Drug Psychosis in Town

Over time I have found it's better to be on speaking terms with bad folks and if you can see some way to help them that they aren't gonna take advantage of you all the better. Seems like people who are either very close or total strangers are more likely to get on the bad end of such folks.
 
We have seen the enemy and he is us.
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From the old comic strip Pogo - knew a thing or two. The enemy always is us, or could be under different circumstances.

Munk, I for one am glad you went to check - and went carefully. And am glad that he's gone. Bottom line, in confronting your past (again), and looking for the humanity in somebody who's moved beyond the boundaries ... you've reinforced your own humanity again. Or at least, so says I.

t.
 
Munk, you absolutely did the right thing going out to find out whats up. You also did it with your head on a swivel.
My previous post should be taken as a lament more than a rant. I have had enough pain in my life from watching folks close to me hurt terriblly, directly or indirectly from this nazi invention, meth. Watched a couple of real great talents melt from it. One guy was doing his level best to lose it, but it caught him again and ate him and spit him into the system. By the End of the Road, he claimed like he was some sort of Super Tweeker, eating Vegan, and only using the cleanest needles with purest crystal. By then, he'd been arrested 4 times in 12 monthes. 2of 3strikes...
Pain brought to my family by tweaker opportunist scumbag operators is subject a bit too personal to detail.
I've worked many an hour in the dark halls of our dysfunctional pathetic social institutions. Humans is Humans and deserve to always be treated respectfully and with charity. Circumstances often make that very very difficult. Personally , I've done my bit for tweakers, don't think I have it in me to go out my way for them anymore.
 
Better than most.
Please be careful. Many times these people are slightly less than human and have a long history of preying upon those that might want to extend a hand to ease their suffering.
 
I gave him your address, Dave, and told him you could find a place for him to live..... with bars. lol

I think he came from Portland or Seatle, is the real answer. I think he's an old heroin addict, actually.


munk
 
Swapping addictions is common. I collect kukri nowadays.

I would think moving onto meth from Heroin should just about finnish off body & soul. Sad.


I think Abaniko, Amphetamine was invented in German in the 19th century, Meth in Japan in the 1920s & the Brits put it into production around 1930 for military use.

Must have caused a lot of pain to a lot of people in all those years.

Spiral
 
The Brits sold/brought opium to China, and helped tank the country. Estimates of the percentage of chinese addicted are staggering, some as high as half the population. Their economy collapsed- and this from a non toxic chemical addiction. (no neurological damage- until OD!!) When the Chinese 'Lords'/government said no more, Britain went to war with them. China lost.

It amazing how values change. You can't judge Britain, or Rome, for that matter, by today's standards. Anymore than you could the US now for slavery.


Some of you may think I'm a bleeding heart on addicts. This is my plan:

Take suitable candidates to the Munk Desert Compound. The compound is made from cinderblocks, cement, rocks, etc. There is no air conditioning but like adobe the interior is livable in the summer. The compound is located so far out into the Mohave or Great Basin desert, that without proper materials or supplies one could not make it back to Civilization. There are locations still like that today. The compound is supplied with food, water, and various chemicals. Clients can take as much as they like, however, no medical is available. Once a month a truck pulls up with new recruits, hauls away bodies, and sometimes, rarely, accepts a returnee, a individual who has become sober.

No provision is made for protection from poisenious snakes, etc. Clients are responsible for their own survival. Naturally, this means the people selected are so involved with anti societal acts, crimes, and behavior they no longer have the option of saying no. The 'release' form is a given.

It might be good to build another center for volunteers. I think there would be many volunteers. The volunteer centers may even turn a profit, and strike up all over the arid west.

These compounds would be less costly than a lifetime of incarceration in jail, and cull the herd of those going out anyway. A legal and philosophical argument on the highest order can be made that this method is not only humane, but allows them the same dignity they treated themselves to in life in their deaths. Like James Agee once said, we pick the method of our destruction.

We would save a ton of money.

My belief on self destruction is that we should set our chickens free.
Take our knocks, and plan on losing X amount of every generation.

Perhaps addiction would rise with decriminalization of certain drugs, but a tighter, healthier society might also rise.
Drugs would lose their hidden, dark romance, the prestige. Instead, a mother might matter of factly tell her daughter that if she continues to use drugs, she will have to accept a life of menial labor.

At any rate, I shouldn't have to face an armed punk, and his buddies breaking into my home for goods. I will shoot, but that's not the point. I don't want to pay 30 thou a year for each punk to sit in jail, either. I'd rather break the cartels and let them gorge on relatively inexpensive taxed goods.

