Posted by indivmed on June 24, 2003, at 21:34:34
In reply to Re: allowing discussion illicit drugs, posted by Maxime on June 24, 2003, at 17:47:53
> Fine. Do you know what I do all day? I work with youths with drug addiction problems. If they are lucky enough to have any family who cares about them, I work with the families as well.
> That is what I do. That is what I have my Phd in. That is what I have devoted my life to.
>
> I am losing "clients" all the time to drug ODs. Last week a young woman had taken some LSD and thought she could fly. She is now dead. I see young adults who are brain damaged from the amount of drugs they have taken.
>
> So yes, I have a problem when people ask what will happen if I take this with that. There are over 17,000 drug related deaths each year in the U.S.
>
> And I do believe that it should be out in the open. I do believe we should be discussing the problem and making it as public as possible. I don't think here is place.
>
> If you are taking illegal drugs, then I don't think your biggest worry should be what if I take it with an MAOI or SSRI etc. I do not see the logic in that line of thinking.
>
> Just my 2 cents.
>
> MaxMax--
I know exactly how you feel when it comes to working with at-risk youth...I myself was raised in a household where the police were called often and my father tried to cut my door down with a chainsaw one night because I locked it to keep his crazy ass out. Both my parents were raging alcoholics, my dad is now addicted to OxyContin, and I have had to teach myself everything (a LOT of therapy).
I taught high school for two years and the biggest problem that was faced is that there was not HONEST, OPEN talk about what was REALLY going on...just sweep it under the rug, it'll go away. I taught chemistry and physics for two years and even did an at-risk youth camp for two summers. I absolutely loved working with these youths and yes, I saw a lot of very terrifying, and gut-wrenching things. For the most part, most of these kids were very ignorant about a lot of different subjects, especially substance abuse, mental health, their true worth, etc.
It's kind of like religion in the middle east. If you keep a tight reign on what you want the religion to say politically, people will do the craziest things. I would venture to say that 90% of the world has no idea what their philosophy/religion even preaches in the first place--they just listen to what someone else defines for them, strap on some explosives, and become a martyr.
I feel the same about drugs, alcohol, and mental health. Not talking about it will make it worse---and we want to just talk about the evils of it all. Which is not the case...what sort of evil is associated with true love and the expression of it?...yet, we're so quick to degrade sex addicts. It's just the intention and most of us are at fault for defining everything in black and white terms...god knows my students couldn't think for themselves.
I think responsible drug use (hopefully not with psychotropics) can be a positive experience...and I think irresponsible drug use can be a very negative experience with some awful consequences. I just don't understand why this had become such an issue on this post...it's a very gray area and I think the polarization of thinking is EXACTLY what is wrong with our social system today.
Rick
**By the way, congrats on the PhD--I'm hard at work on my PhD in Chemical Physics (mathematically modeling small neurotransmitter fluctuations that give rise to enzymatic reactions). So in a way, my past has already primed me for a life of meaning.
poster:indivmed
thread:228754
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030624/msgs/236780.html