Report: Addicts (and Alcoholics) Need Disability Income

[Khephra]

WASHINGTON -- One in three drug addicts and alcoholics removed from a federal disability program in 1996 failed to make up even half the money they once got from the government, researchers reported Monday.

The Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, program gives cash benefits to very poor, disabled Americans. Until 1996, a program called Drug Addiction and Alcohol allowed very poor alcoholics and drug addicts about $500 a month from SSI, plus health benefits through Medicaid, if they were receiving treatment for their addictions.

The program started small but grew rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s as courts ruled that most anyone with the addictions could qualify for help. Almost 170,000 were enrolled nationally in 1996, when Congress passed and President Clinton signed major legislation that overhauled the nation's welfare system.

"There was widespread observation in Congress that when benefits were terminated, people would go back to work," said Jim Baumohl of Bryn Mawr College, one of the researchers who examined the impact of the policy change. The research was published Monday in the online journal Contemporary Drug Problems.

more.................

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-welfare-drugs,0,3694582.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[StopThief]

1. Can't say I feel too bad. . .

that my tax dollars aren't going to support addicts and drunks. Sorry.

[Khephra]

2. Ok, then should you ever get addicted to anything

Then I'll remember to never feel sorry for you.


Kef,
A Recovering Alcoholic/Manic Depressive who used SSI to save himself from living on the street until he could get his life together.

NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE should be lost in our society due to a lack of money or sympathy.

[DemBones DemBones]

3. A lot of people have a conviction that they will never be disabled,

either physically or mentally. The truth, of course, is that no one knows what turns their life will take. No one plans to become disabled.

[Mel]

9. Kef, thank you very much!

for saying that I didn't know that part of your story but I want to say I'm damn glad if any of my tax money went to help you! You are one of the best things about DU and I'm darn glad you got on your feet and not only that your zooming right along and a darn good person the world needs more people like you around.

Sure some people won't make it but what are we suppose to do? just not give a shit and be selfish? Not me, I'm against it!
For me just the fact that Kef was helped by this program is reason enough!!!

There is enough money in our society to take care of EVERYONE

and Mean and Selfish people SUCK

[Khephra]

14. It took me some time

and the help from a lot of wonderful people here at DU, but I did it.

Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad that you're glad to have helped!

:-)

[saigon68]

37. I work with Vet's to obtain benefits for PTSD

All I can say here to those who are mean spirited is YIKES

No one, I've ever known wanted to become disabled. $500.00 per month pales to the cost of a prison bed, in Wisconsin $52,000.00 per year, to incarcarate someone with the dual-diagnosis of PTSD and substance abuse (Mostly illegal narcotics)

Bush (THE CHIMPANZEE) is going reap what he has sown in this war for the next 50 years. With a whole generation of psychologically disabled Veterans

[Mel]

51. what's weird

maybe? maybe not? In a lot of ways you've helped people you don't even know by being here at DU. :loveya:

Since *Bush was selected it's been a hard time for me and reading posts like yours helps me everyday.

Ex. When 9-11 happened Who? I ask was there for us/me? You where! That's who! I was upset wrote you, you wrote back fast and tried to help me out.

We've seen some frantic times here at DU and for me your the 'Rock' Imagine that? Isn't that funny? I guess all the 'mean selfish people' could give a damn less about this seeing as you got some help with 'their' tax dollars? :grr:

I can imagine how many more people there are like yourself. I can't believe people don't see the big picture in helping one another. What we lose when we don't help isn't just money it's so much more it's our humanity!

Yea, it's real easy for some people to bitch about it instead of thinking it through from all the angles isn't it?

[Bruce McAuley]

59. We CAN provide for everyone who needs it, and more will...

Since manufacturing is moving away, and service jobs are taken by illegals, even the "regular" people will have to begin getting "money in the mailbox" to survive, unless you want to work nights at the local Chevron Mini-Mart...
And why not? If we were going to give the Iraqis a "share" in the oil profits, why can't we as American citizens get a "share" in the profits?
Darned pesky New Age Socialists srirring the pot again!
LOL

Bruce

[sam sarrha]

46. the Iraq oil war costs 3.7 MILLION a day for each being in the USA

that is $123,333 per person pr day in the usa. but a 50 cent/hr raise in the minimum wage will bankrupt us. the USA has more people in prison percapita than ANY other country in the world, over 50% are people suffering from the nonviolent effects/results of addiction and i have heard that over 80% are drug related. in the usa the ratios are 700/100,000, canada 102/100,000, japan 48/100,000. in yr 2000 prisons cost $40 billion, the nonviolent population cost us $25 billion. insisting on not helping people with a medical problem is costing us a lot of money and people a lot of suffering. the addicts suffer and the people they effect suffer... very little is being done to research methods of help, even drugs that are sucessfully used in other countries, for over 20 years, are not allowed to be used in this country. i was an addict for 30 years, alcohol and tobacco. addiction is a behavior that you contenue to do even tho you know it will kill you. the moralists say it is a weakness.. not so, untill someone who really cares interviens... it is nearly hopeless...viewed from within the addiction it 'IS' hopeless.

[maxanne]

4. too bad dude

your tax dollars are going to support addicts and alcoholics. You're supporting them in prison - which is what we do for substance abuse treatment in the US these days.

khephra - I'm a recovering alcoholic/addict as well. Unfortunately a lot of people in our country don't give a damn about either addicts or the mentally ill - and they don't understand dual diagnosis.

[Julien Sorel]

8. An excellent point.

Not to mention the hidden cost of crime. These programs are certainly cheaper than the losses we all suffer from crime, and the incarceration costs we pay, as a result of our nation's drug policies. It's simply cheaper to pay these people the money and try to rehabilitate them than it is to pretend that the problem will go away if we ignore it.

But who needs to think of things like cost-benefit analysis, when there are thousands of politicians out there, each of them trying to outdo the rest in showing how tough on crime they are, how much more self-righteous than the rest they are. Pay money to rehabilitate drug addicts? How soft, how liberal. Build expensive prisons and lock them away, after they've broken into our homes, our cars (and increased our insurance costs as a result) -- absolutely! It's the American way.

[Khephra]

13. My sympathy

I hope that you have things under control. It's a tough road, but it can be done.

Some people never understand that it's not a willpower issue until they're smacked in the face with it in their personal lives, god help them.

[study_war_no_more]

30. 4 years sober and clean

Okay I have to play devils advocate here. If you had given me a check for five hundred when I was using I can tell you quick like it did not go for rent. Now money for treatment and living expenses while in a verifiable program is cool but I know many addicts who collected social security while continuing a lifestyle of addiction. Just to interject off the subject but of interest in other views I am really scared of these faith based iniatives I think they will help the helpers more than the helpees. I went to AA in the end and to a doctor for my depression issues which require an anti depressant but hey I ain't shooting dope and I am definitely down for my fellow man. Can you imagine how differnt our country would be if Bush practiced some steps? We have to be very careful with Social Security money as a lot of abuse is happening within the system which is coming back on those who are not fraudalent users. Tough love and compassion and the help of another addict is invaluable in recovery.

