do - this is all internal stuff. You may make misjudgements at times, you will learn from those and with time you will have faith in oneself, not a Tathagata, not a sutra, You.
I'm a bit of an eccentric tho, so I suggest taking all this with a grain of salt - run it by the ole feelings first and foremost. I rarely speak of such things, even rarer in such settings.
> To know something one must be able to see all of it, fairly basic but impossible for us to achieve
self contradiction
> We need only a working model of reality as we cannot have a functional correct model of reality
self contradiction
> I have, in a sense just made up my "religion" but it's built on all that which have come before it to be a functional working model of reality, which is all I believe it needs to be. That's all the prophets have ever done - say the truth, as can be heard, in their time and place.
Please do not cheat yourself and others, or slander the saints, by saying (a) they made up or wanted to start religions or (b) that you can speak of a truth approaching theirs yet while saying you can't. Buddha didn't say "I'm enlightened but not really". He claimed he actually reached the real thing and there was proof if not for the destruction perpetrated upon him by those who couldn't admit their own issues even to themselves.
People soothe their pain and trauma with all sorts of self-destructive behavior. Trying to numb the pain doesn’t mean they are trying to crawl back in the womb.
That wording is exceptionally poor in my opinion. Just above, @blueprint, does a fabulous job of summarizing what I think is essentially the same idea (but with far better wording):
"..the problem is that for some people, addiction is connected with:
* using an external means of dissociation
* to obtain instant control over feelings
* without relating to them on their own terms"
Someone who is without serious trauma won't likely have the same reaction/response to this level of dissociation.
This article confuses drug use with addiction. Addiction is a state where a patient wants to quit a drug, but can't. And that is when you want to intervene as a psychiatrist.
Can you say where the article does this? It seems pretty explicit to me, with the key word being diagnosable: "I quit at around the age when, according to large epidemiological studies, most people who have diagnosable addiction problems do so — without treatment."
You can be addicted to mostly anything; ‘healthy’ (veg, sports etc) and unhealthy. I have seen many people ‘grow out of it’ which meant they replaced one addiction by another (or more than one), but the new ones are acceptable in society so now you are not an addict anymore (…). For instance, I know more than a few ex harddrug addicts who are now addicted to gaming, work, sports, alcohol (also a hard drug but somehow accepted and cheap), sex etc.
I would say almost everything is acceptable once you understand the balance and how it impacts you if you do/over do it.
I agree there are a lot of normalised addictions, including the modern trend of counting every step, heart rate beat, times you go in the bathroom and even sleep analysis so you can compare to your friends.
Counting your steps is unlikely to destroy your life, but a lot of people do suffer serious harms due to behaviours like compulsive exercise and orthorexia. Obsessive-compulsive behaviour around exercise often overlaps with anorexia nervosa, which has the highest risk of mortality of any mental disorder (~5% at 10 years). There is a surprisingly fine line between compulsive health tracking and a life-threatening eating disorder.
> Addictions do not have to be life destroying. Plenty of people are addicted to various things but are fully functional and live fulfilled lives. It’s a bit unfair to ask whether OP wants words to have any meaning when it seems you’re a bit fuzzy on the definition of “addiction” yourself.
Wikipedia: Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behaviour that produces natural reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences.
A third of the diagnostic criteria for substance addiction are about negative effects in the person's life. Perhaps it's not strictly a requirement but often it's only a question of time.
It's true, when I started counting my steps, I just couldn't stop. Then I had to have data about my sleep and bowel movements, so that I could have data-driven insights about my body. My friends and family got annoyed at my compulsion to gather data about mundane activities. It got so bad, I started doing sexual favors to feed my habit, and I am ashamed to admit I was gathering data while I did it to improve my performance. Folks, be careful when you count steps! It's easy to get hooked and you may end up like me!
I was very curious about this statement by the article's author:
> Moreover, if addiction were truly a progressive disease, the data should show that the odds of quitting get worse over time. In fact, they remain the same on an annual basis, which means that as people get older, a higher and higher percentage wind up in recovery.
> Remission from PDUD was greater for younger individuals.
