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> mental health/depression spiral > Ultimately, it's his own damn fault. These seem incongruent. Is it really helpful to just say it was completely a persona

by comrh 11y ago

> mental health/depression spiral > Ultimately, it's his own damn fault. These seem incongruent. Is it really helpful to just say it was completely a personal failure? If we're going to talk about addiction as a disease and its comorbidity with mental illness surely "well he was a weak person" isn't helpful?

bsder 11y ago
So, it's never your own fault? This bothers me as much as it's all your fault. You can't just commit everybody who isn't "normal" all the time. Being an illness that needs to be treated and being your own fault are not mutually exclusive. If you have cardiovascular problems, drugs and surgery help, but you also need to lose weight and exercise. Mental illness is quite a bit less distinct. What is the border between individual will and chemical machinery? People have been arguing that for centuries, and we're not really any closer to a good answer. In addition, I'm more than a little skeptical that he "suddenly" became an alcoholic at 45. If he was 50 right now, he's right at then end of the "3 martini lunch" brigade that became socially unacceptable about 1990. I suspect he may have been consuming a borderline alcoholic amount of alcohol, but that something finally pushed him over the limit. Ultimately, it's just tragic irrespective of fault.
- billjings 11y ago
  There are definitely folks that hit some kind of life event and it's all of a sudden it goes from "gets lit up a bit too often" to "drinking too much to participate in humanity". Probably the most common is retirement.
bbunix 11y ago
Hmmmm.... that's the great thing about alcoholism and addiction - there's more than enough blame to go around. For those in the 'moral weakness, pull up yer bootstraps' camp, I find the following analogy helpful: Try willpower when you've got diarrhea. When you've got the runs, nothing else matters... whether it's your fault or not. The story is sad; the only thing that is sadder is that the wife didn't leave - that might have been the only thing to underline the seriousness of the situation. The other caveat is that he was 'high functioning' - so he could stay in denial about the situation (rent's paid, wife's here, money coming in, everything's fine)... depending on the amount of money coming in, that can fuel really powerful denial. It's a lot easier to recover when you're broke. It's a shame that he didn't get the chance to go to a rehab for 30 days - the staff there might have had a chance to help... that one's on the doctor... So if you think you might have a problem, you probably do. If you want to discuss it with someone hit me up...

by comrh 11y ago

bsder 11y ago

So, it's never your own fault? This bothers me as much as it's all your fault. You can't just commit everybody who isn't "normal" all the time. Being an illness that needs to be treated and being your own fault are not mutually exclusive. If you have cardiovascular problems, drugs and surgery help, but you also need to lose weight and exercise. Mental illness is quite a bit less distinct. What is the border between individual will and chemical machinery? People have been arguing that for centuries, and we're not really any closer to a good answer. In addition, I'm more than a little skeptical that he "suddenly" became an alcoholic at 45. If he was 50 right now, he's right at then end of the "3 martini lunch" brigade that became socially unacceptable about 1990. I suspect he may have been consuming a borderline alcoholic amount of alcohol, but that something finally pushed him over the limit. Ultimately, it's just tragic irrespective of fault.

billjings 11y ago
There are definitely folks that hit some kind of life event and it's all of a sudden it goes from "gets lit up a bit too often" to "drinking too much to participate in humanity". Probably the most common is retirement.

bbunix 11y ago

Hmmmm.... that's the great thing about alcoholism and addiction - there's more than enough blame to go around. For those in the 'moral weakness, pull up yer bootstraps' camp, I find the following analogy helpful: Try willpower when you've got diarrhea. When you've got the runs, nothing else matters... whether it's your fault or not. The story is sad; the only thing that is sadder is that the wife didn't leave - that might have been the only thing to underline the seriousness of the situation. The other caveat is that he was 'high functioning' - so he could stay in denial about the situation (rent's paid, wife's here, money coming in, everything's fine)... depending on the amount of money coming in, that can fuel really powerful denial. It's a lot easier to recover when you're broke. It's a shame that he didn't get the chance to go to a rehab for 30 days - the staff there might have had a chance to help... that one's on the doctor... So if you think you might have a problem, you probably do. If you want to discuss it with someone hit me up...