How to handle friends addicted to drugs

[halljams]

Well Lee, you seem to see Chips post as a call for sympathy and are responding to it with sympathy.

 

I see it as a guy looking for answers and i am trying to lay out what i see as the facts from perhaps an angle that will help his dilemma, what ever that is.

He is a Guy in the world with lots of choices, weather or not he makes any in the direction of his own happiness is up to him.

I don't feel sad for Chip, nor do i offer sympathy, i know lots of drug addicts and people who are dying etc and i think there are many problems everywhere everyday in my own home town and around the world.

Read again, i am not complaining.

 

Being all fucked up about ain't gonna help anyone is it? Nor is encouraging it with sympathy.

 

Understanding it and talking about the guts of it is the way to find a cure.

[miroslav]

Originally posted by halljams:

(in response to Miro)So as individuals we lack depth of caring because our society's structure doesn't allow us to feel good about ourselves, so how can we take the time to think about other people when we are lost and confused and all fucked up?

No, no, no...

 

I'm not saying "we" as in all people...lack depth of caring.

I was just responding to your USA reference...and I was suggesting that maybe(?) here in the USA people were generally less caringthan they were generally sad because they cared too much.

 

I don't think that the people in the USA are less caring because they are cold...its mostly because too many other things easily distract them...they are always on the go...not enough time to really focus.

But the sadness thing....that's just seems to be a human quality...that is more pronounced in some folks than others...worldwide...not just the USA.

And some people tend to be drawn to sad things.

 

I know some folks that will only watch those "human drama" movies...with relish!

They just can't get enough of that depressing bullshit.

I dunno'...maybe it's some subconscious way of trying to feel better about your own world...by seeing the greater misery in others...???

 

But...I think it's good to show compassion and provide support to those in need...but it's useless to dwell on misery and sadness.

Man...I try to be "news free" as much as possible.

Oh...I get enough information about what is happening...but...I stay away from the 24/7 news crap that some people can't get enough of!!!

[Lee Flier]

I happen to think that empathy is the first step toward being able to honestly understand and discuss a problem from the other person's position. If the person who's experiencing the problem doesn't feel you are understanding the depth of the problem, they probably can't benefit from your advice however well meaning it might be. I don't think, in that sense, that sympathy necessarily "encourages" anyone to be more fucked up... unless by seeking sympathy they are simply looking to be the center of attention, which I don't get from Chip at all.

 

And yes, sometimes I think "being all fucked up" about something can be a help. I think that if more people were simply unable to tolerate certain circumstances they find themselves in, those circumstances would cease to exist. We would together find ways around them. I also think that if a problem is deep and entrenched you sometimes have to spend a long time contemplating it before you can begin to dig your way out of it. Other people might find that process a pain in the ass, but long term it can pay off with enough effort.

 

Mind you I don't think that about every situation. I am as likely as the next person to tell someone to quit whining... if I get the sense that their angst is contrived, a ploy for attention or about things of little consequence. I don't think Chip is looking for "sympathy" so much as people who understand what he's feeling and can therefore have a possibly productive discussion from a mutually understood place. I can empathize with that, so I do.

[KenElevenShadows]

Lee, I would have agreed with you that Chip wanted a "productive discussion from a mutually understood place" until that last thread, where he continually blasted Buddhism without understanding it when people had been simply bringing up a point or two based on Buddhist philosophy in the hopes that it would help him. I don't feel like I know what his motives are for these posts now.

 

And be that as it may, I have to agree with HallJams - Chip seems to be actually seeking out things that make him miserable. I felt that before, and I definitely feel that way now.

[Bill Roberts]

This is heavy.

 

I lived with a Lady that was "fucked up" and I did not know it until about year 2. Year one I had no clue..she was kind and nice for that first year.

 

Celeberty made her go wacko.

