Quote:
Originally posted by Frank the Tank@May 19 2005, 08:29 PM
I do agree with many of your points, but, for as much as I think welfare cases are alcoholic freeloaders, you think they are all mentally unstable and mentally ill.
All perspective I guess.
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No, I believe there's definitely a mix of the two.
I guess what we disagree on is our approach to alcoholics. I'm assuming neither of us are or have been so we're not experts on the subject. So it's hard for us to know exactly what it's like. But they don't call it an addiction for nothing. While I've never been addicted to alcohol I have struggled with an addiction in another area of my life and therefore I can somewhat relate. Addiction is not usually something you can easily choose to fix or change. It's habit, it's compulsion. There's constant temptation and cracking once can get you back into a cycle of abuse. There's a reason some of the more well adjusted alcoholics still need a support group to break the habit, it's not easy. And a lot of addictions tend to be cyclical. You do the drug or what you have, then the next day you feel depressed or withdrawl or whatever and then you're tempted to do it again to get rid of your current mindset. Drugs can change your mindset, they can conceivably remove this ambition and desire that you want to see in these people.
Anyways, I don't think alcoholics have necessarily chosen to be freeloaders. Sometimes the alcohol ruins a person's life and causes them to go on welfare. Perhaps they did have their shinguard together before they started drinking and now they are just stuck in a rut and can't get out without help from the outside.
Giving them free money is not the answer because that doesn't address the root cause. Some sort of rehabilitation should be the goal IMO. But I don't think we're going to solve things by cutting them off, writing them off, and ignoring the role the addiction plays in the whole thing.