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This is a shame. There are some uncomfortable conclusions which one can reach hearing people in such dire positions being completely honest about what brought t

This is a shame. There are some uncomfortable conclusions which one can reach hearing people in such dire positions being completely honest about what brought them there, but giving them a voice at all is incredibly valuable, even if what they say isn't necessarily what people who help them want to hear. My uncle was a daily heroin user most of his adulthood. I remember him telling me one of his only regrets is not finding heroin sooner, it was the only thing that made him happy. It brought (synthetic) joy into a life which a poor, short, confused, single man in rural ON never would have experienced otherwise. He spent the last couple years of his life shooting up in a cheap rural cottage, financially supported by the government and his extended family. He overdosed many times and died young of cancer, but I do wonder how his story would be interpreted by my more progressive colleagues who like to talk about addiction as if all we need to solve the problem are safe injection sites, less cops, and more lenient sentencing. He had the safest injection site imaginable and the incredibly lax Canadian drug laws; it seems like what he needed most was to be part of a society which didn't encourage and enable his choices. I think finding a woman who loved him, even if just for a fleeting moment, might have helped him too. More than anything, I wish my parents had kept going back and hadn't given up and listened to the advice the government workers gave, which was that some people are beyond help, and providing them with their fix and a place to shoot up is the best thing you can do. Tim was my godfather and my favorite uncle growing up. He's the one who told me some people's brains like drugs so, so much more than others, and if I can, to stay away from them. I miss him all the time. I think channels like Soft White Underbelly are great because they allow people to form opinions on complicated, human-centric topics without the political and social commentary that come when big corps try to enter the arena. Trust me, if Fox, CNN, Disney, or Buzzfeed were trying to tell Tim's story, you would essentially end up watching an advertisement for an American political party.

pavlov 4y ago
> "I remember him telling me one of his only regrets is not finding heroin sooner, it was the only thing that made him happy. [...] More than anything, I wish my parents had kept going back and hadn't given up and listened to the advice the government workers gave, which was that some people are beyond help" Is there something specific you think your parents could have done? It seems like an extraordinarily tall order to externally replace the only source of happiness in someone's life without their co-operation.
- honkdaddy 4y ago
  That's a good question, I don't really know. I guess I just have a hard time accepting that when I was a teenager, my folks were aware that our uncle (my god father) was 40min away using every day, but as an extended family we'd agreed we were no longer going to be trying to change that. I think it was decided they'd rather him at least out of harms way and at peace than him going back to prison. I'd probably end up the exact same way. I was hospitalized recently and was given hydrocodone for the first time in my life, I begged the doctor not to give it to me again, regardless of my pain levels, because it was the nicest I remember feeling in years and immediately just wanted more and more. Opiates terrify me like nothing else, largely because I know that if the circumstances were different, I'd probably be telling my future god son the same thing, that there's no better feeling on earth. It's absolutely a tall order, maybe even an impossible one. I really don't know what I or my parents could have done differently, I just wish Tim was still here.
  - pavlov 4y ago
    Thank you for the reply. This is not an addiction I’m at all familiar with (just plain old alcoholics in my family), so it’s very informative and helpful. Deeply sorry for your loss.
sirsinsalot 4y ago
Being Liberal about drug use and addiction as you describe isn't about simple acceptance. Safe sites and non-punishment are a means to non-judemental paths to treatment and finding other sources of happiness ... not enablement.
- honkdaddy 4y ago
  You're right, I definitely made the stance out to be a lot more simple than it really is, I know there's a tonne of nuance to this topic. I think all I was trying to say is in my limited experience, addiction and recovery seem to be processes so much better understood at an individual level than they do from a macro perspective. I don't think there's much at all the Canadian government could have done from a legislative or social perspective to bring Tim to recovery, I think my family, given our life-long relationship with him, maybe possibly could have.

pavlov 4y ago

> "I remember him telling me one of his only regrets is not finding heroin sooner, it was the only thing that made him happy. [...] More than anything, I wish my parents had kept going back and hadn't given up and listened to the advice the government workers gave, which was that some people are beyond help" Is there something specific you think your parents could have done? It seems like an extraordinarily tall order to externally replace the only source of happiness in someone's life without their co-operation.

honkdaddy 4y ago
That's a good question, I don't really know. I guess I just have a hard time accepting that when I was a teenager, my folks were aware that our uncle (my god father) was 40min away using every day, but as an extended family we'd agreed we were no longer going to be trying to change that. I think it was decided they'd rather him at least out of harms way and at peace than him going back to prison. I'd probably end up the exact same way. I was hospitalized recently and was given hydrocodone for the first time in my life, I begged the doctor not to give it to me again, regardless of my pain levels, because it was the nicest I remember feeling in years and immediately just wanted more and more. Opiates terrify me like nothing else, largely because I know that if the circumstances were different, I'd probably be telling my future god son the same thing, that there's no better feeling on earth. It's absolutely a tall order, maybe even an impossible one. I really don't know what I or my parents could have done differently, I just wish Tim was still here.
- pavlov 4y ago
  Thank you for the reply. This is not an addiction I’m at all familiar with (just plain old alcoholics in my family), so it’s very informative and helpful. Deeply sorry for your loss.

sirsinsalot 4y ago

Being Liberal about drug use and addiction as you describe isn't about simple acceptance. Safe sites and non-punishment are a means to non-judemental paths to treatment and finding other sources of happiness ... not enablement.

honkdaddy 4y ago
You're right, I definitely made the stance out to be a lot more simple than it really is, I know there's a tonne of nuance to this topic. I think all I was trying to say is in my limited experience, addiction and recovery seem to be processes so much better understood at an individual level than they do from a macro perspective. I don't think there's much at all the Canadian government could have done from a legislative or social perspective to bring Tim to recovery, I think my family, given our life-long relationship with him, maybe possibly could have.