 

If you love somebody, set them free is what I did. I asked her and pleaded for her to get off the booze and the tablets. She was decent to be around most of the time.... but very tri-polar at times. She switched between being a braggard of all of her accomplishments (She met Dylan.) to being a total ass whenever I had anyone of "notible popularity" in the studio to disrupting entire dining rooms doing a nice meal with her loud mouth. She would go over to tables and introducer herself (the horror) LOUDLY!

 

I have no real world advice other than to send a certified letter to the person you care about. Detailed. Usually this gets the attention.

 

We would go out and as soon as we arrived at a club, boom...did not see her until closing and then she wanted me to involve myself in a duel with whoever she hooked up to win her heart.

 

Fucked up is the word. I simply moved and she had to pick up and find her own way. it was a shame..but some people are so warped that to care is something that is heartbreaking.

[miroslav]

Bill

 

Reading your post...I can't help but ask...

...when exactly did you think that "She was decent to be around most of the time..."

 

You did good to survive with her for a whole two years!

[Bill Roberts]

I don't think she did the tablets but "at times" and certainly nothing showed the first year.

 

I suspect she was clean the first year actually...or a damn good actress.

 

She just grew out of hand. She "bothered people" for no reason..me included.

 

I found the stash of tablets and the empty (expensive) booze bottles 1 month before I declared "I am out" She got damned defensive of her substances. I can drink along with others just fine but not a whole bottle of Grand Marnier before noon. AAMOF, I hate the shit now.

[theblue1]

Certainly a disturbing post, Chip.

 

It used to be, I think, that drug fads radiated out from California and New York.

 

But in the last 20 years or so, that seems to have been reversed. Maybe it's just that in NY and Cali, there are already so many ex-addicts and generally wised-up types... I dunno.

 

I first became aware of this phenom back in the late 80s. Here in the LA area, meth was just about over as a drug that naive users could fool themselves about. But I had friends who moved out to the ultraconservative suburbs and rural areas around San Diego and to the east -- and they reported a massive meth epidemic out there that spread back into the cities in the early 90s.

 

 

I don't know if you're familiar with Al-Anon. It's a sort of 12 step program -- not so much for people with drug problems -- but for people who are involved with family members, friends and loved ones with drug problems.

 

It can be invaluable, from what I understand, for those who have to deal with addicts of all kinds.

 

 

Good luck to you and hang in there.

[Lee Flier]

Originally posted by theblue1:

It used to be, I think, that drug fads radiated out from California and New York.

 

But in the last 20 years or so, that seems to have been reversed. Maybe it's just that in NY and Cali, there are already so many ex-addicts and generally wised-up types... I dunno.

Yeah, I have noticed this too. Around the mid 80's it seemed like most people I knew cleaned up and got into AA, NA etc. By the time I moved to Atlanta in '92 most of the folks I worked with were pretty well cleaned up. Then I moved here and for awhile it was like going back in time... ran into all these people who were still unabashed addicts. Now most of them are cleaned up too. 'Course I wish I had run into my current crowd a long time ago because they, like me, never did get into any of it.

 

To be honest though, the legal prescription stuff scares me more than almost anything because it seems that an AWFUL lot of people are on them who don't need to be, thanks to the media blitz by the drug companies, and there is absolutely no social stigma associated with being on this stuff - hey, it's legal, my doctor says I should have it, etc. There are zillions of people walking around who are basically willing lab rats for the pharmaceutical companies. I'm not discounting all the folks who are genuinely helped by antidepressants and the like, but I'm extremely dubious about the degree to which they are handed out and accepted as "normal," to people who really just have shit they need to deal with and don't want to. And in a lot of cases the drugs just make them crazier.

 

There are also some cities now where the public water supply has tested positive for a non-negligible amount of these drugs. Until they update their water treatment to get rid of the stuff you may be getting treated to a nice psychotropic cocktail without even knowing it!

 

I guess it's all gotta end somewhere... but geez.

