O/T...Well, I guess it was really inevitable......

[S. Yeti Bigfoot, Esq.]

...one of the little dopers in my neighborhood finally OD'ed today. This one was a real problem child...he was breaking into cars and garages and stuff in the neighborhood to steal stuff from his neighbors to sell and get money to buy dope. Well, today he ended up flopping around in the middle of the street like a tuna on the deck of a fishing boat while the paramedics tried to restart his heart. They got him jump-started, but I heard a little while ago that his heart failed again in the emergency room....It's not clear if the got him re-started again. Turns out this is the 4th time he's been rushed to the ER for an overdose at 18 years old. Not real bright.

 

Anyway....it brings mixed emotions for me. I am angry with his parents. He should have been sent to an in-patient treatment facility after the FIRST time he OD'ed. What's up with this 4th time crap? That's just ridiculous. On that level, I feel sort of bad for the kid. He needs help and he obviously ain't getting it.

 

On the other hand...I can't help feeling as though the neighborhood has been cured of a cancer. Now some of the car and house burglaries will stop. On that level, I don't feel bad for him at all...he made the decisions.....

[Rampdog]

Choice is what we, as human beings have. I've made the wrong ones as well as right ones...I have to live (or die) with those choices.

He had choices...sounds like he made the wrong one. I can't feel any emotion towards him as I never knew him. I've lost friends to drugs too many times to count. Count your blessings my furry friend...

[A String]

Four times! I hope the kid is ok, but his parents should be shot. After the first time, you drag the kid, kicking and screaming into rehab. It's your job as a parent. Even if he hates you for the rest of his life, at least you know you did the right thing...

[caprae]

My brother had uncountable chances to change his life. He ended up a parapalegic due to an accident that involved drinking. DId that stop him? No. He ended up drinking himself to death - his body just started shutting down. Worn out in his late 40s. Basically died like my dad. Some people just don't want help.

[Kramer Ferrington III.]

Well, I think your position is pretty normal really. I don't think it's right to hate the kid just because he is a druggie but yeah... your neighbourhood would be better off without someone that breaks into things to support his habit.

 

It's like that thing that Christians say about "loving the sinner but hating the sin". Sure the kid has (or is it "had"?) problems but it's up to him and his parents to work through those problems.

[picker]

It's sad when a kid goes out like that. But these days you can't blame his parents, not exclusively anyway. There are too many competing influences in a kid's life anymore to blame a parent who no longer gets to spend more than a few hours a day with them. And rehab? Rehab only works if the addict wants to rehabilitate. You can't make an unwilling addict stay clean for long. If the parents don't have insurance, rehab is prohibitively expensive for one course, let alone sending him back for a second when he falls off the wagon. Sometimes all a parent can do is tell a kid to get out of the house before he drags his whole family down with him. And how many parents would be able to tell their own kid that until they just haven't got any other choice left? I don't envy a parent who has to tell his kid that, and I can't condemn a parent who has a hard time bringing themselves to do it.

If he was 18, he was responsible for his own choices. He did himself in. A lot of us here were just luckier than he was, or we'd have been dead before him.

[S. Yeti Bigfoot, Esq.]

Yeah, here (from everything I understand), the parents can petition the court to have a minor committed involuntarily for drug rehabilitation treatment. Once they reach 18, the judge can order an evaluation, and then order involuntary commitment based upon that evaluation. For this kid to have been rushed to the ER for overdoses 4 times by 18 years of age tells me that someone should have taken some definitive action at least by the second time. If they've done that...and it still failed, then "Oh, well"..you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him think....

 

....I'd say that realistically, on the grand scale of things from a societal perspective, it's no real big loss. Harsh, but true....unfortunately.

[Bluesape]

Sad situation - I can the see the parents conflicted between forcing a period of rehab, and avoiding their child's wrath, tantrums, etc., but they should have seen it coming.

 

Parents of teenagers today are not as naive and street-dumb as mine were. Mine thought "Reefer Madness" was a documentary, and were totally unavailable for insight on drugs. Smoking a joint turned you into a communist, homosexual, child molesting heroin addict. Needless to say, they weren't consulted, in fact, my folks were apart before those experimental years happened. Perhaps I benefitted from a rural environment - didn't run with any hard core people, and still avoid them like the plague.

 

This kid's story is both tragic and ironic. Too bad nobody heeded the warning signs. I have a hard time imagining the parents, who would be in my approximate age group, couldn't see them.

[S. Yeti Bigfoot, Esq.]

Reif,

It's not that they didn't see that there was trouble or that the kid had a problem. It was just that they don't care. There are several families like that around here. They couldn't care less what their kids are doing as long as they aren't bothering THEM. There's about a half-dozen little dope-head troublemakers in the neighborhood...this kid was one of them. One of the others is a pyromaniac, but he's in the YDC (Youth Detention Facility) in Gainesville right now for setting something or other on fire. Hopefully they'll keep him until he's 18 and then his "parents" won't take him back. The rest of them are still around doing their little burglaries....here's what I have noticed, though. They leave my shit alone. They break into cars and garages and stuff where they know they won't get shot.

 

I have absolutely had my fill of these little pricks, and so has the Sheriff's Dept and the rest of the neighborhood. This ain't a slum. It's a nice middle-class neighborhood. Here's a partial list of what these kids have been in trouble for in the past year:

 

1. Throwing big chunks of firewood through the windshields of passing cars.

 

2. Burning down a snack bar and restrooms at the public park next to our neighborhood

 

3. Painting death threats against a deputy sheriff on the side of another building

 

4. Possession of a controlled substance

 

5. Burglary

 

6. Possession of alcohol by a minor

 

7. Shoplifting from the convenience store down the street

 

8. Mail theft (stealing checks out of mailboxes)

 

9. Simple battery

 

 

But, they do understand that if I catch someone in my house, I WILL light their ass up...they have no doubt about that in their little feeble-assed minds. So...thus far they haven't bothered my stuff. I live on the corner at the front of the neighborhood, so guess where is the first place someone stops when they get a stick of firewood thrown through their windshield or where the sheriff's deputy comes when he's looking for one of them? They think I'm nuts because I confronted them all in the middle of the street one day last fall and tried to get one of them to fight me, then tried to get ALL of them to fight me when he wouldn't, because they were bullying one of the other kids, and I guess I came on a little strong. Then one of their dads came down, but quickly decided he didn't want any after all, and then the Sheriff's Dept came, and I explained the whole situation to him. Then he went and 'splained things to them...again.

 

Don't get me wrong...these kids are the minority. There are a bunch more kids in the neighborhood that are good kids. They avoid the troublemakers like the plague. The bad seed stick together like a little gang.

 

Just venting......

[Braxat]

if He Od'ed 4 times. it was HIS choice if he didnt stop at the first one, addicted or not he could at least have regulated himself.

[NMcGuitar]

An unfortunate story at so many levels.

It's a shame nobody has tried to straighten this kid out (including himself). What a waste.