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When I was nine years old, my cousin died of a heroin overdose at nineteen years old. Most of the grownups around me were very sad, but I didn't really know my

When I was nine years old, my cousin died of a heroin overdose at nineteen years old. Most of the grownups around me were very sad, but I didn't really know my cousin very well; he lived on the opposite side of the country, and he was a full decade older than me so the times I did see him we didn't really play together, and so I wasn't really able to feel "sad" about it. People I don't know die every day, I can't feel bad for all of them (cold as that might sound) and my cousin dying wasn't terribly different. Fast forward eleven years, on my twentieth birthday, and I had a realization: my cousin was the first person I had known that I outlived, and I felt this sudden sinking feeling. Why had I been spared when my cousin had been taken so young? Why did I get to spend more time on earth then he did? It's not like I was some sort of cosmically better human than him, I had been a dumb teenager who was just lucky enough to not have friends who were willing to talk me into doing drugs. I started asking my parents about my cousin, and it made me somehow feel even worse when I found out that my cousin had a bit of a downward cycle with drugs throughout the tail end of high school, tried joining the army in the hope that it might straighten him out, it didn't, and just fell deeper and deeper until he eventually died. Alcoholism seems to run in the males in my family (with the exception of my dad and me, strangely), so this sadly wasn't even really something completely unexpected. Addiction is tough, I feel really fortunate to have dodged that bullet. I can't even pretend to know what addicts to hard drugs are going through.

mrslave 5y ago
I'm a recent teetotaler and my quality of life is massively improved. It took me an unreasonably long time to realize many adult role models in my life (family, and then in my first significant professional workplace) were abusing alcohol. None of them would consider themselves alcoholic. A few of them were dependent at significant cost to their health, which I believe is easily classified as alcoholic. A few years ago I worked a project with a young foreigner who didn't drink and actively spoke out against it as - in his description - the cause of much dysfunction in his country. Politics aside, I was actually inspired by someone significantly my junior to reconsider my attitudes. What if I took a leaf out of the self-improvement culture and just tried it? It might be too much for a lot of people to simply not drink. Life circumstance counts for a lot, but my life no longer includes socializing in venues where alcohol is served so it actually wasn't too hard to stop.
- dumbfoundded 5y ago
  Good on you. I think it's important for people to understand their own susceptibilities and react according. Interestingly enough, the boomers are the highest drug using generation by far (1) in the US. I wonder what impact this has on society at large. I would guess not a good one. (1) https://drugabuse.com/featured/drug-and-alcohol-abuse-across-generations/ https://drugabuse.com/featured/drug-and-alcohol-abuse-across...
- galaxyLogic 5y ago
  I stopped drinking because I realized it kept me from accomplishing things I wanted to accomplish. I think (based on my experience, can't speak for others) it's relatively easy to quit once you know why you want to quit. I don't much regret my drinking days because I had fun and met many people. But then I realized I want to do other things than just get drunk and get a hangover. I think, based on my experience again, that AA with its confess your sins and label yourself an alcoholic may help some people. But I think it's best to think what you want to do and accomplish, in life. Then do that. No need to keep on repeating you are an alcoholic. You're no more alcoholic than anybody else I would say. It's just that you have decided to drink and keep on drinking. It's your choice.
  - endymi0n 5y ago
