#’addiction’

[ableism]

I know i’m functionally a gay DARE officer at this point but I do in fact feel some sort of way about Cocaine being back in vogue. Surely I sound like a square + narc and I’ll concede ok do whatever you want, nobody can materially stop another person from using drugs if they really want to 🤷🏻 I don’t really care that it’s hip to do party drugs, moreso I want to articulate a general level of caution and concern that I never see a sidecar of harm reduction and safe using practices along with the commonplace clips of people straight up snorting coke I’ve seen for “brat summer!!!1!!”

You 🫵 are not immune to ingesting fentanyl or any number of other additives. Do you think drugs at the gay club are different than the drugs people are taking under bridges and in gutters? I promise they’re not! So if you want to use drugs and continue being alive, do your part to be safe. Protecting yourself protects others and your community.

Do not accept drugs from strangers. Test your drugs with fentanyl test strips. Carry narcan and know how to administer it. Never use alone. Have an exit strategy if you’re using drugs in a public space. Know the contact information for your local harm reduction groups, overdose emergency hotline, and if you need/want it, addiction treatment orgs. This is all the bare minimum for community care if you intend to be out in the world using drugs. Mainly I encourage you all to be buzzkills if it means you don’t have to die of an accidental overdose. Overdose is the leading cause of death for Americans under 40. I have a whole lot of social workers in my network and however bad you think the synthetic opioid crisis is, it’s worse. The war stories I’ve heard from my people on the ground are… The shit of nightmares. Don’t let it be you or anybody you love.

If you live in the state of Georgia, DM me for a longer list of resources.

Fentanyl information (harm reduction.org)

Get Narcan

How to use fentanyl test strips

Call 311 to find out where to get Narcan in your community at no cost to you

[animal-s0ul]

[asteroidtroglodyte]

5 years ago, I was in Rehab.

10 years ago, I was watching my Potential and Opportunities dissolve and evaporate in an ocean of cheap gin and expensive whiskey.

But 5 years ago, I was in Rehab.

One of the exercises they had us perform was to imagine ourselves happy, 5 years in the future.

Many of us in that room had forgotten how to imagine nice things happening to them. A few snorted (well, I snorted), finding the notion that we’d even still be around in 5 years grimly humorous.

For about half of us, it was the last stop on the way down.

But I indulged the therapist. I was there, after all, because I did not want to die. So, I imagined myself, 5 years hence.

Happy.

It came to me all at once; an artistic remix on Norman Rockwell’s Freedom From Want, reframed with myself placing food at the table.

Sunday Dinner At My Place, I answered, when it came my turn to share my fantasy. I was asked what food I imagined eating.

It’s not the meal itself, I said, it’s the implications framed around it. Sunday Dinner At My Place means that I have a Place. It means that I have Family that will actually speak to me and friends who actually want to see me. It means money enough not just to feed myself but others too. It means having the time to spare to take the time preparing the meal.

A lot of nodding heads all around me. A struck chord. Many people with no Place, in that place. Nowhere that would lament their leaving.

5 years hence, as I lay down to sleep in my Home, with my Wife and my Son, surrounded by my Art and my Flowers, I reflect.

It was a long road. It was hard. We lost people. So many people. There were long days and long nights and hospital stays. Angry arguments with ghosts. I changed, in ways I never hoped for, or expected. Good ways, finally, for once. Slowly, against the backdrop of a world in chaos, I found my mind.

Sometimes, My Wife wondered aloud, what she did to deserve me. After some stumbling with my feelings, I eventually settled on an answer.

I’m a Rescue.

She gave me a Home.

And, so, I gave her a Family.

It seemed fair

This Sunday, my folks, which whom I have not had a shouting match in years, will come over for dinner. We will cook and eat together. My Friend became My Wife, and she took a piece of me and with it she made Our Son. There will be many hugs, and no violence. Good Things Happened.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you don’t know what the future holds.

don’t give up yet, ok?

It could get good, even.

[nondivisable]

some of yall need to understand that "my body, my choice" also applies to:

addicts in active addiction with no intention of quitting

phys disabled people who deny medical treatment

neurodivergent people who deny psychiatric treatment (yes, including schizophrenic people and people with personality disorders)

trans people who want or don't want to medically transition (yes, including trans masc lesbians with top surgery and trans women without bottom surgery, yall are so weird to them wtf)

and if you can't understand that, then you don't get to use the phrase

[identitty-dickruption]

someone in my recovery meeting last night was talking about how concerned they were about developing a sugar addiction to deal with not drinking anymore. and since I couldn’t say this to them at the time. here:

sugar addiction is not real

sugar is not evil

the reason you might crave a lot of sugar when you quit alcohol is because alcohol contains sugar

this doesn’t mean you’re addicted to sugar it means your body is still learning how to adjust to the removal of a previously major source of sugar

you may need additional calories in your diet to make up for the calories you are no longer getting from alcohol

it is fine and normal and natural to eat more food when you’re not drinking anymore, especially in the early stages of recovery

be patient with yourself. be compassionate with yourself. things take time

[superhell]

instrument or sport if applicable in tags. if you wish

[s0up1ta]

"so grunkle ford how do you know bill?"

"... that's not important."

[slutdge]

addicts are people with value and things to love about them and deserve a full belly and a warm place to sleep at the end of the day.

