#’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]

[candyje11yfish]

nacho ahhahaha (i hope this looks cool)

[kriz-smthn]

[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.

[humming-fly]

I love how Gerald was trying to keep Shadow from spoiling anything about the future meanwhile literally everything Shadow says and does around Maria is the biggest death flag ever

[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

[officialspec]

hello? hello? can anyone hear m

[brandyvampirexx]

[superhell]

instrument or sport if applicable in tags. if you wish

[dorothywonderland]

Is it considered plagiarism if you're copying your own comic?

╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭

[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.

[podcastwizard]

this one gets to breach containment me thinks