    …which by the way is also an approach Richard Feynman took: He basically stopped drinking because he liked thinking itself way too much to ever let something impair that. I‘m fortunate enough to be able to keep my drinking level at a point that helps me socialize and enhance enjoyment (the occasional bottle of wine with friends and peers), but not above. I‘ve also experimented with drugs in the past because I was just too curious, but in the end, I was lucky to not end up some place I didn‘t want to. By now I’ve experienced that ability wasn‘t just personal strength, but also my predisposition and experiences. That does‘t excuse anyone from not trying harder, but it was a sober reminder for me to see that addiction is a way steeper slope for some of us.
  - taneq 5y ago
    > It's just that you have decided to drink and keep on drinking. It's your choice. That's kind of the dividing line, though, isn't it? If it's your choice and you could choose otherwise, then you're not an alcoholic. Some people don't feel like it's a choice.
hedberg10 5y ago
> my cousin had been taken so young? He wasn't taken. He took himself. Exercise: Everytime you remove agency, reintroduce it. "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. "I am helpless". No, you are making yourself helpless. These are active processes. Let's get more controversial: "I am being bullied". No, you are letting people bully you. I know this is harsh. I know the societal memes and phrases are the warm place. A sigh, the Soma of "Nothing can be done" or "Somebody needs to do something!!" is not a solution but paralysis. You can read it in the article: The parents did everything for the addict, he did nothing himself. It didn't work out now, did it? Never does. (Not absolving the Sacklers of their guilt, that is a separate issue)
- louissm_it 5y ago
  While advice like this might have been alright if it was in a self-help book where the OP was looking for ways to approach the situation, it is completely uncalled for and inappropriate in this situation.
- bserge 5y ago
  Yeah, depression is imaginary. The kids killed in Syria and Afghanistan should've helped themselves. Lol at bullying being more controversial. But yeah life is harsh and the world is shit. And death is inevitable.
  - hedberg10 5y ago
    > depression is imaginary Nice strawman > The kids killed in Syria and Afghanistan should've helped themselves Never mentioned kids in warzones > But yeah life is harsh and the world is shit. And death is inevitable. Make an effort, coward.
    - Biganon 5y ago
      Would you go to someone who has Crohn's disease and tell them "you're doing that to yourself"? No? So why do it with depression?
mschuster91 5y ago
First of all, sorry for your loss. > Alcoholism seems to run in the males in my family (with the exception of my dad and me, strangely), so this sadly wasn't even really something completely unexpected. Indeed, familial alcoholism is suspected to be a complex genetic trait (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4056340/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4056340/). As for why you and your father seem to have been spared by that... if I may ask, did you two have access to mental health care and use it? A common theory in addiction research is the "self-medication hypothesis" (https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/dune-and-the-second-coming-of-psychedelics-in-the-united-states https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/dune-and-the-second-co...) - basically, that people accidentally discover during experimenting with drugs that the drugs help with mental or physical health issues.
- tombert 5y ago
  > As for why you and your father seem to have been spared by that... if I may ask, did you two have access to mental health care and use it? Well, we've had health insurance for my entire life so I guess we had "access" to it, but as far as I know my dad never used it, and I didn't see a psychiatrist until I was 26 (and I wasn't drinking much before that, certainly not enough to be considered an alcoholic). He certainly didn't have access to it until he finished school, growing up in a relatively poor family. I think at least in my dad's case, he saw how much his dad's alcoholism screwed things up, and decided that he was going to try and avoid that fate no matter what, sort of using his dad as an example of "what not to do." As I was growing up, I think I saw my dad drink a grand total of four glasses of wine, all of which were done on different New Years events, and never enough to get "drunk" or anything like that. As he's gotten older (and as his kids have all grown up), he's relaxed on that a bit and I will occasionally see him drink slightly more frequently, but I think that habit of sobriety has been somewhat ingrained into him at this point.

