> If my life ends up being begging (actual begging), hunting for scraps, using alleys as toilets, I think I'd be using drugs in fairly short order to help numb

> If my life ends up being begging (actual begging), hunting for scraps, using alleys as toilets, I think I'd be using drugs in fairly short order to help numb the pain of that existence. A lot of what I've read indicates that the causality runs that way in a lot of cases - people get high to escape the reality of their surroundings. The south has lower rates of homelessness not because people are mentally healthier there, but because housing is cheaper.