[theblue1]

I did, um, a lot of things back in what I laughingly like to think of as the day.

 

But I always stopped short of sticking a needle in my arm which I now think was very, very sensible. (I never thought it sounded sensible but there was a point when, emotionally, it was very much how I felt.)

 

But at the beginning of the 80s when I was in the hospital for two months following a nasty motorcycle wreck I ended up getting addicted to morphine/demerol/dilaudid. And though the first two were intra-muscular injections only (and the latter pills but very enticing pills) I jonesed pretty hard when I got out on the bricks. I was, as they used to say, illin'. Maybe not convulsions and fevers. But it was like an itch so far down you couldn't figure out where it was but you knew it was there every moment and you knew you couldn't get at it in a million years without more drugs. OTOH, I was so incredibly sick of the hospital and, in my druggie-mind, that was the only place where I could get things fixed back up... (a little lie I let the smartguy side of myself tell the druggie part of myself.)

 

Anyhow, it's possible I don't see the full range of drug behavior anymore* because I'm not the 23 1/2 hour party person I used to be and my social hub is a coffee house that might as well be the unofficial South Bay NA headquarters...

 

*And on top of it all, I've been 'recovering' from a quarter century of drinking for over a decade now. (I think it's my 11th 'anniversery' [i'm not a program guy but it sinks in, anyhow] today -- but I was in such a dark, dark place when I quit drinking in 1994 I don't remember if it was a day after Ground Hog's Day or a month after it. But it's not like I exactly celebrate or anything. If I was celebrating I'd be drinking a Cherry Coke instead of a Coke with Lime. (It kind of reminds me of those really, really shitty Mexican bars where they just squirt a little fake juice out of a plastic lime onto the top of your Tecate can. Whereas Cherry Coke is a perfect blend of overcranked artificial flavors and commodity chemicals.)

[Raymar]

The point to this post is dealing with the futility. It's killing me - for that matter, here I am at 8 am, having not slept, living like *I'm* on drugs, just thinking about it. I know I can't do anything. I know I'm watching a number of people I know slowly kill themselves. There's nothing I can do. I can't be with them 24/7, I can't force them to not do something. I can't make them not think about what's instigating it, whether it's job stress, a girlfriend cheating, whatever... or the worse, in cases where there just ISN'T a reason at all, it's just

 

"happened"...

 

How do you cope with that...?

 

The thing that's killing me is that it's just another alienating factor in my life. It's killing me because it is superceding love. It destroys everything - trust, and the value of love and friendship. I'm not handling that concept very well.

The world changes along with the people in it, and trying to hold onto what was can cause pain. How do you accept change? By not clinging to the past. The drug situation is just symptomatic of a much worse situation and that is we are losing the country to facism. Some people you'll just have to bid farewell to, some you might help. The key is to accept change.

 

Steve

[aeon]

Chip:

 

I am sorry to hear what you said. I know you have to be experiencing a deep, deep pain right now.

 

I say that because I was once a drug addict, and I know when an addict is in that "place," the part of them that makes them fully human, the part that allows them to feel, relate, and participate in that exchange/bond that you have with a friend...it is at best numbed, and at worst, dead and burnt.

 

I am glad to hear that you (now) understand that you cannot help them, even if this knowing causes you to feel impotent and powerless. Perhaps the most loving thing you can do for them is to walk away and not become a codependent in their addiction...and I say that knowing it will be monumentally hard to do, because it flies in the face of everything that comes naturally, everything that is intuitive about being a friend and a human being that cares for those who are clearly wounded.

 

When I was using, I hated the people who did that to me...but looking back, I now see those people as the ones that really cared and loved the real me...the me that was mute and calcified.

 

I know how much I hurt people by withdrawing from them and the world in my pursuit of being "high," and I feel sad knowing you are experiencing this now.

 

So yeah, feel compassion for them, even empathy if you can...but make no mistake!...they are wandering, wounded and lost, and given the opportunity they will wound you as well, so take care of yourself first.