mrslave 5y ago

I'm a recent teetotaler and my quality of life is massively improved. It took me an unreasonably long time to realize many adult role models in my life (family, and then in my first significant professional workplace) were abusing alcohol. None of them would consider themselves alcoholic. A few of them were dependent at significant cost to their health, which I believe is easily classified as alcoholic. A few years ago I worked a project with a young foreigner who didn't drink and actively spoke out against it as - in his description - the cause of much dysfunction in his country. Politics aside, I was actually inspired by someone significantly my junior to reconsider my attitudes. What if I took a leaf out of the self-improvement culture and just tried it? It might be too much for a lot of people to simply not drink. Life circumstance counts for a lot, but my life no longer includes socializing in venues where alcohol is served so it actually wasn't too hard to stop.

dumbfoundded 5y ago
Good on you. I think it's important for people to understand their own susceptibilities and react according. Interestingly enough, the boomers are the highest drug using generation by far (1) in the US. I wonder what impact this has on society at large. I would guess not a good one. (1) https://drugabuse.com/featured/drug-and-alcohol-abuse-across-generations/ https://drugabuse.com/featured/drug-and-alcohol-abuse-across...
galaxyLogic 5y ago
I stopped drinking because I realized it kept me from accomplishing things I wanted to accomplish. I think (based on my experience, can't speak for others) it's relatively easy to quit once you know why you want to quit. I don't much regret my drinking days because I had fun and met many people. But then I realized I want to do other things than just get drunk and get a hangover. I think, based on my experience again, that AA with its confess your sins and label yourself an alcoholic may help some people. But I think it's best to think what you want to do and accomplish, in life. Then do that. No need to keep on repeating you are an alcoholic. You're no more alcoholic than anybody else I would say. It's just that you have decided to drink and keep on drinking. It's your choice.
- endymi0n 5y ago
  …which by the way is also an approach Richard Feynman took: He basically stopped drinking because he liked thinking itself way too much to ever let something impair that. I‘m fortunate enough to be able to keep my drinking level at a point that helps me socialize and enhance enjoyment (the occasional bottle of wine with friends and peers), but not above. I‘ve also experimented with drugs in the past because I was just too curious, but in the end, I was lucky to not end up some place I didn‘t want to. By now I’ve experienced that ability wasn‘t just personal strength, but also my predisposition and experiences. That does‘t excuse anyone from not trying harder, but it was a sober reminder for me to see that addiction is a way steeper slope for some of us.
- taneq 5y ago
  > It's just that you have decided to drink and keep on drinking. It's your choice. That's kind of the dividing line, though, isn't it? If it's your choice and you could choose otherwise, then you're not an alcoholic. Some people don't feel like it's a choice.

hedberg10 5y ago

> my cousin had been taken so young? He wasn't taken. He took himself. Exercise: Everytime you remove agency, reintroduce it. "I am depressed". No, you are depressing yourself. "I am helpless". No, you are making yourself helpless. These are active processes. Let's get more controversial: "I am being bullied". No, you are letting people bully you. I know this is harsh. I know the societal memes and phrases are the warm place. A sigh, the Soma of "Nothing can be done" or "Somebody needs to do something!!" is not a solution but paralysis. You can read it in the article: The parents did everything for the addict, he did nothing himself. It didn't work out now, did it? Never does. (Not absolving the Sacklers of their guilt, that is a separate issue)

louissm_it 5y ago
While advice like this might have been alright if it was in a self-help book where the OP was looking for ways to approach the situation, it is completely uncalled for and inappropriate in this situation.
bserge 5y ago
Yeah, depression is imaginary. The kids killed in Syria and Afghanistan should've helped themselves. Lol at bullying being more controversial. But yeah life is harsh and the world is shit. And death is inevitable.
- hedberg10 5y ago
  > depression is imaginary Nice strawman > The kids killed in Syria and Afghanistan should've helped themselves Never mentioned kids in warzones > But yeah life is harsh and the world is shit. And death is inevitable. Make an effort, coward.
  - Biganon 5y ago
    Would you go to someone who has Crohn's disease and tell them "you're doing that to yourself"? No? So why do it with depression?

mschuster91 5y ago

First of all, sorry for your loss. > Alcoholism seems to run in the males in my family (with the exception of my dad and me, strangely), so this sadly wasn't even really something completely unexpected. Indeed, familial alcoholism is suspected to be a complex genetic trait (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4056340/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4056340/). As for why you and your father seem to have been spared by that... if I may ask, did you two have access to mental health care and use it? A common theory in addiction research is the "self-medication hypothesis" (https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/dune-and-the-second-coming-of-psychedelics-in-the-united-states https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/dune-and-the-second-co...) - basically, that people accidentally discover during experimenting with drugs that the drugs help with mental or physical health issues.

tombert 5y ago
> As for why you and your father seem to have been spared by that... if I may ask, did you two have access to mental health care and use it? Well, we've had health insurance for my entire life so I guess we had "access" to it, but as far as I know my dad never used it, and I didn't see a psychiatrist until I was 26 (and I wasn't drinking much before that, certainly not enough to be considered an alcoholic). He certainly didn't have access to it until he finished school, growing up in a relatively poor family. I think at least in my dad's case, he saw how much his dad's alcoholism screwed things up, and decided that he was going to try and avoid that fate no matter what, sort of using his dad as an example of "what not to do." As I was growing up, I think I saw my dad drink a grand total of four glasses of wine, all of which were done on different New Years events, and never enough to get "drunk" or anything like that. As he's gotten older (and as his kids have all grown up), he's relaxed on that a bit and I will occasionally see him drink slightly more frequently, but I think that habit of sobriety has been somewhat ingrained into him at this point.