Don't think twice about an intervention for a loved one DO IT!

a reply to: EternalSolace

Please do! Show me a business case for a detention facility which generates a positive revenue stream for a municipality which creates an incentive to throw someone into incarceration rather than have them out in the work force and paying taxes. I'd love to see that!!!

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: EternalSolace

Please do! Show me a business case for a detention facility which generates a positive revenue stream for a municipality which creates an incentive to throw someone into incarceration rather than have them out in the work force and paying taxes. I'd love to see that!!!

If I could in exact specifics, I’d be in protective custody and dead. No prisoner tells the truth... right?

I mean, the state doesn’t make license plates for free right? The state doesn’t clean up its roads for free, right?

Tell me how private prison firms make their cash please. From private prison foods, to whatever you can think of.


Have you ever been to jail? Have you ever worked as a guard?

If you have, you should know how much an inmate earns off a debt per day in jail.

And if you’re so ignorant to suppose someone hadn’t made a profit on this figure, you’re ignorentX

The Moral to the story is..

Help those you know are in need, and help them now..despite popular opinion. If you don't, they may never be around to be mad at you

a reply to: Sabrechucker

Very sad that you lost your Niece and a friend.

More people need help with addictions and mental health issues too. Maybe someday things will turn around and there will be a better system in place for people.

I've lost a few people to smack od and alcohol.

there is not enough treatment that has time to help everyone, or even that can adequately help those that get help, if you don't fit the criteria of their policy, you get left behind.. I know that first hand. yet we can build sports stadiums galore... this world has it's priorities on the me now, right now folk mentality...

thoughts to you and yours... sorry for your losses.

a reply to: Sabrechucker


I’m sorry for your loss Sabre!

This subject is something I think about daily.

I feel people have definitely become unsympathetic regarding addiction, and I admit I was one of them until I saw members of my family struggle with it. I would talk to one relative everyday for hours on the phone to get her thru her OxyContin addiction. She actually did it; and continued to work while detoxing. She did have to replace one addiction with another for s short while, but it worked. Then her son went thru it. He relapsed recently on Meth and she had to drive around at 4:00am in unknown towns looking for him because he hallucinated crashing his car, being chased by helicopters and police and was hiding in a bush in the middle of nowhere. She found him thank god, and they got his car out of compound with a scratch on the taillight. Apparently the police found it parked on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

My cousin got started on Oxy because her ex had them for an injury and gave them to her.

Imo the real problem are the people who give these pills to others. What in the hell are they thinking?

I really believe this country needs more dual diagnosis treatment centers, and that they should be utilized before prison for at least (bare minimum) three months. I would gladly pay more taxes for these services. For behind every addict is a broken-hearted human.

Not everyone is strong mentally, and everybody does have a story. I can’t tell you how many kids I know that don’t have mothers/fathers around because they deserted them for drugs. Just imagine starting out this way.

I’ve also seen kids who needed immediate intervention never get helped. Shame on those who failed them.

To sum up my feelings on this topic (because I could go in forever); I really hope more services become available for these people in need. Empathy needs to be part of it as well.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
I really don't know if this is a right answer, but I've been there, in a very dark space, but some of the biggest liars (in the sad sense) are people who have committed suicide. How many times have you heard "I didn't know he would do that" because those who died would say "oh, I'm alright", "I'm quite happy" and then put on a false show of being "alright".
I don't know, but with the epidemic of drug abuse it aught to be took out of illegal hands, made legal, because illegal no-one has control of it, not the amount or purity. But legalised at least there could be some control.
Once legalised there could be information on actually how many are users, where they are and in consequence a plan to find the reasons for the abuse.
Or is this too simplistic?

a reply to: Sabrechucker

I'm sorry, friend. So sorry.😰 God bless you for sticking with your niece though- you may have been the only kind soul she encountered in her last year of life. Addicts and drunks feel incredible shame, and any time a person doesn't run screaming from them or lecture them when they're using, can make the difference between life and death. Unfortunately heroin is so easy to OD on these days with dealers adding fentenayl to it.

