Double standards?

There IS rehab, however, that means giving up your crutch and most can't or don't want to as they cannot envisage a life outside the one they exist in.
It means being randomly tested, opening up to things they may want to keep buried and, during the process, doing without the crutch.
Most of them have no friends outside street life.
They've forgotten what 'normality' is. Keeping themself clean is often a quick all over using stolen baby wipes, if that. In the end, they look like users and congregate in places where they know others in the same boat.
Many didn't start life in bad circumstances but were thrown a curve ball that knocked them off track.
Dealers often hang around near rehab centres and areas where users go to get their daily fix of methadone or subutex, like vultures waiting for their vulnerable prey.
Ketamine is another 'drug' added into the mix. In the end, they don't care what they take as long as the supply is there.
I have seen some awful things and I'm so glad that me and mine have steered clear of habits which can lead to destroying the only life you will ever have.

I always feel sorry for the families,as they are all someone’s sons/daughters. I see a lot of it in my job role and most of them are lovely people who are addicted, Some start through peer pressure,some to try to block out life at home as it is so awful,and some try because they can. Getting hooked usually isn’t a choice,and unfortunately crime will fund the habit,as getting the fix is all their minds can focus on. I would like to see rehab where they can get clean,study or train to do a job and even move if it where to help.
Sadly that’s never going to happen so the sad cycle will continue.

Let us not forget that people in the thrall of drug abuse are as needy as those who abuse alcohol.
It's a choice to have one more drink as much as it's a drug users choice to buy a second screw of coke. It becomes commonplace to take ever more to get the same high or blurred view of the world that occurred when they first started the habit.
Showing them the right path rarely works. They have to decide for themselves. That is the ONLY way it works.
Bodies ruined, minds ruined, families torn apart, society suffers the fallout.
It's a ripple effect that can only be stopped by the person throwing stones into the water.
I've seen grown men cry bitter tears, their ruined bodies shaking with misery at having a habit they cannot stop.
Celebs taking it at parties, after dinner or weekending on drugs are not quite the same thing as people escaping miserable lives.

Very few people are forced to take drugs. We live in an age when the knowledge about drugs is widespread. Most of those addicted have beome so because they decided to do drugs regardless of the consequences. There are many people who .like to take certain drugs regardless of whether those drugs will have a long term affect on their health.

I wish it was possible to remove all but medicinal drugs from circulation, but realise that is just a dream. As long as there are weak people who will take drugs we will as a society suffer the consequences.

It is highly likely that substance abuse increases the potential for mental health difficulties.

There is a large proportion of drug/alcohol users (abusers) who have mental health problems.
I work for a charity who help families with a member who has these problems. It's heartbreaking sometimes. People forget the families, often blackmailed, threatened, victims of domestic abuse, brought into debt because they don't want to see their loved ones harmed...

Gabriella I have read that book and it is very moving and sad.
Paddy Ann I agree about the methadone programme. It can only work if it is gradually reduced and people are tested to make sure they are not taking other drugs too.my friend has a 38 year old son who has been on it for years but also takes pills and and alcohol. He has no desire to get off it. Has never worked and gets extra benefits because of his problems.

What I find so galling is that 'celebrities' have the funds to buy the help they need but the rest of us (who live ordinary lives on ordinary wages) are being so badly let down. My experience is of an alcoholic who was taken to hospital to detox then told to go home and contact AA for more help. The same advice was given by his General Practitioner. Now, a couple of years of sobriety later, the same recovering alcoholic was told by his GP that he was not considered to be mentaly ill enough to warrant referral for counselling. He is falling apart, trying to deal with the stress he is under. Was my alcoholic family member mentally ill while he was drinking, is he now? Does it matter?

Becoming substance dependent cannot be anyone's lifestyle choice.

Sorry
I don’t think AA is comparable to methadone. It is like comparing Church to drugs as well. It’s a spiritual solution to an illness. It’s the same as taking medication for a lifelong illness

Annewilko, I quite agree with you. Although I am not sure what you mean by Massive cuts on the NHS budgets lead to many people self medicating.. For what, with what?

What a lovely boy. His path through life will be so much calmer with his kindness affecting everyone he meets. You must be so proud of him.

M0nica. Mental health issues can be a by product of drug use and drug issues can be a by product of mental health. Massive cuts on the NHS budgets lead to many people self medicating. Homelessness is one of the other many reasons for drug and alcohol abuse. Addiction has as many reasons as there are people addicted and it's not always what we are told it is.

Drug problems are rife in this country, and unfortuantely mental health problems are as well. The two often go hand in hand - which one leads is anyone's guess.