 

Especially as it concerns amphetamines and opoids...they can and will turn warm, loving human beings into monsters...real-life monsters.

 

And Chip, I have not lived there for years and years, but I remember just how f*cked-up it was, so I echo what Lee said...get the hell out of Augusta! Roots or no, you need to find soil that is more nourishing or you are going to wither.

 

My heart goes out to you. Watching people you care about destroy themselves is one of the worst forms of suffering I know of in this world. You still see the part of them that deserves and needs to be loved, and they can't see it or feel it and they forgot about it long ago.

 

 

Namaste,

Ian

[aeon]

Damn, reading what I wrote was like ripping off a scab. All the hot tears, and being reminded of the hurt I did to people...I almost cannot bear it.

 

I don't know you Chip, but if I were there, I'd give you a hug and do what I could to comfort you. God knows you need it.

 

 

take care of yourself,

Ian

[Chip McDonald]

Originally posted by LiveMusic:

Chip, I'm on your side but how in the world do you know these things? You have named just about every type of person, how would you know this?

I'm a misfit.

 

I don't have a "circle of friends" per se, I travel among many disparate groups. Also, because I've been teaching guitar here for so long I've encountered all sorts of people from that as well.

 

I know these things because either the people in question have talked to me about it, or I've watched things happen to them from afar that were the result of it. That's why I tried to couch my post carefully - it's *not* misperception... it's things where friends have told me outright, or I've seen someone end up in the hospital, kicked out of school, fired from their job... all sorts of things.

 

The debilitating thing is that it does seem to be all-encompassing, it *is* different than things in the past - I'm not hanging out with a junky circle, or a druggie circle, or some such... I've always known who and where they are, this is different, and it's why it's so disturbing. I know it seems drastic what I'm saying, but you have to understand I'm in a sort of priviledged position in that as a person I do tend to travel across "boundaries" people don't normally see, and I'm also considered a sort of confidant as a friend to a lot of people... which makes it harder.

[Chip McDonald]

Originally posted by Jeff Da Weasel:

T

 

I've had to make the tough call of just not hanging around people who got too deep into bad drugs.

Here's the thing: most of the people I'm talking about are "transparent" in that sense. *They're just everyday people*, and that's part of what's freaking me out. My mind keeps getting blown by finding out about people who I would have never would have thought would get into such things, and then I find out they've got a problem...

 

In other words, *I have no control over "not" hanging around them*, there's no rhyme or reason to it, and nothing immediately obvious. It's like suddenly all negative stigma attached to drugs has just evaporated. It's invading a closer group of friends that I've known for a greater portion of my life now - again, friends who come from all different backgrounds, who are in all levels of society - there's no way of knowing until something happens to them, or they confess to you.

 

"Alienating".

[Lee Flier]

Originally posted by aeon:

Perhaps the most loving thing you can do for them is to walk away and not become a codependent in their addiction...and I say that knowing it will be monumentally hard to do, because it flies in the face of everything that comes naturally, everything that is intuitive about being a friend and a human being that cares for those who are clearly wounded.

Yup... I had to do that with several friends in the past. I also participated in a few direct "interventions" where the results were more positive. I couldn't do it by myself, though... the interventions happened with the help of other friends, family, even employers of the addicts. There is something to be said for community accountability and love. Very often a spouse or nuclear family isn't enough to turn the tide, let alone one friend, even a good friend.

 

I'm kind of in a similar position as Chip, though... I see probably a larger cross section of humanity than most folks, and a lot of them seem to confide in me. That can wear on the psyche at times, especially when a lot of seemingly disparate groups all seem to be participating in a disturbing trend like drug abuse.

[Chip McDonald]

Lee, Craig, Halljams, et al.. thanks..

 

Originally posted by GTRBass:

This might sound stupid, but maybe the increase in substance abuse can be somewhat attributed to a growing discontent and hopelessness in the general public.