[cocklessboy]

The other day I told a friend of mine that I never forget to take my ADHD meds because I fucking love my ADHD meds. I'm in my late 30s, I didn't finally get a diagnosis and meds until less than two years ago, and they have changed my entire life.

And he raised his eyebrow at me. We'd been discussing addictive medications a few minutes before, like the Tramadol I finally got from the pain specialist to take once a week or so to give me a break from my chronic pain, so I reassured him that methylpenidate (Ritalin/Concerta) is not addictive (at least not in people with ADHD).

His response? To raise his eyebrow even harder and say "Well it sure SOUNDS like it's addictive!"

And I had to explain to this man - who works in a healthcare related job by the way - that just because medication makes you feel good and helps you, just because you look forward to taking it, that doesn't make it addictive or dangerous. And he wasn't convinced.

The simple fact that I was excited to take a daily pill that has literally changed my life, after decades of fighting to get that medication, made him think I shouldn't be taking it so often. That it must inherently be dangerous.

I'm not even in America, but I'm pretty sure this attitude began there and then spread over here to Europe. This Puritan idea of "if something feels good, you must beware of it. Pleasure is dangerous, it is sinful, it is addiction, it is evil."

I know too many people who subconsciously believe that pleasure = addictive = dangerous = bad. Joy is a slippery slope to hell.

So here is your reminder for today that you don't need to be afraid of feeling good. If something improves your life, use it. Even if it is addictive - learn what that addiction means, whether the addiction is inherently dangerous or not, and whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and risks.

My ADHD meds are, in fact, not addictive. But I will take them every day because they make my life orders of magnitude easier. I will enjoy them every time I take them.

My tramadol is addictive. I will still take it. I will keep it on a schedule to avoid becoming addicted, primarily because addiction in this case would mean reduced effectiveness. But I am not afraid of my painkillers. They are life changing.

Take your meds, everyone. Don't let anyone scare you away from doing something that improves your life.

[wolfythewitch]

not entirely happy with it haha, didn't have enough time to polish the concept but wahoo jarchivist moment

[bringiton]

FAVORITE CHAPPELL ROAN BRIDGE/OUTRO → CASUAL “I wrote this song bc I am legitimately so tired of love turning into situationships and I know my friends are so tired about hearing about the sh*t show of my love life.”

[identitty-dickruption]

this may sound radical but "some addicts are violent and unlikeable" can coexist with such ideas as "it's bad to act like all addicts are violent and/or unlikeable" and "even the violent addicts deserve access to a full range of options for addiction management, including harm reduction"

[explode-this]

Imagine if we approached all “problem” substances like this. Giving people the facts as to why they might feel a particular kinship or reliance on any given recreational drug, educating them on why it feels good, and then laying out the facts of any health repercussions. This is a much kinder and trusting way of approaching any kind of ‘addiction’ than turning someone over to a system that seems to lead to basically one approach, namely 12 Step, which for all of its public face—“it’s spirituality, not religion!” and “it’s just peer support!”—hides within its folds yet another system of dependence and uses guilt as a whipping stick, not to mention the permanent adoption of a label that no longer fits but encourages one to think of themselves as forever tethered to the mistakes they’ve made.

I used to smoke, and I know why I smoked. It was the only way to get breaks at my various shitty jobs and later I came to find that there was a psychological benefit in the stimulation because of my undiagnosed ADHD. It felt good. There were lots of things I didn’t like about it—the way it made my hair and clothes and breath smell, the cough I developed, the way I felt shitty until I had another cigarette—but it made socializing much easier, because where two or more are gathered with cigarettes there is a way for an awkward autistic woman to actually make conversation, or at least be useful by offering a spare smoke and the use of a lighter, therefore granting her some goodwill among co-workers and friendly strangers alike.

And even though I don’t smoke anymore I don’t judge those who do. There is a pleasure and comfort in smoking, and it is still relatively cheap to partake. But I’m also not scared of understanding the joys of smoking—that I’ll start up again and cause myself harm or be unable to stop again—because I trust myself and the personal decisions I’ve made for my own health. I can be around others smoking and not want to do it, not because I “self-inventory” out of guilt, but because I know myself and care about my own psychological well-being. This also goes for weed. I have no problems with anyone consuming it—a bit envious of those who can ingest edibles and feel something lol—but I don’t do it anymore for a number of reasons and I feel fine… because I trust myself not to need it. Nicotine, weed, booze—they don’t wield any particular power over me personally because I don’t believe they have power. In that way I don’t have to insist that I’m powerless over them, because we’re not fighting. Those are inanimate objects. I am a thinking human being who gets to decide for herself what she ingests and what she doesn’t. (In that same way, a lightbulb or a doorknob or whatever someone in 12 Step is encouraged to focus on as a “higher power” is also an inanimate object and can have no power over anyone. If they are encouraged to use the “group consciousness” as a higher power, then none of those people can have power over them, either.)

Anyway I enjoy Kurzgesagt a great deal—they break down stuff really simply and with bright colorful graphics, which is always my favorite way to learn lmao

TL;DR: wherever you have education and knowledge, you have personal freedom. Never forget that.

[academic-vampire]

𝔠𝔞𝔣𝔣𝔢𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔥𝔦𝔤𝔥 ☕️