You're absolutely right about getting people detoxed before sending them to general population in jail. But I have to tell you that even actual detox centers dont have a lot of sympathy for the withdrawl symptoms of the people they are supposed to be helping. Honestly, I think the counselors and medical professionals believe that if the person suffers as much as possible without dying they will be less likely to pick up again. That doesn't work though. Addicts and drunks, our brains don't work that way.

7 years ago I went to a detox center bevause I could not stop drinking because of the withdrawls. I had gotten and stayed sober before, and went cold turkey, but I couldn't do it this time, though I tried for months. I knew I had to get some help to get through the withdrawls or I would never get sober. To their credit they are very cautious with providing benzos and other meds, but I had to beg and and be very persistent just to get a few doses for the ten days I was there. The heroin people had it worse! They would just be laying around the place, their bones aching and their legs twitching constantly. A lot of them were younger kids and unlike my older ass there, didn't know to advocate for themselves to the docs and nurses there. Many of them left early, to go back out and get a dose because that would stop the withdrawl and they weren't getting help with it in the detox.

I doubt prison officials and law enforcement have any better or sympathetic views of inmates withdrawing than do those addiction professionals. They probably think "Let them withdraw; if they die, it's one less inmate for us to manage." 😰😰😰😰

a reply to: KTemplar

What do you mean, exactly, by "not everyone is strong mentally?" Do you mean that addicts and drunks are that way because they are mentally weak? If they were mentally strong, they wouldn't take the drink?

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
There is no municipality in the USA which shows a monetary profit on a penitentiary.

As a recovered/recovering addict/alcoholic, I totally agree that those who are in the throes of their addiciton need help, not a prison cell, but...

They have to want help. No amount of wanting to help someone who doesn't want or will not accept help and/or doesn't believe they have a problem will force them to admit they have a problem and actually do what is required to recover.

For anyone who cares, here is 'my story' (all of it 100% true)...

I started smoking cigarettes when I was about 8 or 9, then dope when I was 13, graduated to almost everything else (never used a needle thank God, or I probably wouldn't be here, I was too afraid of them). Interestingly, I knew pretty much right away that I was in trouble when I started using. I had a fantasy of quitting for a very long time.

Anyway, my Dad's first real intervention was when I was 17 - I stole some money from a friend who came to visit - he told me I had to enlist in the military or the friend was going to press charges. I know he was bluffing now, but it scared me enough then that I did, so quit high school halfway through the 11th grade, got my GED, and enlisted in the Coast Guard (with guaranteed Electronics Technical training), did my 4 years, got out, played for a few more years, then while working at my Grandpa's pawn shop, the (parents and Grandpa) performed another intervention when I got caught forging pawn tickets to buy coke/Crystal meth (snorting it, not shooting). This time they sent me to a rehab center in Charlotte NC, the same one that Delta airlines (my Dad was a pilot) used for pilots with drug/alcohol problems. I quit smoking cigarettes for the first time in my life for more than a few weeks the day I entered rehab the first time.

I stayed clean after that for about 6 months, then started playing (and smoking cigs) again. Played for another year or so, then voluntarily went back to the rehab again. My Grandpa paid for the first time, and my parents paid for the second time. The second/last time, I waited until 3 days before leaving rehab to quit smoking cigarettes, as I knew if I didn't I'd likely start using again. I promised myself to make one meeting per day for the first year after I left, and I did. I never went to another meeting after the 365th one, I never felt like I needed it.

I've been clean/sober ever since, 30+ years now.

I cannot thank my Grandpa and my parents enough for being willing to do all of this for me. I likely wouldn't be here if they hadn't. But the fact is, the first rehab I went to that was involuntary, made me aware of a way out.

