Reply #44: Addicts lie. Period. [View All]

[Heddi]

Now, I'm not saying that someone who smokes pot is an addict--I do not believe that someone who smokes pot (even very large, mind-blowing amounts of it) is in the same category as someone who does heroin, meth, cocaine, crack, etc.

I work in hospitals. I deal with addicts daily. Not in a rehab facility. Not in mental health. I'm in med-surg, ICU, telemetry settings.

They lie. They don't even realize they're lying. THey're used to lying to their family, their friends, their jobs. First to hide the addiction, then to excuse it. By lying, they get sympathy which makes it easier to get money or funds or means to continue their addiction.

One guy that I dealt with had a history of being a heroin user for 20+ years. He had no useable veins and the only way to get an IV in him was to do a central line placement--meaning the IV had to be put into a major vein basically going straight to his heart.

According to him, though, he'd only been using for about 5 months---see, he's a firefighter and saw his best friend die during a really bad forrest fire a few years ago.

Then the next day, *HE* wasn't a firefighter, his friend was, and he heard about his friend's death months later and that's what turned him into an addict.

Later that day, he didn't know any firefighters at all. His wife, see, was setting him up so she could get their kids when they divorced. She said she was giving him insulin and the WHOLE TIME she was shooting him up with heroin so that he would look bad in the eyes of the court.

Later on still, he had never used heroin in his life and the track marks were from some experiments they did on him when he was a kid.

On and on. Every 2 hours there was a different story as to why he was in the hospital. He came in as an OD. Well, that's what THEY want you to believe. The reality was (according to one tale) that it was his wife who gave him some bad food and called the cops so she could get their kids. Or was it that he was given a pill to take and he did and thought it was for sinuses and the next thing he knew he was in the hospital? Maybe the REAL story was that he wasn't doing anything wrong and this is just THEIR way of getting him "out of their hair" and in prison ,where THEY can keep an eye on him.

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Woman in her mid 30's came in--found unresponsive in a parking lot. Did a UA and found every conceivable substance known to man in her system. Some of them had to have been ingested/inhaled/injected relatively recently because they don't stay in the body that long.

Oh no! She's no drug addict. See, the doctors LIED and FALSIFIED her UA. See, she's never done drugs before but they just want to take her kids away. SHe's never done heroin, even though a needle was found stuck in her subclavian vein while she was passed otu in the parking lot. No, she's never done heroin, even though NarCan (an opoid antidote) brought her immeditaely out of her coma. No, she's never done meth, even though a bag was found in her pockets. No, she's never sold drugs, even though nearly $1500 was foudn in her pockets along with indiviually baggied packets of meth and she admits to being homeless and unemployed.

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My family is full of addicts: drugs, alcohol, gambling, shopping---and my family is just as full of enablers as well. I don't look down on someone who's an addict, or think they're weak, or stupid, or deserving of it. I treat them with the utmost respect and sympathy. But you have to look at the REALITY of their situation. They will say and do WHATEVER it takes to get YOUR sympathy. To get YOU on THEIR side so that way YOU can look at them and say "Well, hell! Who WOULDN'T be an addict in her situation?" "WHy, I'd be a drunk TOO if I had to deal with what he deals with".

Addicts see life through a fog of drug abuse. They do not see situations realisitically. Nothing is their fault. Even if it IS their fault, someone else put them up to it, mislead them, gave them wrong info, set them up...ANYTHING to absolve themselves of guilt or wrongdoing. It's always someone else's fault. Always someone else's problem. Never them....someone is just misinterpreting the situation, or lying about them, or whatever.

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Chances are, this woman wasn't arrested for smoking pot. Chances are, she may smoke pot but that's not the drug that caused her to be sent to a halfway house. Chances are, her story is a bit more complex and detailed than she would have you believe. Chance are, this was not her first brush with the law, and that she did more than miss one parole meeting.

Chances are, most of the story she told you was bullshit. It was an effort to gain sympathy. don't take it personally. She probably trots this story out for anyone who has no knowledge of her or her background and 5 minutes to spare. She wasn't doing it purposefully most likely.

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Oh, and all the halfway houses I"ve ever been associated with (through friends and family who have gone there, to ones I've referred patients to through social services) allow residents to hold down jobs. In fact, many of the halfway houses REQUIRE that the residents have jobs and will not consider them fit for living in normal society if they cannot get one, or do not hold one, or go through a succession of jobs.

I lived across the street from one for nearly 3 years. They had an 11pm curfiew for everyone EXCEPT those who worked past 11. THey were quite accomodating and held weekly classes on filling out job applications, making resumes, doing weekly and monthly budgeting, how to fill out a check, how to balance a checkbook---basic skills that many of these people lacked and sorely needed in order to live a functional life without the strains of addiction.

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Oh and by the way, non profit doesn't mean "no profit". It means that they can make a profit but a certain percentage of the profit has to be used directly for upgrades, etc, to the facility.

She's paying $15 a day for food and housing. That's not to fecking shabby. Also considering that the facility probably has to have some sort of liability insurance due to the number of people living there. DId she mention that she most likely gets some sort of counceling while she's there, too? That phone calls and internet access are most likely free as well? Hell--a rent-a-day hotel room runs $20-30 a day WITHOUT food. WITHOUT counceling. WITHOUT structure. WITHOUT the things that she undoubtedly needs or else seh wouldn't have been sent there.