[Interrobang]

54. However, throwing them out in the street is not.

I'm disabled, and I've never been able to collect disability money. Working for a living is rougher on my health than for the average person -- I need more sleep, and everything is a little harder for me than it is for you Temporarily Able-Bodied folks out there. I live upstairs from a functioning alcoholic, and I'm really glad she has some kind of social safety net, because even though she's not really getting off the sauce, she doesn't deserve to lose her apartment, etc., either.

My paternal grandmother and five of her sisters died of alcoholism. With that kind of streak, I'm fairly convinced that addiction is *not* just a "willpower issue," and that "tough love" (of whatever form) probably isn't going to do a whole lot. (The last thing you need, after all, when circumstances turn bad, is to feel like the world is saying, "So? It's all your fault, so YOU fix it," instead of giving you a helping hand.)

[study_war_no_more]

56. I was told there is a solution

This person sat with me my first year and taught me what that was. When i say i was beyond human help that includes the seven treatments i went to over the decades of my addiction health care proffessionals declared me hopeless chronic and soon to be deceased and i agreed. It was another alcoholic who didn't buy that i was hopeless, Today i can say "there is a solution" Addiction is a lie.

[newyawker99]

84. Kef....

You know I am proud of you and I am glad that some of my tax dollars were spent to help you out. Don't let some people get you down. You have come a long way and you have a right to feel proud.


:loveya:

[Iris]

39. What about addiction to money?

Our tax dollars support corporate princes who just can't seem to get enough for themselves.

[Terran]

107. If we could cure that

many of our society's problems would go away.

Dirk

[Dulcinea]

6. Agreed.

My friend's mother, who has lupus & can't hold a job, deserves SSI, not addicts. Sorry, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for anyone who brought their affliction on themselves.

[maxanne]

7. addiction

is a disease - just as lupus is. As long as people continue to consider alcoholism/addiction a moral issue, addicts will continue to die for want of treatment.

[demdave]

11. What a funny disease...you can cure it by not drinking

Tell me what you have to stop doing to cure lupus? It is a disorder, not a disease. Anorexia..cured wth a hamburger...bulimia..cured..get your finger out of your throat. Do these people need treatment..sure.


The only reason they are labeled disease is so the drug companies and mental health businesses can get insurance to pay for it.


You can't cure a disease by putting down the pipe or bottle. You can't cure a disease by eating.

[Khephra]

12. Except for the fact that some people

due to their genetic make-up CAN'T put it down once they've had that first hit off the pipe or drink off the bottle.

Yeah, I threw away 12 years of my life because I was just too weak to put down the bottle, even after I died three times, was arrested, lost my friends, job and chance at college at IU?

Dream on

[KittyWampus]

15. Well, It Took You 12 Years

12 years to hit bottom and face reality.

Before that, and alot of help you might have gotten could very well be labeled "enabling".

I read the article and it's really brief. It's not clear if the benefits go to people who are committed to
recovery. But I would like to point out the futility of handing money to someone who isn't ready to
take their life back.

And regarding genetics...

it's a really bleak world, the one where genes determine our existance to the point that we don't take
responsibility for ourselves. It's very easy to blame our genes. We might just as well blame the devil.

Each and every person has to come to grips with Life and Prosperity. One lifetime we're Kings and
the next we're serfs. Up and Down on the Wheel of Life until we finally realize that Nature is Benevolent
and always Operates in our favor.

[maxanne]

18. oh boy

Someone who has a parent or grandparent with alcoholism is 4 times more likely to develop it themselves.

Please feel free to go tell someone who has a family history of heart disease to take their whiny asses somewhere else. You wouldn't think of telling them to take responsibility for themselves.

The genetic connection is not about blame - it's about reality. I come from a long line of drunks. My mother has brain damage from 40 years of alcoholism. I was an alcoholic waiting to happen. Certainly no one held a gun to my head and made me drink - but I was genetically predisposed.

As for your point about enabling - it would have been better to let Keph die? I really hope you are not saying that. Yeah, maybe we should just let the drunks suffer, be homeless, sick - and die. Then we can all shake our heads and say *tsk* *tsk* and pity the poor weak immoral losers.

[KittyWampus]

23. You Completely Mistook Everything I Wrote

And don't presume that I don't know first hand about addiction.

Sorry, but you are defensive and have a chip on your shoulder.

You can't recover until you've hit bottom and want to WORK towards alternatives.

To forge new thought patterns.

Travel a different path.

And until someone hits that wall, trying to help them very often ends up being a way to
keep them on their path of detruction that much longer.

And for someone who has seen their parents or family self destruct and then go right on ahead
and do the same thing.... and then BLAME their genes....

Sorry, but we make choices and reap
the consequences. That is called KARMA.

It has nothing to do with morality.

[study_war_no_more]

34. Living in the solution

meant I had to change absolutely evrything about the way I percieved the world and those in it. I look at Bush and I am grateful I did and also humbly know I was beyond human help that was the real jolt for me.

[maxanne]

49. karma my ass

Please stop speaking to me like a very condescending version of Mr. Rogers.

I resent your assertion that I blamed my parents and did the same thing. Ever consider the fact that I didn't know my mother was a drunk when I started drinking at 14? I don't blame my parents - I did what I did and I take responsiblity for every single lousy choice I made. I don't blame it on karma either. :eyes: I did what I did.

Genetics set the trigger - it's as simple as that. We make the choices that pull the trigger.

Are you denying a genetic connnection?

[study_war_no_more]

57. If I had been born Beaver Cleever

I would have still been an addict after the first time I used. It was love at first site or bite as the case may be.

[smirkymonkey]

97. Not to mention...

that most alcoholics and addicts have suffered from severe abuse and/or neglect and there are many conclusive studies that have been done on how the addictive brain functions quite differently, in the presence of the substance one is addicted to, than the brain of someone who does not have such a predisposition.

Many alcoholics are self medicating due to any one of a number of psychological disorders (which have a genetic link as well), such as ADD, PTSD, Obsessive-Compulsive, Manic Depression, Depression, Schizophrenia, Hypersensitivity, etc., etc.

Life for them is simply much harder to cope with (unmedicated) than it is for a non-addicted person.

[study_war_no_more]

32. nature or nurture theories of the cause

what does it matter if your wagon is in the ditch get it out.

[auburn3130]

61. You live and die

with the choices you make, I shouldn't have pay for your personal mistakes through higher taxes.

[Khephra]

63. Great reasoning there

I pay taxes for education. I don't have any kids. I guess I should just refuse to pay taxes because you breed, you should pay for them on your own?

I shouldn't pay taxes that go to the police and firemen because they might end up helping someone who caused their accidents or tragedies?

I have a better pithy comment for you.

Uncaring, unfeeling fools post--I ignore.

[Bluecoller]

77. You live and die

auburn 3130
>>>I shouldn't have pay for your personal mistakes through higher taxes.<

BC
I shouldn't have pay higher taxes for the bloated military, we have to have, because of the congenital cowardice of right wing republicans. :shrug:


---=- IRAQ IS INNOCENT of 911---

-bush shit his pants on 911-

-------------- bluecoller-the grumpy old kraut ----:grr:

[maxanne]

16. if it were that easy

demdave - why are people dying? If it's as simple as putting down the bottle - why is anyone an alcoholic? Because we're weak, immoral people? Or because it's so much fun to be a drunk? Yeah, the prestige is awesome.

