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Comment by gonehome | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, the piece reads like a rationalization by a drug user still in the early stages of a problem.

We'll see how things turn out in the end (maybe I'm wrong), but I'm pretty skeptical of a positive outcome.

Agree! When he said that he meets his parental, personal [...] responsibilities, I thought I would like to hear if his partner and his children think the same. Maybe everything is really fine, but more often, the drug user doesn't realize how his (ab-)use affects his closest environment.

Even the phrasing is weird. To “meet my responsibilities” as of it’s a burden or a job. Not like: “as long as I can remain a great parent and partner”. Maybe I read too much into it.

I think that's reading too much into it. One can care about meeting their responsibilities because they love their family. And "being a great parent and partner" can be one of those responsibilities.

I feel this is just word play but being a great parent and partner is not a responsibility in so much as it is a goal.

It might be a burden or responsibility to meet if what you really get pleasure out of in life is your next heroin fix.

The fact that he started only 5 years ago is a conspicuous detail -- I keep googling trying to find why he started in the first place, but haven't found that question asked. There seems to be some shadow material expressing itself in the form of a book.

I know my own problems, way back when, really got going at around the 5 year mark, and turned from weekend fun to every day need. If I hadn't have met my partner who helped pull me out I'm not sure where I would be right now. Knowing what I know from personal experience, this book seems reckless to me.

I agree, sometimes it takes a traumatic event to push that recreational use to habitual use. Maybe he's in a good place mentally now, but what if..

Exactly my thought. I only want to hear wisdom from drug users in their 80s after a full life. Even losing your shit in your 70s causes enormous emotional distress for family members. Talk to someone who had looked after an elderly Alzheimer’s patient.

Imagine being in the nursing home with the heroin addict who thinks he has everything under control.

Everything is about risk. Bad shit happens in life and people have to deal with it. Bad shit can happen unexpectedly. And it’s difficult to know how it will feel when it happens. Look at how many people will “hit the bottle” because someone dies. Or a relationship ends. Imagine if that becomes something 100x more risky.

We see all the disastrous effects from legal drugs and now he wants to add more to the mix.

The difficulty in obtaining drugs reduces their use. That is the bottom line. Everyone wants to argue against it but it’s the clear reality.

This guy just lives in a bubble.

Yeah, I tend to place a lot more stock in the vast legions of musicians who can't agree on anything but are almost unanimous in "Look, just don't do heroin. Any drug but that."

Rationalization is always one of the calling-card signatures to drug use. Addiction takes over part of one's mind and defends its existence from other rational parts of the brain.

While I am now pro-decriminalization, I don't believe marijuana is as harmless as its proponents contend, mostly because I detect the same signature addiction rationalizations and defense mechanisms in the discussions and messages.

But I guess I am pro-decriminalization primarily due to me wanting to alleviate the economic basis of smuggling destroying the cultural vitality of Mexico, Central America, and Latin America, converting them into zombie narco states.

I still believe decriminalization will vastly increase use/abuse of drugs (the most heavily used ones are the legal ones) and treat our own people and problems.

But truly addressing that would be addressing the depression, loneliness, and lack of fulfillment the modern capitalist media consumer state creates.

Don't take this wrong, but I'm pretty skeptical of a positive outcome of your life too. We all die in the end.

Snarky comments generally get down-voted. I would like to take a look at your point though. Is death the outcome of life? I don't buy a computer to wait for it to break, even though that is the inevitable outcome. The meaning of life is not to have an opportunity to die.

I guess that would depend on whether you believe there's a meaning to life in the first place.

Why do you need meaning? Have fun!

Most people develop a connection to others and that’s enough to occupy them in place of the search for meaning.

Yeh but people are going to love and depend on you and the timing and mode in which you die is going to affect them and leave a lasting mark. So it’s best for society that older people don’t just yolo it.

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