Agree that drug (and alcohol) addiction on its own is not necessarily a mental health problem. I think that if more addictions services were properly funded many other problems would be halved - starting with domestic abuse and the need for children to be taken into care.
It hadn't struck me that people oozed sympathy for singers and film stars who become immersed in drug problems - anyway no more than general decent sympathy when tragedy occurs.

Having been involved professionally and, in retirement, as a volunteer, it's my understanding that people across all social strata can become addicted to drugs (including spice) and alcohol without necessarily having mental health issues...as we neatly like to put it.
It can be for many reasons as we all know, being disenfranchised, a turbulent home life, homelessness, a lifestyle choice, amongst many others.
It's a treacherous path which is extremely difficult to leave.
I have witnessed scenes that will stay with me forever and paid for hostels, hotels, food and clothing but few have made it out of that destructive lifestyle.
One guy told me (on the phone) that he had a gun. Police said (and I was with them when I got the call) 'Tell us when he has the bullets'.
The craving begets robbery and even violence. Their need surpasses all reasoning. It is indeed frightening to be faced with a zombie.
There's a book, written by the mother of identical twin boys who succumbed to drugs. One sadly died.
They were a family living in or near Reading.
Mum, a head-teacher, father an engineer.
The boys drug use spiralled out of control and the father left home because mum continued to do her best. They divorced, mum remarried but the strain remained.
The book title is 'Mum Can You Lend Me Twenty Quid? written by Elizabeth Burton-Phillips.
One titled lady in Brighton knows that her daughter sleeps in the stairwell of a block of flats and she has to take her daughter to buy drugs before having to sit in the car watching her inject before 'treating' her to lunch.
That is the only way she can get to see her clever but drug addled child.
I don't have answers. It's pitiable.

Anitamp1 that doesn't apply to me. I wish these self-indulgent druggie celebs would shut up about it and if they die of their habit they should be left to be mourned privately by their families and a very short news article just to impart the info and no obituaries or fuss on the media. In fact I think celeb culture has far more than its share of our media already. They should spend more time developing their art, and less time imposing their opinions on us.

Am I missing a point here. Drug taking = poverty! If they are so poor where is the money coming from to buy the drugs in the first place?

stella1949,

Your stepson is in my prayers:

That he will get the help he needs when he is ready to receive it.

Not all young people get into drugs because of poverty, lack of aspiration,

The sixties and smoking a joint ? at universities , parties, cannabis was grown in gardens .

Now the drugs are on the streets, much stronger than cannabis and even cannabis now is not the same as home grown in the sixties .

I have known people with existing mental illness who have "self medicated " through illegal drugs (and alcohol). (My AC probably fell into this category)
It gives a little respite from reality. That is at first. Once it becomes a habit, the unfortunate person is compelled to continue to score their drug in higher and higher doses in a vain effort to replicate that initial wonderful feeling, and are never able to recreate it.
I have also known young people who fell into drug use through peer pressure as mentioned above. These people often go on to develop mental illness as a direct result of the drug use. Psychosis etc.
It's a terrible way to exist. Families are destroyed, morals and personalities fly out the window.
I read recently about the percentage of the prison population who are drug addicted. It's horrific.
I feel very sorry for anyone who has fallen prey to this scourge. But my greatest sympathy is for the anonymous sufferers, living in poverty with little or no meaningful assistance, and their poor families whose lives can also be ruined by their addicted loved one. So many tragic stories. And it can happen to even the "nicest" families, not just those from low socioeconomic backgrounds as is sometimes assumed.
My heart breaks for anyone going through what we did with our late AC.
As for celebrity deaths, I think it's the managers/hangers on of the golden goose who have blood on their hands.

What a lovely lad your grandson is paddyann.

Drugs cause serious mental health problems.

Exactly Bluebelle .

Celebrities take drugs because they can, they have the money, they have the contacts, they have the conditions, Celebrities on the whole lead a selfish lifestyle, they are constantly in the world of me me me and looking for new highs, new dimensions and unfortunately although it makes no difference to them I have not a jot of sympathy for them
I do feel concerned for young people who get into drugs through friends, peer pressure, or lack of aspirations and even more for the young kids that get drawn into the dark world of drugs though older drug takers using them as couriers, mules in exchange for their fix Its a black and bleak world for anyone who gets involved in that culture

I wasn't making excuses...merely explaining the varied reasons why people get into drug-taking.

I'm so sorry for the celebs and their exhausting work life RosieLeah I'm afraid I would be more understanding of firefighters, police, nurses etc who have much more exhausting and often traumatic jobs.
It's all relative of course and I suppose celebrities are more exposed to a drug culture.