4 ms·

You're right that the generic story isn't really attached to statistical data that would make it meaningful. However, if you want specifics on the story, it's

You're right that the generic story isn't really attached to statistical data that would make it meaningful. However, if you want specifics on the story, it's my mother in law. She could either pay the rent or buy alcohol. She purchased alcohol and was evicted form her home. Living homeless in the park, she and her children didn't eat for two days. When she received money, she decided to continue forgoing food to spend the money on alcohol. After over a month of homelessness, during an Indiana winter that was below freezing during the day and colder at night, she was offered private housing and food for herself and her children. The only catch was that she'd have to remain sober. She preferred the alcohol. My wife has permanent medical problems from sleeping in those conditions. She didn't steal from her daughter's piggy bank to buy alcohol. She did use her daughter's social security number to apply for a student loan, then use the loan money to go on a bender. Alcoholism isn't just a generic scare story told by DARE officers to keep kids from drinking. It's a real issue killing a real woman named Virginia.

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
> The only catch was that she'd have to remain sober. She preferred the alcohol. This is a cruel joke that gets played on drunks. She didn't prefer the alcohol, she was/is addicted; and our society deals with addiction in probably the worst possible way. They may as well have asked her to jump over the moon. Rational people don't do that to themselves or their families. I didn't say that these things never happen. I said they are more rare than some would have you believe. I have my own horrible story in that vein (my father), but what I don't do is use it to pander to peoples' emotions in an effort to further perpetuate, or perhaps even expand the disaster that is the drug war. Addiction is an ugly unfortunate thing that exists, and as sad and regrettable as your wife's tale, and my father's tale, and the tales of others are; using these tales to support the continuance of, or the heaping of even more hardship (criminal sanctions) upon the susceptible/unfortunate/whatever is and always was the wrong thing to do.
- rprospero 12y ago
  My apologies: I wrote that post in a fit of anger and I wasn't careful in how I spoke. You're absolutely right that the choice she was presented with was no choice at all. She prefered alcohol over housing in the same way that Stephen Hawking prefers sitting over walking. That was the point that I was trying to make - there are people who cannot make rational decisions on these matters. As for the drug war, my wife has tens of thousands of dollars of medical debt because some bureaucrat decided that it's more important that my mother-in-law be punished for being an alcoholic than that a child might have a warm place to sleep at night. Punishing addicts makes as much sense as punishing cancer patients.
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
    >My apologies: I wrote that post in a fit of anger and I wasn't careful in how I spoke. Same here. Best regards.
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fnordfnordfnord 12y ago

> The only catch was that she'd have to remain sober. She preferred the alcohol. This is a cruel joke that gets played on drunks. She didn't prefer the alcohol, she was/is addicted; and our society deals with addiction in probably the worst possible way. They may as well have asked her to jump over the moon. Rational people don't do that to themselves or their families. I didn't say that these things never happen. I said they are more rare than some would have you believe. I have my own horrible story in that vein (my father), but what I don't do is use it to pander to peoples' emotions in an effort to further perpetuate, or perhaps even expand the disaster that is the drug war. Addiction is an ugly unfortunate thing that exists, and as sad and regrettable as your wife's tale, and my father's tale, and the tales of others are; using these tales to support the continuance of, or the heaping of even more hardship (criminal sanctions) upon the susceptible/unfortunate/whatever is and always was the wrong thing to do.

rprospero 12y ago
My apologies: I wrote that post in a fit of anger and I wasn't careful in how I spoke. You're absolutely right that the choice she was presented with was no choice at all. She prefered alcohol over housing in the same way that Stephen Hawking prefers sitting over walking. That was the point that I was trying to make - there are people who cannot make rational decisions on these matters. As for the drug war, my wife has tens of thousands of dollars of medical debt because some bureaucrat decided that it's more important that my mother-in-law be punished for being an alcoholic than that a child might have a warm place to sleep at night. Punishing addicts makes as much sense as punishing cancer patients.
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  >My apologies: I wrote that post in a fit of anger and I wasn't careful in how I spoke. Same here. Best regards.

deleted 12y ago

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