It seems this article is based too heavily on the personal experience and opinions of the author.
FWIW, I think that societal solutions can work as well as medical ones. However, that has the implicit assumption that drug addiction, and the use of certain drugs, is bad. This is an opinion I have recently returned to, and also that reducing drug use and addiction to certain substances should begin with societal norms and limiting supply.
Those so-called societal solutions should be expanded in scope to include making society a less hostile place in general. Most people tolerate it (with effort), some think it is fine. But then there’s the poor souls who can’t cope with it.
They may make futile attempts to grow a support network that ultimately ends up mocking them instead of supporting. Nobody wants to have their “vibes” ruined by witnessing someone going through a mental health crisis of any severity, though some may see it as an opportunity to win internet points. Understand that most places aren’t reasonably civil like HN or your local tech meetup group (maybe it is because they are addicts themselves in some capacity). In such a situation one might even make things worse for themselves by going through a phase of daring to fight back.
They may expand their search radius with a Google search but find nothing but SEO ghost towns and dejected, sterile walled gardens; instead of the thriving, curious, decentralized communities they remembered from their youths. Until nostalgia gives way to nihilism and then there’s no turning back. That’s assuming they’ve even lasted this long, crutching on that dev experience or what have you. A lot of hazards (not just drugs) can end a person if they lack a viable support network.
These are objective faults with society that should be addressed, because that’s where the disease actually is spreading from. I realize that’s an unrealistic goal, but we have been doing so poorly at it that any competent effort at scale would sow more optimism, and optimism is what they need most.
I believe that stress is one of the cornerstones of addiction. When people can't handle stress they turn to substances. When people "grow out" of addiction, they're really either finding another addiction, or learning to manage their stress and let go of substances used to cope.
I'd love to see trials of what Ashwagandha can do for addiction, because it lowers cortisol nearly immediately and is a relatively safe herb.
Those were likely long-term studies only. I can tell you I always feel a drop in stress within minutes. But I only take it when I feel stressed, and not daily. I think the effects could be too strong if taken daily.
Even if after a few years you grow out of an addiction, it can destroy your health in the meanwhile. Or maybe you won't survive those years. How many do successfully grow out of the "crocodile" addiction?
Perhaps the actual lesson should be that addition is not a yes-or-no thing, but rather a scale. For each addictive thing, it would be nice to know (1) the half-time of growing out of it, and (2) the distribution of health impacts during that half-time.
What was the followup to the "Vietnam vets addicted to heroin that stopped when they came back"? That was a hot internet topic about, what 5-10 years ago that was basically alleging addiction was strongly tied to surroundings/social graph?
This makes it sound like you trying to say addiction is a mental thing. When your body is physically addicted so that you are sick and in pain because you didn't dose, that's not mental. At that point, it could be more harmful to not fix regardless if you know it or not.
There are so many behaviors that fit that description that few would count as addiction. For example eating sweets or junk food, procrastinating, not drinking enough.
Took me until my later 30s to fall out of love with pot. It just takes me away from a clearer state of mind. When I’m on it, a few hours pass numbly. When I’m away from it, suddenly stuff matters much more.
And then you'd only have to deal with every addiction that's not related to illegal drugs. What are you going to do about alcoholism, or gaming addiction? Execute brewers and game developers?
E.g. the Singapore method. It works better than the western methods but people don't want to take it seriously and would rather suppress the suggestion.
The "by any means necessary" method...? I think a society based around the normalization of this level of punishment is distopian. Achieving the lowest opiate addiction rate possible may not be worth it given the probability of wrongful incarceration/death, its optimising the wrong thing. I think humanity should just accept the multi-facetedness of the universe and work on systems which work without compromising our humanity. We are hooked on mental shortcuts and quick fixes.
> ONLY A QUARTER OF PEOPLE WHO RECOVER HAVE EVER SOUGHT ASSISTANCE IN DOING SO (INCLUDING VIA 12-STEP PROGRAMS). THIS ACTUALLY MAKES ADDICTIONS THE PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER WITH THE HIGHEST ODDS OF RECOVERY.