It absolutely is! Everyone is disenfranchised. Some of these people tell me, when I asked "why? How?" the answer is effectively that they *are* disconnected from what has been traditionally presented to them... Meaning, they're caught up in the rat race and maybe don't know why, or their traditional perceptions of relationships has been crushed, or they're suffering from something I call "Terminal Ennui": everything has been done, nothing is really new anymore. In some since, a lot of them are trying to inject something into their life that they feel probably makes life temporarily open-ended and exciting.

 

That need for drama is again alienating, but that's sort of what it's about... It seems removed from the norm (even though it's now the norm).

 

I guess, I don't know. I'm just burned out from it all, and I've developed this sensation of "maybe this person has something in the closet I don't know about?", I mean... It's just *so* pervasive... I'll stop here.

[Chip McDonald]

Originally posted by miroslav:

If you see someone in trouble...and you can do something to help them...then help them. But if you can't...then dwelling on it 'til it makes YOU sick...is of NO benefit to anyone.

They're friends of mine.

[Chip McDonald]

Originally posted by Lee Flier:

I don't think Chip is looking for "sympathy" so much as people who understand what he's feeling and can therefore have a possibly productive discussion from a mutually understood place. I can empathize with that, so I do.

Thanks

[miroslav]

Originally posted by Chip McDonald:

Originally posted by miroslav:

 

If you see someone in trouble...and you can do something to help them...then help them. But if you can't...then dwelling on it 'til it makes YOU sick...is of NO benefit to anyone.

They're friends of mine.

I can appreciate that...helping out friends.

 

But if you've done all you can...then don't let them bring you down also.

 

That's all...

[Lee Flier]

Originally posted by Ken/Eleven Shadows:

I don't feel like I know what his motives are for these posts now.

Frustration probably.

 

I have a friend who is really into a philosophy/spiritual doctrine called "Science of the Mind." And she seems to have really found a lot of comfort in it, she says it "works" for her which I don't doubt. But any time I or anyone else she knows has something troubling them, she advises them in a way that's clearly paraphrasing, if not directly quoting, her Science of the Mind studies.

 

The thing is that I and several of her other friends have already told her that, while that's great that this philosophy has resonated with her, it doesn't do anything for me. It kind of bugs me in fact. It seems trite and irrelevant to what I experience and in the context of my own spiritual leanings. She's tried to explain that I just need to read it further... or maybe I'm misunderstanding it... or whatever... but it doesn't really matter. I think these things either resonate with someone, in which case they are inspired to look into it more deeply, or not. If not, it can be really hurtful when someone who says they care is repeatedly pushing something on you that you've already said doesn't feel relevant.

 

It sounded like Chip has had past experience of people trying to sell him on Buddhist principles and his arguments were coming out of frustration ("oh no, not this again.") I could be wrong and won't speak for him... but I love both of you guys and hope this won't be an issue that divides you.

 

And be that as it may, I have to agree with HallJams - Chip seems to be actually seeking out things that make him miserable. I felt that before, and I definitely feel that way now.

I don't think he seeks them out, but I think he's become mired in them. I also think where he lives is a big part of that. I went through something pretty similar when I lived in L.A. and came to a realization that a lot of people I'd invested in were just not what I had thought they were. I'm a naturally very optimistic person but there've been circumstances at times that have made me feel "not that way." And if I would've been posting here then, you guys probably would've told me I "seek out things that make me miserable." I'm very glad that I didn't just "learn to accept" the situation I was in, because my non-acceptance eventually gave me the wherewithal to change it for the better.