When I first went to AA, there was a snobery about drug addicts. There was a belief they were worse off, more non human, and could not come back quite as much. The same belief was prevalent in the mental health field. And we'd see it, too, on the Ward; enough meth or heroin or dust and something seemed to leave the person for good. But a drunk could climb back out. It really seemed to be so. It doesn't matter anymore, though, because the mental health model today reflects the reality of the newer generations; poly substance abuse. No more elites.

There probably is no good answer. I'm sure either way- the way it is now, or with decriminalization, we are going to suffer. There is an illusion of an simple great answer. We do that to ourselves.

I do know if you walked into an AA meeting, and announced you had a wonderful idea, 'lets make this all illegal so we won't be tempted anymore," you'd be laughed out of the door.
I've had my own relaspes, and am reminded by Bob a lifetime of being intoxicated is a very boring, lonely way to die. Thank you, Bob.



munk
 
I don't know what to think, Munk. Whether we intend to or not, each generation does "set its own chickens free." We do lose some, and I can't figure how to change that reality, except in marginal amounts 'round the edges. Maybe your desert compound idea would be at least as good as what happens now. Dunno.

I do think though that demonization doesn't help anything. Saying that I'm not particularly liable to slide into substance addiction doesn't acknowledge that I've my own particular demons calling me in. Some of those are socially acceptable, but no less anti-social in their long-term effect.

One of my wife's daily correspondants has a son with multiple behavioural disorders. Tourettes, obsessive compulsive, ADHD, the works. When is the lad unable to control his anti-social behaviour (and needs compassion)... and when is he giving in to it (and needs correction)? How the hell would I know? It must be awful to experience that from the inside ... feeling consumed both by self-justification and guilt. Demonizing this kid doesn't help anyone - including the parents, including him.

I think it's probably not so different for substance abusers.

So would I hurt someone who was breaking into my house, trying to hurt my kids, my wife - trying to steal our stuff to meet their addiction? Damned right. But I'll try as hard as can be to recognize the limits of control that person might have ... and recognize our shared humanity at the same time I try to stop their anti-social action.
 
Sticking to behavior seems the best way to go, with consequences good and bad. I doubt anyone could have known the milkman who killed the Amish girls was going to go nuts, and I can't tell who is socially dangerous, (except in Nasty's case, of course) who is high, or just a rotten bastard. But I can tell once someone has broken into a home, robbed a bank, beat an old woman.

We can do something with that.
All the firearms laws in the world would not have screened out the milkman with a wife and three kids. And I don't think all the drug laws do much if any better.

munk
 
Riveting story Munk. I was literally just drawn in. Be easy to convert to a fictional short story.

I, like you, did my share of dumb things while influenced. Never hurt anyone, or stole anything except sandwich meat. At times both my wife and I (seperately before we met) lived out of our car. I got lucky. Speed never really was too apealing to me. Coke was around, and I partook. I did meth three times, then had a panic attack that I thought was a heart attack. Scared me to death. Never touched meth again. Probably saved my butt that panic attack did. Not too long after that I met my wife and sobered up. Miracles come in strange packages. I was on the brink.
 
aproy1101 said:
I did meth three times, then had a panic attack that I thought was a heart attack. Scared me to death. Never touched meth again. Probably saved my butt that panic attack did. Not too long after that I met my wife and sobered up. Miracles come in strange packages. I was on the brink.
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'Scuse me, Aproy? Am I to understand that you were all done with substance abuse when you met your wife? Was she already back from the brink, as you say? Or did your meeting somehow jerk you both back to the land of the living? I am asking purely out of professional curiosity, as I have been trying to see the attraction to getting high, and conversely, what leads folks back.....It is the dealers, those who get rich off other peoples misery, that I understood, and went after 24/7 to the point of exhaustion. I always had a soft spot for the abuser, as long as he or she was not using their abuse as an excuse for violence or neglect of children.
 
How I wish I were like you, Jurrasic, and being 'normal' and healthy had no desire for abuse. I hate having to make extra effort just to be a human being. Oh well, everyone has something to work on.

Never dealt, never stole, just wasted my time. I'm glad most cops were like you and had no interest in me, as long as I did not drive a car.


munk
 
munk said:
Look;
I'm not a cop, Jurrasic. The response by these fools to a cop and to me are far different. I'm just saying our experience is slightly different even though we both know the same fiend.

as for my kids, I'm armed nearly all the time when I'm on my property, or a weapon is real close.