The American Psychiatric Association regards alcoholism as a disease, and so do most doctors. I would guess that they're better qualified to diagnose than you are.

[demdave]

25. Yes...because it that much fun.

You must mistake me for someone who has never held a bottle or a pipe. there is an immense draw to partake. WHY? Because it is fun. It makes the mundane fun.


Are these the same American Psychiatric Association that thought homosexuality was a mental disorder? You are talking about that one...right?

[study_war_no_more]

35. I used two decades after it was fun

although my addicted mind always thought this time i will get the thrill back which was pure insanity all I could achieve was amnesia of the self desructive cycle i was in. A disease of the mind the heart and of course bottom line the soul.

[smirkymonkey]

98. Sure it's fun for a non-alcoholic...

to get good and plastered every once in a while, but it seems as though, as a self-proclaimed non-alcoholic, you are assuming your experience of being able to put down the bottle when you've had enough is universal. It's not.

Imagine (for the sake of argument) that everytime you ate food, your life got worse and worse. So you would try to go without food as long as you could, but eventually the craving for it, and the ensuing obsession, would drive you mad and you would find yourself, half crazed, scarfing down anything remotely edible.

Now, I realize that one needs food to live (and one does not need alcohol to live, unless you are severely addicted - you can die from serious withdrawal) but the function of the mind and body in this situation is pretty much the same (anyone who has ever been on and off diets can understand this imperious urge). The urge to pick up the offending substance is truly insane, but more powerful than the rational mind. That is what it feels like to be an addict or alcoholic.

[Julien Sorel]

26. The world is a simple, beautiful place.

Thanks for pointing out how easy it is for these problems to be solved. Since you've figured this out, why not open your own clinic, and solve the problems of obesity, drug abuse, and all the rest? You don't need a license or any special training, just impart your wisdom to everyone who comes through your door, and watch as people blossom from the seed of your wisdom.

Homosexuality, as well: people aren't predisposed to homosexuality -- after all, all they have to do is stop being attracted to members of their own sex. It's their choice. They want to be members of one of the most discriminated classes of society.

About 9/10 times after reading your posts, I simply find your name insulting. I have never seen you take a single position that doesn't come straight out of right wing talking points. Pro-war, pro-death penalty, pro harsh penal codes -- you've got it all down.

[demdave]

29. Sorry ..I have my hands filled with my own demons

I never said it was easy...even with help it is soul wretching hard. All I am saying is that people are up to it. Sorry if you prefer to think of folks as poor, weak and unable to help themselves. I know otherwise. The enabled will always fail and the challenged will somtimes succeed. That is as good as it gets.

Homosexuality...must be your own demon. I have no problem with it. I know who I am and accept who others are. My religious views are just that...mine. I try not to hold others to them insofar as I am not held to theirs.

As for my opinions...yes, I have them down but with an intelligent arguement, I am open to debate.

[Julien Sorel]

33. Unfortunately, one of your demons seems to be a consistent

lack of empathy.


I'm going to go through your post for a bit, and show why 'intelligent argumentation' may not be your particular forte.


Sorry if you prefer to think of folks as poor, weak and unable to help themselves.

This is a straw man. No where in my post did I say or imply this.

The enabled will always fail and the challenged will somtimes succeed. That is as good as it gets.

This is opinion disguised as fact. That's not argumentation, intelligent or otherwise.

Homosexuality...must be your own demon.

Really? And where did you dredge up this bit? It was a weak attempt at a sly personal attack, but of course, failed to deal with the analogy I drew between homosexuality and drug abuse, compulsive eating, and so on. Perhaps, as someone who appreciates 'intelligent debate,' you're simply having a bad day.

I know who I am and accept who others are. My religious views are just that...mine. I try not to hold others to them insofar as I am not held to theirs.

Ramble ramble ramble.

As for my opinions...yes, I have them down but with an intelligent arguement, I am open to debate.

Perhaps if you hired a stand-in?

[Name removed]

41. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SOS]

53. Actually

You do not "cure" alcoholism by not drinking. You arrest the progression by not drinking. Bill Wilson, founder of AA, described alcoholism as a disease in 1935, long before insurance was an issue. The APA added it to the DSM in the 1970's. According to Michael Deaver, former Reagan staff member, alcohol kills about 400,000 people a year in the US. It costs the economy billions.
People can quibble over whether alcoholism is a disease or a disorder, but dead is dead. Addicts and alcoholics need places to go to get help.
That is not the case now. I applied for treatment in October of 1991 and received help in the Spring of 1992. That half year of waiting was the worst period of my life. I'm now 11 years sober and owe that in large part to a state-sponsored program. The withdrawal symptoms lasted for months (shaking, sweating, insomnia, nausea) and I don't think I could have done it without rehab and AA. Giving cash to alcoholics may be unwise, but the nation needs to recognize alcoholism and addiction as health, rather than moral, issues and help those who want to get well.

[SharonAnn]

64. Actually that doesn't "cure" it, any more than not eating candy

"cures" diabetes.

I'm a recovering alcoholic (almost 18 years) and was fortunate enough to get help while I was still employed so that the Employee Assistance Plan covered my treatment. I have a loving husband who supported me emotionally (a lot during the first couple of years), stepchildren who supported my efforts, and the comparative luxury of health insurance.

During my 18 years I have seen many women who have none of this and watched them struggle. Sexually abused as children, beaten as wives and girlfriends, no family/friends who weren't addicts/alcoholic, no place to live, and no job. Yet I have seen some of these women, with a little help, make it through the struggle, reunite with their children, become good parents and good employees. The key often was "with a little bit of help".

IMHO, anything that helps an addict/alcoholic recover is more productive and less expensive than not doing it. Should the SSI be linked to treatment? Maybe, there might be some semse to that. I'd want to hear from others about how that might work and whether it's a good idea.

[study_war_no_more]

31. Its also a disease that tells you you don't have it.

Now thays a mother for ya.

[Skittles]

24. you sound like a compassionate conservative

like them, you have no idea what you are talking about.

[DemBones DemBones]

73. I have lupus -- and no problem with addicts who qualify for SSD or

SSI getting help. Addiction is an illness that destroys people. I lost a sibling to alcoholism/ suicide.

[happyslug]

19. Or you perfer them to strave to death?

I represented Addicts prior to the changes in 1997. The test to get SSI was two fold, first the addict had to show he could NOT quit i.e. he HAD to drink or HAD to have the drugs. Second he had to be UNABLE to work do to the addiction. i.e. there were no jobs he can hold while using.

I lost cases on both grounds, the Social Security Adminstration (SSA) Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) would rule my client either could quit drinking OR could work while drinking. Thus the people getting benefits under these rules were addicts who could NOT find any other means of support.

Furthermore if an Addict did win, his money did NOT go to him but a "Representative Payee" who made sure the addict's rent and utilities were paid and the addict had food to eat. Most Representative Payees did NOT give the addict money for their addiction, just enough money for the addict to live on.

(For your information SSI pays in 2003 $555.00 per month. Some states supplement this by an additional amount for Example my home state of Pennsylvania adds another $27.40 for a total per month of $579.40).