[the stranger]

Originally posted by Lee Flier:

To be honest though, the legal prescription stuff scares me more than almost anything because it seems that an AWFUL lot of people are on them who don't need to be, thanks to the media blitz by the drug companies, and there is absolutely no social stigma associated with being on this stuff - hey, it's legal, my doctor says I should have it, etc. There are zillions of people walking around who are basically willing lab rats for the pharmaceutical companies. I'm not discounting all the folks who are genuinely helped by antidepressants and the like, but I'm extremely dubious about the degree to which they are handed out and accepted as "normal," to people who really just have shit they need to deal with and don't want to. And in a lot of cases the drugs just make them crazier.

 

There are also some cities now where the public water supply has tested positive for a non-negligible amount of these drugs. Until they update their water treatment to get rid of the stuff you may be getting treated to a nice psychotropic cocktail without even knowing it!

I wondered when anybody was going to mention this.

And this shit is just beginning. Just think of all the children that are going to be growing up and influenced by this recent deregulation allowing these drug pusher companies to run these insideous ads.

About a year ago, that stupid zoloft commercial with the bouncing little cartoon character was running. And out of everything that came on the TV, that commercial grabbed my two year old daughter's attention more than any of the rest. "Have you ever felt down or depressed for two weeks? You may be suffering from clinical depression. Call your doctor and see if zoloft may be right for you."

Give me a break. Who doesn't get down from time to time?! It's called life...but what about all these little children who are being constantly bombarded

with these messages? What effect will they have?

 

Joe Camel can't sell tobacco with cartoons, but zoloft can use cartoons to sell drugs (that may or may not be safe)?!

 

And did I happen to mention revolution?

 

Scenario: Chips posts thread describing certain ills of society...stranger posts something about overthrow.

 

Just say no! Unless of course it's one of the thousands of varieties of phramacutical poison we have engineered to make you a fucking zombie with no will to fight the obvious fact that you are a slave.

 

Religion wasn't meeting it's quota for producing mindless followers, so the drug companies had to pick up the slack. Forget being born in sin and needing saved...you were born with a chemical imbalance and need sedated.

 

Fuck sadness and all this hand-wringing shit. It's time for people to start getting fucking mad and doing something.

 

Thank you for reading today's message from the resident dissident aggressor.

[Chip McDonald]

Originally posted by aeon:

" the part of them that makes them fully human, the part that allows them to feel, relate, and participate in that exchange/bond that you have with a friend...it is at best numbed, and at worst, dead and burnt.

Yeah. The thing is, it seems like the few people who aren't into it (as far as I know - again, the problem) are almost as accepting of things Today As We Know it as the rest. It's different now, it's like every last person is completely calloused and jaded to things that are *human*.

 

I am glad to hear that you (now) understand that you cannot help them, even if this knowing causes you to feel impotent and powerless. Perhaps

I know that things like AA have helped a lot of people, but frankly it's just like church - that has also helped a lot of people - it works for certain types of people who *can see the point in it*, and will try. Besides that, it's not really high profile like perhaps it once was, and it's perhaps not viewed as a subtance-related thing.

 

For myself, I was not aware of a "coping group", if I can find the spare energy I'll have to looking into it..

 

Another thing that's different (having sat here and thought about how to explain) - is that ... there was a time when the stigma of being into drugs meant that by default, one *knew* one had a problem and hopefully at some point the problem would make them want to change.

 

Part of what I'm feeling now is that there's a new sort of helplessness in that... a lot of these people *don't care what happens to them*. I've known people to be the stereotype of an addict, years and years ago...

 

But now, it's sort of like they're doing slow-motion suicide, and they don't care. I mean, really. And in a lot of cases, the thing that is driving them to feel that way can't be resolved... Or, there's nothing there *to* resolve.

 

It's like Russian roulette with the aspect of a "reward" in I suppose "feeling good". Most of these people are completely accepting of the consequences.

 

the most loving thing you can do for them is to walk away and not become a codependent in their addiction...and I say that knowing it will

I don't think I can do that. I spoke to a person I know last night who is a mutual friend of someone I spent most of yesterday morning talking to, having revealed to me he's essentially headed to crack... and I suggested that thought, but this person suggested it's not the thing to do..

