Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
Source?
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You’re seriously asking for a source that people use intoxicants because they make them feel good?
Look, I understand why academics and policy wonks like to map structural factors and economics to social ills. It makes for convincing papers, and more importantly, remedies that are also structural and economic. But you can’t understand addiction without understanding that many people get pleasure from intoxicants. That they enjoy the feeling of being wasted, and socially bond over intoxication.
The guys I grew up with in middle and upper-middle-class suburban Calgary loved getting wasted daily. We all started in junior high - not because we came from distressed households, or were abused, but because we were bored and getting wasted was fun. By our late 20s most of us had toned it down enough to hold down jobs and keep a household together. Some didn’t. Some are dead now. Or fell off the face of the earth. Or still live in their parents’ basement.
Hard to say why some fell by the wayside and some didn’t. Each case was different. But it wasn’t socioeconomic (a couple of the guys who wound up dead by 40 came from affluent, stable households).