If you read the above you will see we are talking of people who CAN NOT work. i.e. other than SSI they have NO SOURCE OF INCOME. What are they living on? Criminal activities? Yes, and that means your tax dollars are being spent to look for these addicts, and upon arrest to feed and clothe them in Jail (SSI at $555 per month is a LOT cheaper. remember the average prison inmate costs about $55,000 per year AND that still comes out of your taxes).

Another area where these people end up is the morgue. i.e. they strave themeselves to death, OR freeze to death or suffer from heat exhustion do to no housing, is that what you want? All of these also must be addressed by Taxes i.e. hospital care prior to death AND even the medical exam of the body after death. Your taxes pay for these activities also.

I am sorry, it is easy to say, "I do not want my taxes to support these people's addictions" but given their addictions and that we live in a urban society tax payers have to pay for them somehow. It may be through increase hospital care, increase costs of police, increase cost of insurance (both home owners do to increase crime AND hospital do to increase medical costs) and even increase cost of operating a car (Auto insurance often ends up paying for funnerels of addictions killee while sleeping in the streets).

I am sorry, a better solution was How SSA handled Addict's SSI. Someone other than the addict made sure the addict was housed and feed. It was and is cheaper than the above.

One last comment on treatment, treatment only works if the person being treated wants treatment. If the addict does not want treatment, the treatment will not work. Treatment only works when the addcit wants treatment. Until the addict wants treatment the best we can do is keep them alive until they want treatment. That is what SSI did prior to 1997 and if we willing wanted to help these addicts we would do the same today.

[demdave]

27. Show me one article where a drunk or junky starved to death

PLEASE...just one. I do not believe that even drug abuse overcomes our desire to live. I dare you to prove me wrong.

[Khephra]

38. Oh, well

I wouldn't want to try to disprove your "beliefs" as that's not something one can disprove. A belief as an opinion as to what is true and what isn't.

Some of us are talking from experience, but I guess your "beliefs" must be right and our experiences wrong. Thanks for the correction!

Sheeeeesh!

:crazy:

It's so nice to know that my life wasn't worth $500 a month to you, which, as pointed out elsewhere in this thread, I never saw as someone else was in control of the money for me.

[demdave]

44. I am asking anyone out there with "experience"

Show me where someone has starved to death because of a drug addiction as was stated above.

[Khephra]

48. Starved...no

Taken a shotgun/handgun to their head because they had no resources, no friends, no treatment, and no way out?

Yeah. I got a few friends like that. Next time you're in Indy I'll take you to their graves so you can tell them it's a matter of willpower.

[cap]

67. starved to death no... but death from gangerene...

due to exposure -- yes. My fiance's aunt was an alcoholic who was found dead in the snow.

[DemBones DemBones]

74. My brother blew his brains out because he was an alcoholic.

But you'll be happy to hear he was a functioning alcoholic who worked full-time from the age of 16 until his death at 42. His taxes paid for some other addicts to draw Social Security and maybe get well. I only wish he had realized how very sick he was and gotten the help he needed. But he was very independent, very responsible, and he's dead because he could not solve his addiction himself.

I suppose there are people who get government benefits under false pretenses but I don't think there are many of them and I'm damned sure they're not getting rich off SSD or SSI. Why not turn your attention to those who draw big bucks in corporate welfare rather than attack the little people who are down and out?

[smirkymonkey]

102. Oh Dear.....

Have you ever been to a major urban area?? This happens EVERY DAY!! They simply lose the ability to care for themselves, including feeding. Sure it's not in the headlines, by the time this happens, they have lost everything and nobody cares about them anymore. Just another John or Jane Doe, dead on the Bowery.

[demdave]

104. Prove it...I am tired of people claiming it without proof

You can say whatever you want but I asked for proof. Show me state health statistics that show cause of death. I realize people have starced themselves to death, Karen Carpenter, or being abused and denied food, like the vegan baby killer recently, but I am adressing the idea of someone starving because they could not afford food. I have thrown out a challenge...pick it up.


Major urban? Not 1 death by starvation in Ohio in the last 10 years, past that it is on microfilm and I didn't want to put the nice lady to any more work.

[smirkymonkey]

108. I briefly took some time to look up statistics....

however they are all listed as alcohol related deaths. It's not that they can't afford food, it is usually malnourishment or being in such a state of delerium that they are unable to function. The electrolyte balance get extremely out of whack and eventually the heart will stop beating. Don't tell me you can't see how a heroin or crystal meth addict can starve to death.

[cap]

110. and that is due to the fact that we are giving them $500/month

they can at least eat. Ergo no starvation. You have defeated your own argument.

Go look at the Third World. There are no social services there. It is a bleak existence.

[demdave]

112. It takes over 7 years to starve?

These funds were cut in 1996, Show me where there was a rise in the starvation deaths since then or you have defeated your own argument. Out of 170 THOUSAND people you mustbe able to find one, either that or you are just throwing around baseless facts. It has been 3 days and I still see no evidence.


Smirkymonkey meantioned malnourishment execerbating the effects of the real killer...alcohol or drugs.

[cap]

114. we are talking past each other...

I say that at least some of the $500 went for food ergo people didn't starve to death. Without the $500 some would have.

I have to ask again: is the Third World your aspiration? People don't get public assistance there.

[mantis49]

120. I didn't starve

to death, but I weighed 98 lbs when I quit drinking. My normal weight now is 125 lbs. I bruised easily and cuts or other injuries didn't heal normally. It took much longer than normal and I was prone to infections. All that was related to poor nutrition because I was drinking instead of eating.

I never drew SSI, but I did receive assistance from DORS in IL to get an education after I sobered up.


I don't think we have to "show you an article." Many of us on this thread have lived it and survived. We know where we were headed: DEATH.

[Forkboy]

28. How sympathetic of you

:eyes:

[cap]

69. I hope you are not against funding treatment centers

and mental health/rape crisis centers.

Many women's addiction derives from abuse -- physical or sexual -- or an untreated mental illness.

What's cheaper some counseling and psychiatric drugs or the damage that alcoholics do.

On the other hand, if having people on the streets is no problem to you -- I guess you think that the Third World is doing better than we are with our drunks and druggies. They certainly don't have no big government taking those people off the streets. They do have huge shanty towns. This is one of the reason why they have problems with communicable diseases that spread to the non-addicted portion of the population.

So in the interests of public health, I say keep 'em off the streets.

[demdave]

72. I have no problem with funding treatment centers.

I think this is a public service. I do have a problem with layering the administrative offices so heavily that they both hamstring the actual operation and siphon off the money before it can reach those who do the most good.

I think treatment should be free for everyone who asks for a helping hand. The other problem I have is with forced treatment. I think the good that is done is miniscule in relationship to the funds that are being diverted. I think it turns even well intentioned caregivers in to assembly line workers. This dovetails with my opposition to mandatory sentencing.


I think broken systems need to be fixed, not protected behind the mantra "if we can only help one person". If that is your defense I suspect you will only help 1 person and use the resources that could have helped many.


I find it interesting that in the article it is stated that treatment was mandatory to recieve to SSI but at the bottom is states that only 47 percent were recieving treatment but 100 percent got the check. That system was broken.

