A very important factor for helping people with addiction is considering its context. Gabor Maté says in In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts [0] that nearly 100% of h

A very important factor for helping people with addiction is considering its context. Gabor Maté says in In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts [0] that nearly 100% of his most-hopeless addict-patients had experienced some sort of adverse childhood experience. When I met the friend who completed my education about addiction, I thought, "this woman is high as a kite." She latched on to me like a life preserver. I didn't know anything about hard drugs, and just observed and listened for the first two months -- adopted, older adopted sister was angry and picked on her, etc etc. After three months I decided that she didn't like her drug world very much, and began to encourage her to sober up. She resisted at first, then she came around. She likes me more than the drugs. [0] https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1583944206 https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1583944206 I want to draw attention to the bit in this article about anxiety: The first patient, Brooke Anglin, 28, had had a rough ride. During a turbulent relationship when she was sagged down by depression and severe anxiety, she soothed herself with opioids. After the birth of her second child, she lost both her job as a supermarket cake decorator and custody of her two children. Under Dr. Wlasiuk’s care, she gradually weaned herself off the opioids. [...] Ms. Anglin whispered, “I want my kids back.” Dr. Wlasiuk grasped Ms. Anglin’s hands. “I am amazed by your strength,” she said. “I want to treat your anxiety until things settle down. What are your thoughts?” They agreed on temporary anti-anxiety medication. Dr. Wlasiuk also taught her breathing exercises. "Anti-anxiety medication" is probably code for benzodiazepines. This class of drugs is remarkably effective in the short-term, but rapidly worsens the patient's anxiety. "Ms. Anglin's" anxiety is caused by stress. She needs a social worker to help her get stabilized and get her kids back, not a benzo. The best use of the medical profession's stature would be to advocate for mostly removing addiction from the domain of criminal justice, or at least for advocating for removal of "incarceration" from the list of reasonable things to do to an addict. Cages don't help with the emotional problems at the root of addiction. A HN comment [1] recently reminded me of "problem solving courts" [2]. Maybe a good intermediary step would be to require that all "drug" cases be treated as problems to be solved, rather than excuses to throw people away for long periods of time. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17965398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17965398 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem-solving_courts_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem-solving_courts_in_the_...