I was never heavy into drugs but I smoked weed a fair bit in my 20s, knew a lot of other daily users of weed as well as some harder drugs. I don’t think I ever came across a person that randomly decided to do drugs for no reason one day and got hooked. They were all people who had pretty messed up problems in their life that were too complex for them to fix on their own.
So it confuses me when people instantly assume that someone is in a bad situation due to drugs rather than them using drugs to deal with a bad situation. And yes I know drug abuse makes problems worse the vast majority of the time but it’s not what I see as the root issue in a lot of cases, the drug use is a symptom/coping mechanism for people that society have let fall through the cracks.
Because if you give them money, they’re going to spend it on drugs. If you give them an apartment, they’re going to destroy it and not care, because they’re on drugs. I understand it’d be “nice” if addiction treatment wasn’t hard, but it is.
If you give them money and they spend it on drugs, maybe it’s because they still did not have enough money to believe they could live a normal life.
If they destroy an apartment given to them, maybe that apartment was cheaply made and not fit for humans in the first place. Maybe if it were worth caring about, they would care about it.
Mental health treatment ≠ addiction treatment
An addict is more likely to stop being an addict once their normal human needs are fulfilled.
A mentally ill person does not stop being mentally ill, unless a cure exists. Their symptoms can be mitigated or reduced at best.
Pay attention to my use of the words “maybe” and “more likely”, these are not absolutes and that’s most of my issue with your comment. If you give SOME of them money, they’ll spend it on drugs. If you give Some of them an apartment, they will destroy it. Others however, might spend that money on an apartment and nice clothes to interview for jobs with.
These are all just my opinions. I am someone who has destroyed apartments, spent money inappropriately on drugs and alcohol, and did not care about anything for a decade unless it modified my state of consciousness. It took love and patience from a couple people and it wasn’t easy for them. It took a couple years and wasn’t cheap, but I think it worked and I am lucky to have those people make the effort. I believe it’s a solution that should be attempted more. Giving someone money or an apartment is a short term fix that ignores the problems. Giving someone love and patience is a long term solution that difficult but has better odds the longer it is done. There’s always exceptions though, some people are just fucked.
I agree, but I meant that both interventions need to happen at the same time since having regular contact with support and being able to rely on them (instead of drugs) while getting clean will make it more likely that they succeed.
I feel like we might be pushing for the same point, and are talking about different sides of it