My thoughts on addiction
poledancer83
Narnia
Read a post from before about addiction. Honestly a lot of really bad comments about it and I was surprised. Most of you honestly don't care about those with addictions at least from the comments made. Dancers and club goers are more prevalent then most to develop an addiction. Taking an addictive substance is done so on the terms of the here and now. No one smokes and says I want to smoke for 40 years. Same with drugs and alcohol. I never wanted to be addicted to anything but it happens. Once that happens your in the disease mode. People use drugs and alcohol to escape. Could be a single parent working a shit ton of jobs or lost their job. Could be a divorce could be anything really that gets them started. The point is to make rehab facilities accessible to treat these people. You cant sit on the high road and say your not paying for it or shouldn't pay for it. I can assure you that if you have been to a club you have bought some girls drugs or booze.
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But I am sympathetic to people who get hooked on narcotics from a legitimate medical need and prescription. This was DS IiI's situation. She got addicted to pain meds after recovery from major surgery, and had to go to the clinic every day for methadone. She very much wanted to get off those drugs but it was slow going.
Is skin cancer any less of a disease because someone gets it from not adequately protecting themselves from the sun? Are those who suffer from it any less deserving of insurance covering their treatment?
However, once addicted a person needs medication and therapy to beat the addiction. As for the cost to taxpayers, you have to weigh the cost of treatment against the costs of no treatment--including other health costs stemming from addiction, costs of children whose parents can't care for them, costs of incarceration, etc
So unless you have some sort of element for holding yourself accountable, this notion of addiction to be held as a disease only works when the individual with the problem takes responsibility for their disease. It is why the only way some addicts can truly turn their lives around is because they've reached a low point in their lives or they hit rock bottom.
If you build a safety net for addicts that doesn't let them hit rock bottom, then an addict will always find a way to abuse the situation. It's why addicts lie and steal and cheat so much, in order to maintain their addictions without changing for their own betterment.
There are options, and there are plenty, for those that seriously want to get help.
I became a bit addicted to the caffeine or sugar in a bottle of coke. I didn't realize it could be addictive until I didn't drink any for 2 days. I had headaches, etc. untill I drank a little bit.
Drugs can be terrible. At least in High School we had someone teach us about the terrible side effects from drugs. It sounds like they don't teach as much nowadays. I made sure not to ever use drugs. I knew some people in college who did and they stared at my wall for like 30 to 60 minutes one night and told me not to move very fast. That was messed up.
However if the addict shows up to work stoned or gets stoned on the job and causes injury to another worked he/she is allowed to hide behind his or her addiction making the employer civilly and criminally responsible for allowing the addict onto the employers property to cause the injury. Catch 22! if you are a small business you likely cannot afford to pay that addict to stay home where they can't harm anyone at your facility which in turn causes you to hire someone to take their place. Your other choice is to allow them to continue working risking getting someone hurt of killed? The third choice is to shrink your business to the point of no employees other than yourself, sell out. or close.
Do you out their that want addiction treated like a disease want the guy running the forklift running around place you work, the electrician that wired your home, or the person the put your car together stoned,"they are just have a disease" so it is discrimination to fire them for safety reasons??
If you do not start you won't be an addict.
Your behavior has consequences, if a male and female have unprotected intercourse the result could be pregnancy or disease. That is a consequence of that action. I am not saying treatment should be denied anyone but putting others at risk should not be condoned. Do you condone an HIV positive person having unprotected sex without disclosing their condition? In some places it is considered attempted murder. Why then is forcing an employer to retain a person that is a danger to himself or others different.
Only mega businesses have the resources to have rehab programs but they are also the ones that have armies of lawyers that write conditions of employment contracts that you sign before you employ there so they will fire the addict after the first test failure based on that contract. There is an employer that an acquaintance worked for that has a no smoking policy for all employees and their families. During a routine drug screening they detected nicotine in his system, he did not personally smoke but his wife had started again and because he had signed the bullet proof contract he was discharged for cause(no unemployment) that day.