[cap]

93. mandatory treatment in exchange for SSI

is sometimes the only way to get people in the door for treatment.
Some form of intervention is sometimes the only way to get people to go in for treatment. One classic method is family and friends and bosses sitting down with the alcoholic and telling him he must go in for treatment. This is one way of "hitting bottom".

Addicts do need some firmness. The answer is not to cut off SSI for all addicts but to increase the number of people coming in for treatment. Maybe have the doctors hand out the checks.

If you don't think the system works, surely you must wish for increased funding for R&D for alcoholic/drug addiction treatment so that we can get better systems.

In the meantime, I must ask you do you want shantytowns? The drug addicts and alcoholics (there are millions of them) can live cut off from their relatives in cardboard boxes on the outskirts of towns like they do in India. Their children will suffer too because unfortunately these people breed. Communicable diseases like tuberculosis and AIDS are prevalent in these shantytowns and unfortunately spread to the rest of the population. What is your plan for disease control so that the rest of us -- hard working taxpayers don't get sick.

[cap]

94. mandatory treatment in exchange for SSI

is sometimes the only way to get people in the door for treatment.
Some form of intervention is sometimes the only way to get people to go in for treatment. One classic method is family and friends and bosses sitting down with the alcoholic and telling him he must go in for treatment. This is one way of "hitting bottom".

Addicts do need some firmness. The answer is not to cut off SSI for all addicts but to increase the number of people coming in for treatment. Maybe have the doctors hand out the checks.

If you don't think the system works, surely you must wish for increased funding for R&D for alcoholic/drug addiction treatment so that we can get better systems.

In the meantime, I must ask you do you want shantytowns? The drug addicts and alcoholics (there are millions of them) can live cut off from their relatives in cardboard boxes on the outskirts of towns like they do in India. Their children will suffer too because unfortunately these people breed. Communicable diseases like tuberculosis and AIDS are prevalent in these shantytowns and unfortunately spread to the rest of the population. What is your plan for disease control so that the rest of us -- hard working taxpayers don't get sick.

[xJlM]

5. Addiction is so much a part of our society...

You could almost call it an American condition of living. I do realise that there are worldwide fellowships for recovery from addiction (I'm a member of NA myself) and alcoholism, but I'll be goddamed if the government's going to put "addict" behind my name on any chart :)

[brook]

10. If they can't marginalize you...

they can't justify throwing you to the dogs. Puritanism isn't exactly dead. It's just *reborn*.

[study_war_no_more]

36. agreed we live in a feel good now society

and it is fiction. Getting high to deal with the lie. I had to come to grips with that and make of myself an Island of truth at least that is the direction I choose and I am human which of course is the hardest spiritual path anyone can take - just to be your ordinary self.

[SharonAnn]

65. Hmm, read "When Society Becomes an Addict" by

Anne Wilson Schaef.

You're right about our society, it's very much the addictive environment and culture.

She also wrote "The Addictive Organization" about organizations that function as addicts. Very interesting stuff.

[Porcupine]

17. Unfourtunately some even require supervised care/living.....

I have spent the past month cleaning up the house of an alcoholic woman who lost it about 12 years ago. Up till that time she was a succesful woman with a full life, a family, friends, a house, the entire American dream.

This poor woman suffered a series of setbacks that included a brain anuerism, her husbands death and a rape. She quit doing anything but drinking. Her house and property turned into a meth addicts hangout. As a result she ended up living in filth literally wading in cigarette butts and dogshit. We found evidence that her house started on fire twice but did not spread.

We removed four 30 yard dumpsters of garbage from a two bedroom house with a detatched office. She is in a new clean house now but there is no reason to believe she will change her habits without help.

Some people need a little more help than just cash.

[sal]

20. Kid's on SSI were thrown off in 1997

About 220,000 were reviewed by SSA and denied benefits. About 180,000 were eventually restored. SSA seemed mostly interested in kids with mental impairments because those with things like ADHD were ultimately the ones who lost. That means no more Medicaid. Even though many children returned to SSI, the interruption in benefits allowed the government to realize a significant savings in the program.

Later, in 2000, obesity was removed as a disability, and thousands of many others who rely on disability were cast off the rolls.

Next it will be smoking related illnesses. Already people with Hepatitis C report being under treated medically and socially stigmatized for a perceived life-style illness. Women with connective tissue disorders from faulty breast implants speak of such things as well.

First alcoholics and drug addicts with disabilities ("stop drinking!"), then children who are impaired by serious illnesses ("she just needs a good spanking!"), then people disabled from morbid obesity ("he eats too much and has poor self-control") are what they call a "dispised class" of individual who make easy targets for those in government who would oppress the weakest to pander vicious moron-americans. How cruel we are as a country?

Keph, the good people here will always give a brother a hand up. And you do now so well.

[happyslug]

21. Obesity

to meet it you had to be OVER 200% of your "Ideal" weight AND have medical documentations of a medical condition made worse by the weight (i.e. breathing restrictions by a breathing test, heart problems (supported by a treadmill tests) or X-ray evidence of Arthritis in a weight bearing joint). Note just being over weight was NOT enough, you had to also have a problem that prevented you from exercsing to control the weight.

As to Children's disability, prior to 1997 you still had to show the child was Substantially below a "normal child" of the child's own age i.e. more than two years behind for pre-teens and for teens almost impossible even under the pre-1997 rules.

In 1997 Congress restricted these already restricted rules to one that you have to meet or equal a "listing". A listing being a known disability that SSA had taken adminstrative notice of that restricts a child's development. It is still posible for children to get on SSI but very difficult.

[Khephra]

22. I have a lot of karma to deal with

that's for sure.

Thanks to everyone who posted on the side of understanding in this case.

:hi:

[Khephra]

40. For those who think that Addicts and Alcoholics only have a willpower

problem, then lets apply your solution to another problem:

Cancer-- well, no one should get any gov't funded treatment/healthcare if they ever smoked, even once.

Right? Lets be consistent here. It's a matter of willpower for smokers too.

(note: I don't believe this. I'm just making a point.)

[Maeve]

45. And depressed folks just need to cheer up

We need treatment facilities for the folks who need and WANT help--facilities that just aren't there for too many people who can't afford the costs. But the lack of sympathy for those who can't just overcome their "failings" consigns them to the scrapheap.

[Rose Siding]

50. It's a good point and I agree.

I'd sooner accept that addiction is a demon possession than a willpower problem. (I'm not buying that one either)

It's defeating to see that even some on a Dem/prog board are so insipidly uninformed and so puritanically self-righteous. Such attitudes are an impediment to an overall societal correction of a complex issue that touches us all to one degree or another.

[sallydallas124]

42. there needs to be something

I actually make decisions on disability cases for Social Security. I have had many cases where the claimant's primary or secondary condition was AODA. I'll tell you one thing, it sure feels crazy when it's entirely clear that one's substance abuse/dependence makes them completely unable to work but I have to deny them because technically they're capable of unskilled, routine, low stress work when they're not using. That's how the rules work, you have to cancel out the AODA and only look at other mental and physical impairments.

