Heroin made available on the NHS in Britain - nobody notices

[mandarin]

Have any of you experienced drug withdrawals....suffered from addiction in any sense and im not talking internet chats,sex, work and many others which today can and are classified as valid addictions?

No offense but a lot of you are talking total drivel....drug addiction affects all strata of society, young and old, rich and poor, strong and weak (mentality ).

Its a disease not a "problem" or weak-will.

My point was that in order to recover the addict needs to

A. Want to
B. Be prepared to hand his will and life over to something "bigger" e.g rehab, AA/NA program and embark on a totally conscious path of recovery which includes amongst other things abstaining from any/all drug(s).

The whole concept of feeding them more is deplorable and laughable though tragic too....

[MikeH]

Understand that.

You are missing the point. There are only a limited number of rehab places. A very limited number of rehab places in the good centers that actually have any kind of decent success rate.

What do you do with people who want help until they slots come open?

Much better answer would be enough rehab places for all who need them, I agree.

[mandarin]

Mike are you being serious!!!....the goverment cant even afford to give fireman a wage hike....lol

The real solution is a combination of individual commitment to recovery and financial backing from non-gov/business sector as well as a social support structure to assist those who cant be placed in rehabs,homes temporarily. That, howerer, could take many,many yrs if not decades to accomplish.

Dont be naive mike...nothing in life is that cut 'n dry or easy.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by MikeH
Understand that.

You are missing the point. There are only a limited number of rehab places. A very limited number of rehab places in the good centers that actually have any kind of decent success rate.

What do you do with people who want help until they slots come open?

Much better answer would be enough rehab places for all who need them, I agree.

Success in getting someone off of the drug and success keeping them off is two different things. Opiod detox as I said above is really no great shakes. Properly handled opiod withdrawal is not the serious medical crisis it's so often depicted as being, instead it's merely mildly annoying. Keeping someone off is a different matter. Mild cravings can persist for a long time. There can be an additive effect to the struggle to resist the cravings that erodes the will. Fortunately there is a drug that actually reduce the craving. If the person stays on it it's highly effective. The problem is that some people won't stay on the drug, not because it's not working, but in fact they get to the point where they don't want it to work anymore. Opiod addiction is fun, that's why they call it "getting high". By the time you're an addict you probably have run out of other things that you experience as fun, so once you've gone through detox and your cravings have subsided you still have a big empty space left inside that might have been filled with other things if you hadn't devoted your life to drugs.

The problem is that if you enjoy basketball, video games or whatever I don't have to become your personal slave by paying your welfare, If you're addicted to opiods odds are pretty good that I and a lot of other people, many of whom are struggling to get by, will support you just like Sinbad did with the Old Man of the Sea.

[MikeH]

Originally posted by mandarin
Mike are you being serious!!!....the goverment cant even afford to give fireman a wage hike....lol

The real solution is a combination of individual commitment to recovery and financial backing from non-gov/business sector as well as a social support structure to assist those who cant be placed in rehabs,homes temporarily. That, howerer, could take many,many yrs if not decades to accomplish.

Dont be naive mike...nothing in life is that cut 'n dry or easy.

I'm being naive? What business sector is going to help out drug addicts?

When did I say it was easy? I never said this solution was perfect. Just better than some of the alternatives.

[mandarin]

Read Mike read....with the right people and correct marketing...

I also mentioned..."That, howerer, could take many,many yrs if not decades to accomplish."