You've mentioned this before but this hasn't been my experience at all. If anything, the exact opposite. When I ran a shop downtown, the large majority (I'd say 80%) were young men in the under 25 range. Doubtful that they got squeezed out of their apartments and said "Fuck it, guess I'll starting shooting heroin." A very close friend of ours has a druggie son. He was 16-ish when he got in a car accident, was prescribed Oxy, prescription ran out and you know the rest. His mom makes good money, his dad is a lawyer, his grandfather is a judge. He had access to every treatment there is and eventually they all had to cut him out of their lives as he'd steal money and stuff to sell later for drug money. In talking with his mom, that was the same basic story of all the guys he ran with.
The relationship between drugs and homelessness tends to be a spiral, where each makes the other worse, and you can initiate that spiral from either side. There's definitely people who started as addicts, and then became homeless, but there's also people who became homeless, which drove them to addiction.
In response to the bolded portion: This. People who have fallen on hard times and find themselves homeless usually try to have some sort of semblance of normalcy until they can get back on their feet. They don't live like this
@Aetius I agree with that. But I think it's more often that they become addicts, burn their bridges and end up homeless versus they lost their job, became homeless and turned to drugs.
I have been truly terrified twice in my life. When I was facing my own mortality with the brain tumor, that was upsetting but not terrifying. When my throat swelled up in an anaphylactic reaction to a red wasp sting a few days ago, that was a bit scary but also I still felt like I had the capabilities to handle it, and if it went beyond that, then all the sudden I'd die and it wouldn't be my problem. First time I was truly terrified was when I woke up from brain surgery and became aware that I was on a morphine drip. I had a button to press when the pain got too much, and I utilized it before I was fully cognizant of what I was doing. Almost 17 years later and I still remember how heavenly that morphine felt. When it was fully in my system, if someone told me I could run straight through the wall I would have agreed and tried just to see. I simultaneously felt like I could lift the several thousand pound hospital bed, but was also so light that I could float away. It was the single greatest feeling I have ever experienced. Which is why I had them remove the morphine drip as soon as I was able to form a sentence and sign a consent form. Second time I was truly terrified was when I was prescribed xanax for my PTSD while they figured out what was going on and an appropriate long-term treatment plan. Xanax might as well be morphine you can get from your local pharmacy with a script. If morphine is taking a shot of tequila, then xanax is downing a six pack of beer. I was not informed (shitty doctors forget important things) that going off it could cause some side effects, and as such we were quite surprised when I started experiencing what felt like a heart attack, which I now know to be withdrawals. It was like I was hyper aware while my body was shutting down. I laid on the couch while we awaited for paramedics to arrive. This was before over-prescription of xanax and similar medication became part of the pop culture zeitgeist. I would have torn a door off its hinges if there was more xanax on the other side, just to make the withdrawals go away. After those two experiences, I 100% understand why someone who has experienced such medication can become homeless. The same mentality which allowed me to stop drinking, stop smoking, and keep subjecting myself to marathon running (two more next season, plus an ultra), is the only reason I was able to remove myself from morphine and xanax. I fully understand and appreciate that not everyone is so lucky. Every time I hear that "well they should have known what they were getting into" shit.... uhm, yeah. I woke up from surgery on morphine. We didn't know enough about xanax at the time. It's not a "slippery slope." It's a fucking cliff. And if you don't catch that shit early in the process, if someone doesn't inform you of the issues, if you aren't aware of them yourself, or especially if you aren't educated enough (largely a socioeconomic issue), then the horizon makes it look like you have a runway of flat land until all the sudden you fall over that edge.
My guess is that's region-dependent. My experience comes from a very HCOL city which isn't as ravaged by the opioid crisis, which probably skews the numbers towards people who became homeless first, compared to other regions, where the addiction came first.
Heroin into meth makes no sense to me. They have the complete opposite effects. I can see heroin into fentanyl though.