So, that was all to reiterate my main point:

An addict/alcoholic has to want help. No amount of wanting to help someone who doesn't want or will not accept help and/or doesn't believe they have a problem will force them to admit they have a problem and actually do what is required to recover.

The problem is that you can't help people who are addicted unless and until they want that help. It's that kind of problem. They have to want to fight for it as much as you want to fight for them. It's a tough, tough battle because you're fighting your own self and it hurts, day in and day out. They're undermined by brain and body.

originally posted by: KansasGirl
a reply to: KTemplar

What do you mean, exactly, by "not everyone is strong mentally?" Do you mean that addicts and drunks are that way because they are mentally weak? If they were mentally strong, they wouldn't take the drink?

I meant strong enough will power wise to quit on their own.

Sorry you had to go through that.


Unfortunately it's not always as easy as it seems. I lost a really close "little brother" (best friends little bro) to it. He ODed. Fast forward many years later, now it's a really big thing. So many people are on it.

I have 2 friends, one estranged (doesn't speak to me anymore because I threw the glove down and demanded that she stop or I would have to stop being there) and another who I'm really closed to and care for a great deal.

The problem is... How do you turn your back on someone you really care about? How do you not because of the inevitable pain you know that will come at some point, likely in the middle of the night? How do you intervene when you know an excuse will soon follow (I know my limits... others die because they do too much after they get off it for a time)? How do you say something when you know you will be alienated because they simply don't want to hear it?

Is just being there enough, only to suffer it in the end?

So many questions with no good answers. I've heard it both ways. Tough love - Be there.

I really feel for you.

a reply to: StallionDuck
Thanks for the reply!. It's a helpless feeling because you know the simple answer but, they don't want to hear it.
The addiction makes them quite convincing.

a reply to: KTemplar

Thank You!..Talk about prison reform!

"I really believe this country needs more dual diagnosis treatment centers, and that they should be utilized before prison for at least (bare minimum) three months. I would gladly pay more taxes for these services. For behind every addict is a broken-hearted human."

a reply to: KansasGirl

Your acknowledgement to this problem is so appreciated!

He told me more than once that, if he had to go back to jail he'd kill himself to avoid the withdrawals.

Well he did, time for a change.

a reply to: Night Star

Thank You.

I just pray for the day that drug addicts with no help aren't lumped into the pile of..bad people.

originally posted by: Sabrechucker
a reply to: StallionDuck
Thanks for the reply!. It's a helpless feeling because you know the simple answer but, they don't want to hear it.
The addiction makes them quite convincing.

It is. It's a rock and a hard place. I want to do something SO BAD but nothing I can do. I've told her before and in more ways than one.

Do I sit here and wait for you to die or do I just forget about our friendship because I don't want to deal with what will come because you are so selfish to think that only you are being affected?!

Response is always: I'm not asking you to stick around. You can make up your own mind. I wont hold it against you.

Yet... When life throws her for a loop, I'm the first and only one that she comes to and I take care of her no questions asked (never drug related - that I wont do and she knows it). Oddly enough, she has the most horrible luck that I've ever seen one person have. Seriously wicked stuff.


Still... It's a really messed up thing! I can't hate dealers because they're all dealers to some degree. I wish there was a way for her to get help but there just aren't free services out there to help. You have to have money for the insurance or the care. Just quitting isn't going to happen because what comes with it is worse than the flu and who wants to willingly go through that and feel like death? Quitting for an addict could very well actually lead to their death. Then there are the lapses and that's where it gets dangerous because there aren't that many heroin addicts that can say that they don't miss it or think about it often. Every day, every moment is a potential relapse.


Programs could help work this out. I know it wouldn't fix it but it at least would help those that needed/wanted help. I wouldn't think for one minute that all heroin addicts do it just because they like it and dont want to stop. Some try it and end up liking it but continue to do it because they can't stop.

Anyone who looks down on these people are horrible ugly people.