I know many will acknowledge Jurrasic's hard experience and dismiss my actions. That's fine. I acknowledge Jurrasics hard experience, and wisdom but there's such a thing as going with what you know and do best.

munk
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I accept ALL of the above at face value, esp. the last phrase. Just like the old joke "A man's gotta know his own limitations", one has to know his strong suit and play to it. Go ahead and see what the guy is up to, but know that you are going with my prayers.....don't want to lose you, Bud.
 
I really appreciate knowing that, Jurrasic.
I figured you'd know what I was saying.


thank you

munk
 
I didn't used to talk about evil. I thought it was something that the religious people thought up along with their revealed moralities. Now I've encountered evil. I use the word "evil" now, as the best way to express an essential concept.

I found a close member of my family, one of the "us" who deals with the sometimes evil "them," addicted to amphetamines. Intentionally addicted, and amphetamine psychosis intentionally induced, by a licensed, Yale educated psychiatrist who decided he wanted a sex slave. I saw to it that the evil SOB lost his licence to practice medicine, but not before cutting loose a family member who had become dangerous to the rest of the family.

It's like cutting off your arm with a chain saw.

I've seen evil in the world, and then knowing what to look for found it in my own heart. What a revelation to see that one close to you can take this path. Then to understand that the potential for the greatest evil, is also inside myself. It is not sufficient to stand guard against the evil outside. I must also stand guard against the evil inside.
 
Howard Wallace said:
I didn't used to talk about evil. I thought it was something that the religious people thought up along with their revealed moralities. Now I've encountered evil. I use the word "evil" now, as the best way to express an essential concept.

I've seen evil in the world, and then knowing what to look for found it in my own heart. What a revelation to see that one close to you can take this path. Then to understand that the potential for the greatest evil, is also inside myself. It is not sufficient to stand guard against the evil outside. I must also stand guard against the evil inside.
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From Frank Usher, who after ordering 3 men shot and beheaded on an afternoon, then proceeded to cut the head off a little girl while she was still kicking and screaming, to Norman "the Beast" Burton, to Aram Alkazoff who held his distribution organization under control by eating them when they got out of line.....I too have found myself looking directly into the eyes of evil. From my perspective, Evil is not an abstract concept, rather an entity or personality that can look right back at you with a malevolent intent that the first few times shocked me to the core. (This is perhaps why I can't laugh and enjoy the video games and movies about "horror" and "zombies" which pale in comparison to the real thing.)

I agree totally that one must guard against hating "them" to avoid becoming one of them, and being consumed by that hatred. I believe a degree of satisfaction in participating in bringing evil down is permissable, as long as one recognizes that "I didn't accomplish this thru my own power", rather that the power of a benevolent God was working thru me at the time. Humility and faith are more important than physical prowess, and wisdom more valuable than degrees earned. As for Angels....I haven't really decided yet, although my wife and I have kidded about one named "Joe" watching over me.

Now that the ravages of heart disease and cancer have slowed me down, and macular degeneration has dimmed my eyes, I am learning that it's someone else's turn to fight, while I continue to pray from the sidelines.....That is so very difficult for me, who thrived in a vastly different environment. I can barely walk into the school, but I can share knowledge and experience with the few inclined to listen, but it's enough.........
 
I feel privileged to be in the presence of such great and wise people. The perspective which you all provide to us all is incredible. Thank you all.

Chris
 
jurassicnarc44 said:
...I too have found myself looking directly into the eyes of evil. From my perspective, Evil is not an abstract concept, rather an entity or personality that can look right back at you with a malevolent intent that the first few times shocked me to the core. (This is perhaps why I can't laugh and enjoy the video games and movies about "horror" and "zombies" which pale in comparison to the real thing.)...
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Yes, it is disturbing. I was unable to sleep or dream for months and finally came to understand that the worst nightmare is a blessing beyond price. It's something that probably can't be explained to anyone who doesn't already know.

jurassicnarc44 said:
I agree totally that one must guard against hating "them" to avoid becoming one of them, and being consumed by that hatred. I believe a degree of satisfaction in participating in bringing evil down is permissable, as long as one recognizes that "I didn't accomplish this thru my own power", rather that the power of a benevolent God was working thru me at the time. Humility and faith are more important than physical prowess, and wisdom more valuable than degrees earned.
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You have learned the key to keep the monster inside, although who is to say that it may not have emerged once or twice in your career? When you see the monster outside, and see that in a certain case all our laws and institutions are not going to stop it, the beast inside may begin to stir and arouse.

I think it is the ones that try to deny their own potentials for evil that turn in minutes from loving fathers to the executioners of schoolchildren.
 
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