Reminder of why you shouldn't cut wackadoodles out of your social media pages. I don't mean randos on Twitter, but real people in your town. "Does anybody know of any person who is so srupid to admit that they will voting for Biden in 2024? I i persoannally do not know of a single person who would. If you do pleas speak now. Few people will actually see this post since facbook has my profiles shadow banned for spaeking the truth. I have studying what is going and basic histroy to understand what is about to happen. But here is the preduction and why. Viveck Ramasamy is a CCP agent, but he came from obscurity to run as a replulican , what is really creapy and Vivek Ramasamy is that he praises Donal Donald J. Trump , and says all of the right things , hoever the media does not cancel hims as they do everone ellse who says simmilar things. But it is a an obvious Red flag however, the media does not tell lies about Viveck and CCP controled media acually promotes his meassage. Anyone else with the same messaged would be banned in the media and social media. Viveck Ramasamy and the CCP has gone to exteme lenghts, incuding colleting old printed books that give information about Viveck, and changing his whole online identity, to hide the fact he has obtaind his funding from the CCP. VIVECKS BIO company , was a fake. It never made a real profit all of its money was obtained as capitol gains. Those capital gains are tracked back to the CCP. The CCP is putting Viveck Ramasamy in as the replacement for Donald trump. It is easy to see. Donald Trump is going to win the rigged election, the election rigged agsinst him, heavily but the rigging is not going to work this time because 99.8 percent of people in amaerica are now voting for trump. China and CCP with the help of the Democrats are going to assisinate trump between the election and before he takes office. They are giong to replace trump with double Agent Viveck Ramasamy. People of reasonalbe intelegence will vote Ramasamy as he says everything right and sounds really great. But the CCP controlled news media will never talk about Viveck past dealings as a CCP agent. Viveck Ramasamy is a wolf dressed as sheep. A snake in the grass. I can estimate, about to hears after the death of Donald Trump , the CCP is going to begin its plan to quitly start to murder and execute all of American citizens as this is their stated goal. The CCP plan to depopulate the United States has been delayed and set back because Donald Trump stood up for America. If we all dont stand up now and fight for our lives , we will soon be excecuted by the CCP. We will all die , because some of us chose to be stupid, and belive the propoganda and the lies China is pushing upon us."
Beryl is now a category 5 storm, the first time in history that's happened this early in the season. I think we might see hurricanes that do more damage, kill more people and cost more money than actual armed conflict.
Yesterday, I spent time reading 900+ comments about a 34 year old crackhead woman dating a 16 year old boy. The woman had lost her children to CPS, but she said she was working hard to get them back. The boy's father is in prison for manslaughter. His mother tried to defend her parenting with a few comments, ended poorly for her. His cousins were appalled, but they were accused of just seeking attention because they never gave a shit about him before this relationship went public. And one of the boy's friends told everyone to leave him alone, he can date whomever he wants. Hollywood wishes they could entertain people like me half as well as people from bumfuck Maine posting their lives on FB.
That felt like I was reading a migraine. How much of a bubble are you in to become that indoctrinated into paranoia? That person is so stupid that it’s actually annoying. If you know them, please tell them I said that and mean it.
Oh hey guys, the “election year bodycam footage of a senseless killing of a minority at the hands of a police officer” was released. https://apnews.com/article/illinois-police-shooting-911-murder-7a1b433183933ca94f266c0f90753a33
I saw that last night. The whole "I will shoot you in the fucking face!!" and then actually shooting her in the face because she's old and holding a pot of boiling water is going to give him a ticket to federal pound you in the ass prison. Edit - Just saw that she was 36 Edit again - Aetius beat me to my own edit
She was 36. Nightgowns are the undisputed GOAT of making anyone seem old. You could be 21, but the second you put on a nightgown people are going to start asking if your grandson picked you to accompany him to the Wonka factory.
I haven’t seen the video but I listened to the audio on a true crime podcast. I’m just…dude wanted to escalate, it’s obvious. He ASKS HER to turn off the stove. Then implies she’s going to throw boiling water at him - which gives us “I rebuke you in the name of the Lord,” which is the most eloquent “fuck you, you’re crazy” ever heard in my life. Some other thoughts; -his partner’s reactions give me “Ethan Hawke in Training Day” vibes. -the dispatch audio for the call about the shooting references it as “self-inflicted” so they were trying to figure out how to brush it away then. -his request for some “1096 history” to explain it away as a mental episode. -also the guy has moved through six sheriff departments since 2020, either retiring or a reason for leaving listed as “other.” I wouldn’t be surprised if past coworkers were thinking he’d end up doing something like this.
She could have easily gotten some boiling water on his boots from that distance. Maybe as high as his shins, which would been about as painful as leaning up against a black car on a sunny, summer day.