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How to Have Compassion for Addicts
Let’s start by saying that labeling people as “addicts” is problematic. It blames individuals for the choices they were limited to due to systemic societal problems. That’s been my perspective since grad school, when my degree problem had a lot of overlapping coursework with the addictions counseling program.
This article started out as a Reddit comment when someone in /r/ChronicPain asked for help being more sympathetic to addicts. Did you know there’s a character limit on Reddit comments? I found out, which is why this article exists. It’s more a series of hypothetical vignettes of the diverse life experiences that can lead a person down the path of addiction. The vignettes are fictional, but archetypical of actual living people who end up addicted to drugs or alcohol.
No one takes hard drugs like opiates — prescribed legally or bought illegally — unless they are experiencing real pain. The thing is that pain can be physical AND/OR mental.
To get yourself over the “poor choices” narrative: We all make choices, right? Well, some of us have more, better options than others.
People with the most choices
If you’re lucky enough to be born white, straight, and rich, you have a lot more choices available to you by virtue of being born to privilege. If you’re sick or…