I do understand the risk of providing money that would only go towards furthuring one's addiction. However, there is a large population of people who are falling through the cracks. There needs to be something solid out there to help these people. There are plenty of rehab programs, transitional living situations, ect. but generally lack of funds dictates that these programs only last a limited amount of time. I've seen so many cases where someone goes through a month of rehab at say the VA and then falls right back into it afterward; many end up homeless or in jail. Frankly, I'd rather see people with AODA issues have some money than nothing at all. Ideally, it would be wonderful if this money were paired with some type of ongoing, long-term support. Maybe provide money under the condition that they receive help.

[Khephra]

43. Not only all that

But as anyone who has gone through treatment will tell you, you can't just walk into one of these treatment programs. The backlog is tremendous for most treatment centers. At one point it took me 6 months to get into rehab, and that was the shortest list I could find that I could afford.

[sallydallas124]

47. Definitely

I've talked to people who truly want help and are very frustrated with the hoops they have to jump through. I think the situation for poor addicts is quite dire. Our most effective treatment center shouldn't be prison.

[SharonAnn]

66. Prison isn't usually an effective treatment center

It usually doesn't provide any real "treatment".

There are a few exceptions, I've heard, but in general prison isn't effective for treatment of alcoholism/addiction.

[sallydallas124]

70. It's effective

in that one is forced into abstinence, thereby prison as a treatment. I don't doubt that prisons have pretty shoddy treatment programs and that a great number of people start to use again after release.

[Khephra]

75. I guess you've never known anyone in prison, have you?

I have, and they've told me that it's just as easy, sometimes easier, finding drugs in prison than when they were on the streets.

[study_war_no_more]

81. A great many people use while incarcerated

although I have never done time here i did mine in Italy and drugs were plentiful as was death rape and hopelessness. A group of AA'ers in Naples italy sent me letters and literture everyday I would not have survived without these people.

[maxanne]

52. right on Kef

I work in the education/treatment field - and my agency serves the 3 northern counties of NH, which is the top third of the state. We have exactly one 28 day treatment program, and one social detox/crisis center. No medical detox at all. We're in danger of losing funding for these programs, because our state is in a budget crisis. We have only the bare bones of social programs in NH - but even that is too much for the Republicans here.

It's even worse in other parts of the state. A coworker in the Concord area had a neighbor in big trouble with booze and drugs. She has kids - and finally decided she needed help. No one could find her a bed anywhere for a couple of weeks. She took an overdose of Tylenol when she was drunk. Tylenol and alcohol is extremely damaging to the liver at the best of times. In her case, it caused her liver to shut down. She was rushed to a hospital in Massachusetts, and she'll probably die. Treatment would have been the cheaper option, that's for sure.

Kef - thanks for sharing parts of your story with us. I drank/drugged from 14 to 34. I've been homeless and had my share of problems. My life has changed drastically - as yours has. You are a real power of example.

Thanks to all on this thread who understand substance abuse and the need for treatment. A judge in NH estimates that 80% of the incarcerated population in our state is there because of substance abuse. It seems clear to me that incarceration is a lousy form of treatment.

[rene moon]

55. The question is: why do people do drugs or drink their lives away?

I grew up with an alcoholic father and an enabling mother. Good parents but their marriage is so far gone now. I try really hard to feel sympathic for people with addiction but it's gotten to the point now that I just get extremely angry and frankly, don't care what happens.

People make excuses all the time for their behavior and I am sick of it. If this makes me an uncaring person well all I have to say is that from my experience, I am surprised I was tolerant this long. I guess I don't feel sorry for my Dad anymore nor can I tolerate being around drunk people.

What is wrong with our society that drive people to do this?

[study_war_no_more]

60. Al-anon is a wonderful program

Alcoholism not only infects the alcoholic it infects those around them. That is why you can catch this disease without ever picking up a drink. I offer this comment not because i want to be a smartass or to defend addicts, I say go to a meeting because you deserve to be happy joyous and free from this disease you caught through no fault of your own. That is my wish for you and I mean it!!!:loveya: :loveya: :loveya:

[maxanne]

62. it's not society rene

it's alcoholism. It destroys families - it destroys lives. You have every right to be angry. It's damned hard to be compassionate when it's hurting you. It's a devastating illness.

[NashVegas]

78. Minor Disagreement

A few posts above, there is mention of addicts needing full-time care. Once upon a time, there were people to take care of that, not sponsored by the government. We called them "family."

[maxanne]

87. actually

Crisco, if you read about what happened to alcoholics 70+ years ago, you'll find that many of them were institutionalized. Prison or insane asylums. Sure some families stuck by their drunks - just as some do today.

Your comment about "government sponsored care" sounds like something right out of the Handbook for Compassionate Conservatives. I am amazed by the lack of compassion shown here for the sick and suffering. Perhaps addicts without families should just be euthanized, in order to save the taxpayers some money.

[NashVegas]

88. Well That's a Start ..

j/k

More seriously, I grew up surrounded by the Serenity Prayer - on the walls, on the dashboard, over the bathroom sink, you name it.

This is not a conservative/liberal issue, to me. It's a common sense one. Addicts abuse people. They abuse generosity. They abuse compassion. Ask anyone who's ever had an addict for a roommate just how much of a bundle of joy that is. You want the government to budget for treatment, I've got no problem with that and I'd imagine few people would. But IMO, to add on disability checks IS a reward for being a drain on everyone around you.

[maxanne]

89. I was the bundle of joy

I know very well what alcoholics do to people. I was the jerk who sucked people dry.

It's evident that a lot of people DO have issues with treatment, because it isn't happening. My state ranks 47th in the nation for spending on education and treatment. Spending money on drunks is always one of the first things to get cut because of the societal insistance that alcoholism/addiction is a moral issue. We haven't had a president who really believed in treatment since Jerry Ford.

I'd rather see my tax dollars go to help some poor drunk keep a roof over their head than to pay for another Osprey. The drunk might actually sober up, and contribute to society. The Pentagon is likely to lose the money for the Osprey.

[study_war_no_more]

58. AA is not the only solution

But it is the only one (I know) that works and that I can teach to you. There is a solution. I have never actually met a hopeless addict or drunk but I sure met a stubborn twisted puppy beyond human hope in the mirror one morning.

[maxanne]

68. the right frames our arguments

The most disturbing part of this thread are those who are complaining about their tax dollars going to help addicts.

It sounds like the right complaining about liberals. We have allowed them to creep into our language, and defnine how we frame our arguments. This is infinitely disturbing.

I have always believed that the Democrats were the party of the people. To me - one part of this means helping others. Alcoholics, addicts, homeless people - these are all people who need a hand. Not all of them will want it. Not all of them will be successful. How can we deny them our help?

I would rather my tax dollars go to helping a human being any day, over the percentage of them that go to funding the bloated war machine.

I would also encourage all of us to think about how we make our arguments - and how much of our rhetoric is corrupted by right wing speak.

[study_war_no_more]

82. I think its the moral stigma

We would not be arguing if we were talking about leprosy although some will definitely treat addicts as lepers.

[smirkymonkey]

106. A good way to put it Maxanne...

If only we could pick and choose where our tax dollars were spent!! In a perfect world...What would really stun most people who are against additional funding for treatment and rehabilitation is how much alcoholism and drug addiction costs this nation everyday in numerous forms.

