Brains are machines, and drugs damage them in such a way that the damage accelerates. If you think you are not driven by your own reward system, or that you ar

Brains are machines, and drugs damage them in such a way that the damage accelerates. If you think you are not driven by your own reward system, or that you are above it, you are laughably mistaken. By and large, you will do what your reward system tells you to, and your reserves to defy it are limited and finite. Be happy that yours is intact and mostly tells you to do things that are good for you (which itself is only by the grace of millions of years of random variation and selection on your ancestors, who more or less knew nothing of the potent drugs that exist in our habitat today), because once that system is damaged, you cannot simply will it to become fixed. Moreover, it looks like the Appalachian outbreak is due to patients falling into addiction as a result of established medical care, and simply falling through the cracks-- or perhaps even having dangerous addiction-risky treatments foisted on them by a drug industry overstating the safety or necessity of its products. Have a little sympathy. If the rates shown here continue, you may one day find yourself among the affected.