With poverty comes depression, despair, alcoholism & drug abuse

[Philosoraptor]

Very often people who have been down a hard road due to poverty or unlucky circumstances will fall into depression, feel less than human and start to abuse drugs and alcohol just to feel a little bit of joy even though its an artificial joy, and a fleeting one.

I've been there.

And its easy to look down our noses at meth addicts, crack addicts, pill poppers and boozers, but they are real people who are just trying to forget how miserable they are due to their poverty.

There are wealthy people who abuse substances too, but I think most addicts live in relative poverty.

And our society would rather toss them in prison than try to help them overcome these addictions. And prison helps no one.

When I was a young man, it was fashionable to try cocaine, crystal meth, Quaalude, everyone I knew was doing it, dropping acid, smoking weed and drinking booze, and while we thought we were doing it for fun, maybe we were doing it for other reasons.

Fortunately I lived through this crazy period, and gave up these pursuits for a more settled life, but I understand what makes a person a drug addict or alcoholic, its depression, despair and hopelessness often brought on by poverty.

Now I still like my good green smoke, even though I break the law of the land every day, it makes me feel good, and I like feeling good, and there are far worse things to be ingesting, let's face it.

I also still enjoy an occasional beer or glass of wine, and I always feel a little bit guilty and I always enjoy it in moderation, some might classify me as a hopeless addict, but I know I'm not the only one.

My kids are all grown, with kids of their own, and they are well adjusted people who also enjoy an occasional potable or good smoke, in moderation.

I'm not endorsing substance abuse, I'm just admitting that I too drifted into some very dangerous areas with my youthful experimentation, and I was always honest and forthcoming to my kids about the pitfalls of drugs and alcohol, and explained it in great detail, from my own memories, some of which I'm not too proud of.

My point is, poverty can be a major factor in driving large masses of people into a terrible downward spiral, and we should try to help those people and not chastise them or belittle them too much. They are suffering and they need help.

When you look at the crimes committed by the men in the expensive suits in the 1% crowd, smoking a joint or going on a bender seem like petty things by comparison. Steal billions from the poor and use it to kill thousands of innocent people in Afghanistan, and you get a statue made of you, smoke a joint and you go to prison.

The wealthy get addicted too, they just have a better support system than prison.

[HereSince1628]

1. Please tell the man I didn't kill anyone, No I'm just try'n to have me some fun

[porphyrian]

2. Authorities treat the wealthy differently, too.

If drug laws were enforced fairly and equally against all Americans, there would not be such a disproportionate number of minorites in jail. I'm not advocating throwing more drug users in prison here, I'm pointing out that these laws were never intended to be enforced against the wealthy in the same way as they are against the rest of us. For example, years ago (and possibly still), Jeb Bush's daughter had a crack habit. When she was caught, she was sent to rehab. If she had been a regular poor half-Hispanic in South Florida, she would have gone straight to prison. While she was in rehab, they found that she had smuggled crack in with her inside a shoe or something, but she still did not go to prison. Drug laws were never intended for the wealthy, they were created to keep a steady stream of proles moving into the prison industrial complex so the wealthy could profit.

[Philosoraptor]

7. Exactly, rehab for the rich, prison for everyone else.

[justice1]

8. Absolutely, the wealthy get rehab, and the rest get prison

They shut down almost every mental health facility in Nebraska, and expanded the prison system. It's cheap labor, and creates a population without a voice. The result, we have twice as many disenfranchised voters than the national average, because of our prisons.

[Philosoraptor]

9. That's why reefer is illegal, there's more $$$ in it.

[BlueToTheBone]

3. I beleive that meth is the drug of the hopeless. n/t

[Marrah_G]

4. Constant stress kills the soul

[HereSince1628]

5. And for some leads to serious vascular, heart, and kidney disease

and premature death.

[Philosoraptor]

6. My cousin died from using all of the above

His system shut down and he died from doing everything he could get his hands on, including whiskey.

[HereSince1628]

10. Sorry to hear that. n/t