Something like 75% of people who are in prison are there due to something they did under the influence or for something drug and alcohol related. Accidents, sick days, disease, abuse, etc, etc. cost this country billions. If even a small fraction of people who use got sober, it would save much more than it would cost.

Of course, there is the humanitarian aspect as well.

[DemExpat]

71. I'd rather see help for addicts and alcoholics

in the form of food, shelter (under the condition that they undergo treatment, also provided) and not disability income.
Just giving them a paycheck to spend on their addictions with no conditions is not the answer, and society should not be asked to provide for this.IMO.

Also one speaking from personal experience....

DemEx

[Khephra]

76. But, as mentioned above

Most of the people who are on SSI for reasons such as this are usually given a person who gets the check in their name who then pays the bills and keeps hold of the money.

Not in every case, but in most of them.

[LiberalLibra]

79. What would be wrong with directing some of this rehabilitation money.....

....into "in-house treatment programs" and closely suvervised "out-patient programs"??? At least that way the drug addict or alcoholic could get treatment without having the funds in their hands to drink or use even more drugs.

[maxanne]

80. nothing wrong with that

LiberalLibra,

except that nothing much is being spent on treatment. My state ranks 47th in the nation in terms of funding treatment. It's been a long time since we believed in treatment - probably not since Ford was president.

Instead we point fingers at substance abusers, call them weak willed and immoral, and put them in jail or watch them die. The lucky ones will make it to treatment or AA.

[noiretextatique]

83. i am the payee for someone on ssi

i pay all her bills. the check comes to me, in my name for her. i setup a bank account for her, and i am the only signer on the account. she can't get any money unless i give it to her. after i pay her monthly bills, there is very little left.

my friend has epilepsy and some other physical problems, but she is also a recovering addict (cocaine). i've been her payee for several years and will likely continue to do so for several years to come, since she trusts me, and i don't trust most of her friends...well, at least not her old friends.

she went into a treatment center about three years ago, and she's been clean ever since...and she's invovled in her church. i've known this woman for almost twenty years, and she's more stable and grounded than she's ever been. i am very proud of how she's turned her life around...and i'm glad i could help her in the small ways i do.

[newyawker99]

85. I can't believe the lack of compassion expressed in this thread.

Not wanting to help those who are in need is disgusting. I applaud all of you who posted your stories and managed to conquer your demons. If I had a choice of where my tax dollars are spent.....on a bigger war machine or for helping those who need assistance, I would choose those who need assistance anytime. I hope some of you never get sick and loose your income. It is not a far journey to go from fully employed to homeless.

Scrooge: "Are there no prisons..are there no poor houses."

Disgusting! :puke:

[DemBones DemBones]

86. Thanks for posting this! I'm kicking the thread back up so others

will read your comments. I don't understand the lack of compassion, either. I think a freeper virus must have infected the brains of some DUers. So what if some of the money going to alcoholics and other addicts is wasted? Are they buying $500 hammers? $300 toilet seats? Enough said!

[newyawker99]

91. You are welcome DBDB!

A kick for compassion! :kick:

[ChillEB]

124. Plus... What do they do with the money 'we' give them?

They take the money and spend it immediately. They spend money at the grocery store, pay their utility bills, put gas in the car (maybe), and all along pay sales tax. The injection of these tax dollars straight onto the helps to drive the engine of our economy. Businesses make money, and people are put to work, often in poor neighborhoods that would absolutely slide into oblivion (every store in the neighborhood would go out of business) if it weren't for this government $$$ hitting the streets. If there are no businesses open, where is the addict who recovers going to work?

Truth is, MUCH of this SSI/SSD money ends up back in the governments hands, and whatever doesn't goes into the pockets of the people who sell them goods and services, like grocery stores and landlords.

It's easy to look at it as 'our' tax dollars being 'wasted', but if you trace the path of the money given to these people a little bit further down the line, you might just find it ends up right back in your pocket :)

[indigo32]

95. Amen NewYawker

We really have our priorities screwed up today, and we forget how easy it is to stumble.

[Porcupine]

90. A kick for those who didn't catch any compassion....

the first time around.

I spent the month of May in jail. I am about to spend the months of August and September in jail. I am the adult child of an alcoholic.

Although I am dry myself (always have been) I can say alcoholism has permanently scarred my family. I have also seen, in jail, men come in and detox with no "official" help. What happens is these hopeless cases that I had seen as homeless men turn in to caring, listening, helpful people.

The absolute truth is that the majority of what people go to doctors for, heart disease, diabetes and cancer included could be greatly diminished by a few simple lifestyle changes. I don't see any of these heartless people advocating not treating heart attacks because the patient is fat. Do we also leave accident victims by the side of the road if they don't drive Volvos?

American culture kills people; it makes millions more physically ill. It's a combination of genetics and environment. Part of the environment is the exploitation of people's weakness's for profit. Lack of compassion is not a road to anything but chaos and war. Or is that what we already have? We need to grow up.

[undergroundpanther]

92. it's a killer

I am not an addict.I am thankful; I never had the problem considering my father is alchoholic.But I am disabled.I have psychological issues.I was on disability, my whole life,because I am that messed up.When I was 18 the shrinks were telling my mom to lock me up and throw away the key.Thankfully she didn't listen to the"experts" that time.

And as I recovered,because of all the pressures these "conservative" ideas that infiltrate the helping"professions"..I tried to play their game..the one that amounts to pull yourself up by yer bootstraps. I gave into the pressures to "be somebody" coming in loud and clear from all the "help"programs right down to my own parents.
I was pressured to feel as if work or having a hubby who works is the only thing that gives a person self worth and joy in this culture,So I decided to try it and become a "Productive member of society" a "normal" and "prove" myself to all these "well meaning" yahoos saying in sugar coated hints and progress reveiws I was somehow flawed or less of a human being then they were because I wasen't"productive" enough.or part of a "self suffient" a nuclear family .

I really thought We could do a "normal" life.When someone came up to me and asked what I do(as opposed to who are you) I could say my job title(housewife because my hubby is doing well) and not feel put down.I tried ,and eventually I was as society deems a sucess,by proxy .I had a husband,a house a car.I was a housewife excused by my husbands toil from social disdain.We had an impressive income thanks to the tech bubble,All looked so stable on the outside of our house.But inside there was anger,tears,confusion,regrets fear and pain.The axe of unemployment hung heavy over us everyday.It hurt the only person I ever loved and drove him into dispair.I was there for him and his stress was my stress.And the stress of maintaining all this stuff,a house a car,and a false front of "normalicy" and the mortgage as my hubby's income was so unstable,our shelter and food, was in the hands of fly by night computer companies that were at the mercy of thier own corporate greed and the whims of bottom line millionaresand the grow or die social darwinism so pervasive in unequal societies. .It was too much to handle emotionally.

Depending on the "kindness" of the greedy and "sucessful" who could pick and choose who got money and who didn't, handing us a pink slips with no concern for us like we were expendable nothings,the minute they couldn't buy another yacht was too much injustice for me to cope with.The mortgage was crushing,the jobs dried up..my hair started falling out,I got excema..The stress was killing me literally.Privatization is nothing but looting of community resources.
I'd rather take a state check than depend on something as inhuman as a profit driven corporation.at least the state is REGULATED.

