Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
You'd be amazed at how compassion fatigue can erode the biggest of hearts after you've tried to help a few people through addiction issues as they rocket toward their own annihilation as everyone who cares about them gets repeatedly burned. Too many people are callously (unintentionally, for sure) oblivious to the destruction one addict can cause to an entire circle of people. It's frustrating to hear people talk about using nicer words to describe a whirling dervish hellbent on ruining their own lives and scarring (and scaring) the people around them for months and years on end, yet who are quick to be "shocked" at how the actual victims (sober people just trying to navigate life, which as we all know, isn't easy for anybody) can and do have an end to their rope.
Do addicts deserve compassion? Yes. But there is only so much compassion any one of us are capable of giving and I suggest the better approach is to reserve the bulk of your compassion for the 25+ people being hurt on an ongoing basis by every one addict. At least the addict gets high, doesn't have to work, and can just do whatever the #### they want whenever the #### they want. That seems a lot more fun than sneaking to meeting rooms in an office to place a few calls during the day to manage the affairs of an addict, then spending evenings and weekends ####ing around cleaning up their messes while trying to be supportive of an individual who makes detrimental decision after detrimental decision.
I would love to have a softer approach to these people. I didn't start out jaded. I was beat down into it and now I'm just realistic and I don't appreciate the lack of concern for family and friends of addicts - let alone the public at large - versus the ridiculous amount of care and compassion we're supposed to expel from this magical bottomless pit of concern we're supposed to somehow have. And how much time do you think we should all be dedicating to holding some meth addicts hands through their nonsense? Should I take away two hours a week from my family? Guy, in my experience it's double that a day when things go sideways. So now my kids are out a dad, my wife is out a husband and I'm stressed to the max because you want me to have unending compassion for a druggie. No, thanks. Tried that and it's hopeless.
We need to get them the #### off the streets. Just like you'd do with anybody else who broke the law over and over. So, yeah, we're beyond platitudes. It's time for tangible solutions and everything else is getting frightening close to the Southpark-sniffing-farts-out-of-a-wine-glass gif (which I'm not going to go so far as to accuse you of or do you the disrespect of posting that gif).
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I adore that gif and if you'd like to use it to describe me it would be some much-needed levity in this thread.
I actually feel like you and I probably agree on more than you'd realize. You've clearly had some heavy experiences and you sound like you were an excellent friend/family member to somebody and I'm sorry it didn't work out.
I completely empathize with compassion fatigue and have zero hesitation saying I'd be swimming in it if I had to walk in your shoes. It's for that reason I don't really judge or blame anybody for their opinions in this thread (despite what my tone may have you believe). We're all just a tangled mess of experiences trying to figure it all out.
When I say I don't think we have it in us to rehabilitate the current crop of drug-addicted people out there, I'm not claiming it's because people are sh*t and don't care, it's because the level of care required is beyond what we can reasonably offer. We've all got spouses and jobs and kids and problems... it's not like any of us are swimming in bandwidth.
When I originally made my comment that nobody even views these people as people, I wasn't necessarily saying you all need to dig in and find compassion, but rather that I think we're further away from a solution than most realize. This problem is 400-level physics but we haven't even nailed down subtraction yet.
The facts are unkind. The percentage of people who can kick an opiate habit is depressingly low. The only people who seem to be able to succeed are in high-paying careers and have pre-existing social circles to help them. Your average street person? If anybody knows the true figure please share, but I think it's lower than 1%.
This is why I take such a pessimistic approach to the current wave of addicts. If I've given you the impression that I think you need to just do some breathing exercises and find some empathy then I apologize because I wasn't clear. It is likely too late for the vast majority of them.
This is why I believe my focus needs to be on the drug wave that's coming in 20 years by doubling our efforts for the families and kids who haven't gotten into this mess yet but are on the wrong trajectories.
For the violent ones in the current crop, I do feel they need to be removed from society and incarcerated. It only kicks the can down the road, but it's probably the only solution we've got in the short term (and even then it's probably far more complicated than we realize).
You make a good point about asylums. We deemed them cruel (because they were run cruelly) and got rid of them without replacing them. Today if you have schizophrenia and a family unable to care for you, how do you even stay off the street?
Anyways, I'm sorry for what you went through. Sounds like an impossible situation and you tried more than most would.