5 ms·
A heartless and uninformed perspective that is all too common among people born into privilege (you may not have been but in my experience, most people who beli
by adriand 5y ago
A heartless and uninformed perspective that is all too common among people born into privilege (you may not have been but in my experience, most people who believe this were).
The majority of addicts are people who have experienced trauma. Often this is childhood trauma, specifically sexual, emotional or physical abuse. Of course it may also have occurred in adulthood. Veterans are one common example but there are millions of other causes.
Shit happens man. You can be an armchair judge but it’s all too easy to go off the rails in this world. Be compassionate! Instead of “you made some bad choices” maybe try thinking, “there but for the grace of god go I”.
- WalterBright 5y agoI never said compassion was unhelpful. If compassion helps an addict choose to stop using, great! But it's still, in the end, the addict's choice.
- adriand 5y agoYou could choose compassion but instead you choose judgment.
- WalterBright 5y agoAsserting that people have agency over their lives empowers them. That does not preclude compassion for the state they're in. Not at all.
- xpe 5y ago> But it's still, in the end, the addict's choice. It seems to me your language above suffers from a false dichotomy. One might start with a binary question such as "Do we have free will or not?". However, a better question is "Under what conditions and to what extent are we conscious of our choices, rational in how we evaluate them, and informed enough to predict how they will play out?"