Drug experts say alcohol worse than crack, heroin
reuters.com
reuters.com
ALL the people I’ve known that were trying to stop heroin are dead now. A big part of it is fentanyl but they were known to relapse more frequently and harder.
I don’t know anybody who works in recovery who would agree with this statement.
I think that actually makes the numbers worse. Alcoholism can be masked somewhat because it's socially acceptable to drink. That often delays people seeking treatment for it, sometimes by decades. There's no broadly socially acceptable form of using opiates recreationally.
In terms of resources, it varies significantly but there is Narcan for overdoses and Methadone.
I've known people from wealthy backgrounds, who did several stints in rehabs and did not have to worry about having a job etc... they had all the "resources" in the world and still couldn't stay clean.
This isn't to say it's hopeless, I'm just saying anecdotally that the number of people I know who have been in recovery specifically for heroin and achieved long term sobriety (>2-3 years) is less than the people I knew who are now dead.
Obviously "worse" is a meaningless term unless you specify how it's worse. Maybe they're making a point that alcohol is worse overall for society because of how prevalent it is, but if I was a parent I'd 10000000% rather catch my 16 year old drinking beer than doing opiates of any form.
The closest thing I’ve seen to “grabbing a beer” in the form of other recreational drugs is having a pull or two on a weed vape. I’ve had friends who are not in recovery/never had a substance abuse issue who do that. It’s probably better for you in the long run.
Heroin was for some time used as a cough medicine. Does that qualify?
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Monitoring_Centre_for...
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advisory_Council_on_the_Misuse...
I asked an ex-junkie friend which was harder. She stared at me and said "Heroin - I reckon!", and I'm pretty sure she'd say the same of alcohol.
Sure, you can eat yourself to death. That affects you, and those who love you.
Alcohol can affect people who have nothing at all to do with the drinker, as well as affect their families, for generations to come.
I hope that you are trolling because if not you are so clueless that it amazes me someone could be so sheltered from reality, though I’m also happy that you don’t know either, it sucks.
The #1 offender causing insulin resistance is sugar, there's no controversy around this.
From a society perspective any drug with high prevalence of use should top the chart, because of the scale of harm.
In the case of cocaine I would argue that it can't be separated from alcohol. I don't know any cocaine user that doesn't consume it with alcohol, and most do it for the sole purpose of drinking more alcohol. There's a feedback loop where users get very drunk, take a line to feel better and energized, then drink a shit ton again, only to top it off with cocaine, rinse & repeat.
I bet we are not hearing the stories about all the healthy and functional heroin users mostly because it's illegal and socially unacceptable. It means public only knows about cases when poor people abuse it too much. Rich guy? You bet public never knows if he does it occasionally or did it a lot then went to rehab and recovered.
Yes, you can also get terminally addicted to ethanol and ruin your life. I've seen people like that. The biggest difference is perhaps that these people don't just destroy their body, ethanol abusers also tend to hurt or murder other people when they are high on the substance.
I guess this is clickbait based on the fact that there are so many alcohol users that the total alcohol related damage is worse (think car accidents and such).
I'm having some red wine now. I'm not having any crack now. Clearly alcohol does more damage to me.
Sure…