 

At the same time, something that hurts maybe the most is another really good friend who helped me when I was in a very depressed state (back when I quit posting here) who essentially told me there's nothing I can do, and essentially that she didn't want to have anything to do with me because it hurt me. Essentially, it was like she said "I'm busy attempting suicide as entertainment and I like it, and there's nothing you can do about it, we both know that so it's best you go away". And the thing is, I *do* know there's nothing I can do about it, for her, or any of these other people, friends or tertiary friends, and it's overwhelming.

 

IF these people were thinking in terms of knowing they had a problem and wanted to change, it would be different... but they *know* they have a problem *and just don't care*. It's almost like it's not just that a lot of people are now having substance problems, but that suddently a lot are essentially suicidal, and don't mind. It's freaking strange, and alienating.

 

I now see those people as the ones that really cared and loved the real me...the me that was mute and calcified.

I'm afraid I can't do that. Because it by default makes me what I hate to see in them - able to turn aside humanity.

 

so take care of yourself first.[/qote]

 

That's the problem.

 

And Chip, I have not lived there for years and years, but I remember just how f*cked-up it was, so I echo what Lee said...get the hell out of Augusta!

When did you live here? Interesting...

 

I'm sort of stuck here for now, for various reasons. The way out of limbo is through hell, the Dante method?

 

Thanks to all.

[the stranger]

Originally posted by Lee Flier:

I don't think he seeks them out, but I think he's become mired in them. I also think where he lives is a big part of that. I went through something pretty similar when I lived in L.A. and came to a realization that a lot of people I'd invested in were just not what I had thought they were.

Or maybe he's just concerned with the world (like myself) and feels an attachment to his fellow man that he can't just turn off. I've tried to turn it off, by I can't. It's not in my nature to ignore the bullshit in the world. No matter what personal effect things may or may not have on me, I can't help but look out the window and see what is going on the world. And everyday I look out that window it makes me wanna vomit.

And my response is not despair or any other self-defeating emotions over it. Why get sad when I can get mad and direct my energies into any attack on the system I can manage?

It's that very system of despair and hopelessness that pushes the weak into these self-destructive tendencies.

The probable reality is that most of these people Chip is refering to feel the same as he does. And their solution is to do anything they can to turn it off.

 

There is a fine line between Chip and the people he is refering to. That goes for all of us. What is the difference? Some of us are easier to break with the system of despair than others.

[halljams]

Originally posted by Chip McDonald:

 

I'm sort of stuck here for now I'm sort of stuck here for nowI'm sort of stuck here for nowI'm sort of stuck here for nowI'm sort of stuck here for nowI'm sort of stuck here for nowI'm sort of stuck here for nowI'm sort of stuck here for nowI'm sort of stuck here for nowI'm sort of stuck here for nowI'm sort of stuck here for nowI'm sort of stuck here for nowI'm sort of stuck here for now

It's a big world Chip.

[theblue1]

I'll put in another word for Al Anon... a peer counselling group is not necessarily the first thing a non-drug user thinks about for himself, but it's clear you're very troubled by this.

 

Having people -- who are in similar situations with friends and loved ones addicted to drugs and/or alcohol -- you can talk to might really make you feel better and provide some valuable insights into the whole mess.

 

Hang in there.

[the stranger]

It is a big world, but in all my travels, I've found that it's pretty much all the same no matter where you go. That's not to be negative, it is just the case in my personal experience.

No matter where you go, you are gonna find the same situation. In a world gone mad, about the only option to escape from it would be to move out into the woods and live the life of a recluse.

But that still doesn't change anything. It is just another way to turn off reality.

 

I do believe we are our brother's keeper and feel that it's imperative that I do anything I can to try and help my fellow man rise above all this madness.

 

And everyday I fight the feeling that the whole thing is an act of futility, but I refuse to give up.