Should Society Help Addicts???

[nailedit]

After 5 month sober, Im back on the waiting list for a alcohol detox.

Should society help addicts (addicts who are wanting help that is) or send us to the gas chamber?

[Old_Geezer]

What is your preference ?

[nailedit]

Often wish the gas chamber anology were true...

[Old_Geezer]

Society should help, but resources aren't unlimited, thus, presumably, the wait.

[Neveracrossword]

Resources are often finite (and minimal). Do we treat one addict 5 times or would we be better treating 5 addicts once? 

[douglas9401]

Recent history suggests that once may not be enough and some say everybody deserves one chance on the house.

[sandyRoe]

There might be a thought somewhere that treating 'self inflicted' damage isn't as important as other treatments available in the NHS.

That misses the point that many addicts are using drink or drugs as a form of self medication to try and deal with trauma of different types.

But things are as they are,  and tight budgets mean the service we need isn't readily available.

When you get another chance go at it with 100% effort.

And use the fact that you began drinking again to ask yourself why?

[curlyfries81]

If you're "back" on the waiting list presumably you have had help in the past. There is only so much society can do. You have to want to be helped and will power is required. I'm sure you have heard all this before and I apologise if I sound patronising as I don't mean to.

[DTCwordfan]

I'd take the 'happy' gas.....!

[gulliver1]

DTC @ 19.38......... You may have to on July 5th.😎

[curlyfries81]

Someone is in turmoil here asking for help, therefore I don't think there is any room for such an unrelated and frankly silly comment, Gulliver 1.

[DTCwordfan]

what he doesn't realise, curly, is that nailit and I have had contact offline - and some banter too. Gulliver's remark is not even funny. I shall refrain from calling him a 4-letter word beginning with t...

[douglas9401]

Ahhhh, the plot thickens.

[jourdain2]

Of course society and the medical arm of it should help.  But it should also help those waiting in increasing agony for hip replacements - or, even worse, those who have been diagnosed with cancer and are just at home, waiting and waiting.

The NHS is awful. Everyone is suffering.  Naildit is right to expect help - but he is in a queue. 

Naildit, you need to help yourself a bit here until a place becomes available.

A friend, an old lady who I visited every week, died yesterday(Friday).  She was 94. Confined, in pain, to a chair and unable to move once put to bed by her carer every evening. 

She had been coughing-up blood(not cancer) and it had worsened.  On Wednesday night (I visited that afternoon) she rang 999.  They turned up after midnight, took her to Scarborough A&E where she languished until they admitted her in the morning.  THEN THEY SENT HER HOME!

She died in the early hours of Friday morning.

Nails.-- I'm sorry to have told you all this, but you are not alone, you must understand that.  My friend couldn't help herself ----- you can.  Please do.  I care that you are alive and so do others.

 

[Peter Pedant]

Do we treat one addict 5 times or would we be better treating 5 addicts once? 

the results are pretty terrible - and always have been ( as my  deah father commented in the  BMJ in 1949)

[barry1010]

Society should help addicts for as long as the addict wants (not needs) help. 

Rehab methods can be very successful but a minority of addicts reach the point where they just don't want it.  That doesn't mean they should be abandoned, it shouldn't be rehab or nothing.

You haven't reached that point and there is every chance that your next bout of rehab will give you the coping strategies and resolution you need to stay sober.

I don't know how many times I gave up smoking but my last attempt was a huge struggle and I was ill for months. That was 30 years ago and I was able to stay off the cigarettes during the worst time of my life ten years later.

I hope you find the key to crack this addiction, Nailedit.  You are not the only one to relapse, there is hope