I thought alot of killing myself and everyone else around me..I was a disgruntled housewife angry at what the companies inflicted upon my husband.I wanted to help out,but who hires someone with no work record? Those days I knew I was losing it in this anguish of being'sucessful'and pretending it didn't hurt me.I saw the agony my hubby was going through and it made me so angry I hid it from him because he had enuff stress..Yet I had no insurance from his work,no psych benifiets,because the company was trying to save money(*laugh*)The Ceo wasen't hurting one bit BTW.He had insurance and a golden parachute ).I quit the charade sold the house,and moved in with my mom.Crushed.

Now I am so angry at humanity,and this culture I can't stand it. . In my situation I felt no self serving simpleton "normal" "compassionate(hah) conservative could understand what I was going through emotionally because they have never been tormented to the brink of death with mental illness and with ignorant people with no understanding of mental illness calling them moral failures and weak willed like a common school bully, only these 'bullies' are paid with state money and pretending to care and saying it in a way that*looks" like concern.They got quiet rooms and other means of cocercion to make you "suceed"..Well I took my willpower and tried to be like them and it almost killed me.
Now because I tried to play the work and achieve game this sick culture rams down everyone's throat from cradle to grave...

I am screwed.

Now, I am penalized,worse than ever for trying to play their sucess game, I got married but I got no insurance, no help with my problems now in return. At least on
Disability I could get anti depressants,I could cry my eyes out to a therapist hired to pretend to care.It isn't my fault that abusers who inflicted trauma on me at an early age(that society excuses) has fused or burnt in certain neural pathways in my brain that still effect me today.(thanks to father and the sacred lie that a father's home is his castle and children are property,school,bullies and church.)I never asked to be hurt and used as a kid by adults.

Trauma in childhood or war causes real brain damage.I just can't "snap out of it" or get over it".I still feel like dying, I panic,I get numb ,forget stuff and can't remember half of what I do during the day,I cannot sleep.My life sucks!

We have shelter and food because of my mom's kindness,I feel so grateful to her..Thankfully my father is dead,Or I could not live here.

So much for the American nightmare" of "sucess" .Sucess didn't help me at all.Marriage was a self destructive penalty.Fuck sucess and normal.It fucked me and my hubby over and made my life a deeper shade of hell. I did notice however having money was addictive,To destress and evade the truth of how bad playing the normal game hurt I spent time going out to eat, and buy stuff I didn't need,because my relationship with my hubby had deteriorated,and our life became a burden. It is true misery is profitable.And the more miserable,lonely,insecure and in pain we are the more we spend to escape the opression of life not quite lived..
Spending for us became an escape from the grinding lonliness,stress and dispair of"making it" in a cruel human made world with no heart or sanity.We had plenty of cool toys and no time to play with 'em.We had a house that was empty most of the day.We had a car to drive away from home and the mortgage and stress of losing work and getting a job from profiteering people who could care less if we lived or died and no time to take time to smell the roses.
We never took a honeymoon even because work demanded too much time,there was ALWAYS a problem,and demonstrations of"loyalty" from us.We got from them useless "stock options" that are worthless and we never complained because it would"offend".
I stopped this insanity when I realized I had started sawing into my flesh one night,I called my mom and I sold the house..And because we had to maintain a house this reality that things break and you have to prepare a house to sell it,led to a bit of debt.We have been more "responsible" than some people,It aint huge debt.it's piddly. But with nil income it might as well be a million dollars.Do credit companies care? Hell no they aren't human beings they are profit machines for the owners they just want money.They will try to get blood from a stone.

It's easy for some arrogant haughty people to go on shoving thier" might is right values" and social darwinism down the throats of the hurting,the poor,all the causualities of the dog eat dog culture these might makes right assholes espouse.They would love to wash thier hands of us,if they can't use us for profit or work ,they DO wish the death of the poor the sick and disabled.

Remember it was the mentally ill,the ones unable to work,the addicts,gays who were sent to die first when Nazis took control...They like Nazi's say crap like the mentally ill(gay,poor,transgender,unchristian ect.ect.) are weak willed moral failures.A very destructive delusion of the wealthy and arrogant.They scapegoat vunerable people so they will not be obligated for the sickness and traumas thier pretentious falsehoods wreck in the lives of the vunerable or different thier self absorbed beliefs cause.
Maybe it's all the "Normals"and thier might makes right mentality making society crazy.

The omnipresent"growth imperitive" of a for profit venture certainly knows no empathy,morality,compassion,limits or sanity.In the corporate world these things are"liabilities".It's these liabilities that are the hard truth of our painful collective human condition.We need each other's support to get through tough times and that includes material support,none of us asked for life.None of us chose where or to whom we were born,noone has chosen the limits we struggle under alone. But if you listen to Social darwinism you'd think it's ok to kill the poor,the sick you know the causualties of social darwinism,that show how UGLY of a lie it is..

How many people's story contains features like mine? It boggles the mind when you look at the statistics of addiction and mental illness in this country people are suffering.Right wingers and Ceo's could give a shit as long as they got thiers and can hide from the results of thier greed behind thier gated communities..
Fuck the American Dream it's such a deadly lie.

[cap]

96. undergroundpanther, peace be with you....

I sympathize...My grandmother went through something similar during the Great Depression. My grandfather was injured in a work accident -- solder flew into his eye. They took him up to Boston for an operation and the doctor operated on the wrong eye, leaving him totally blind. In those days, they didn't hire the blind. My grandmother was the sole support of the family. She worked in the textile mills in Pawtucket, RI. The mills were closing and moving South for cheap labor (sounds familiar to today's IT doesn't it????). She kept trying to keep the family together to the point that she was starving herself so that the kids could eat. She got sick and lost her job. The strain was too much on her and she was institutionalized for a "nervous breakdown" -- you had to be pretty far out there in those days to get into a mental ward at state expense. She was raped and beaten in the institution (their version of "tough love") and given electroshock treatments.

When her sons got old enough to work, they got jobs and petitioned the state to let their mother live with them. Her life did change and she led a good life and was beloved by many people for her good heartedness.

Just remember, there is more to life than a job. Reach out and find it for yourself. My family loved classical music and literature...that has sustained them.

Don't give in to the negativity in our culture. You can cultivate things that are not expensive that give you joy.

Remember the movie, "Life is Beautiful" where a concentration camp inmate found goodness even in that hellhole. Find the beauty in life and hold on tight to it.

[undergroundpanther]

103. Thanks Cap.

maybe when enough people are hurt by this culture we will stop doing the same old "solutions". Either it'sa game in some form for the state be a mommy or it's pull yourself up by yer bootstraps.Neither approach is realistic OR honest.Our culture oour society is built on LOOTING. Looting by a few from the many who need too.

When "conduct disordered" people set the norms of conduct and ethical behavior for society those of us with genuine character who can stand outside of the norms and see the dangers of them will be seen as the disordered ones and we will be scapegoated lest we help other people see through the game.

Life has played out this way too often in this world,because bullies and thieves are dominating human cultures .It has happened this way personally as well, especially when I stand up against some arrogant yahoo and call him wrong for stifling human compassion,ethics,freedom ,respect and civility,for those less able to defend themselves from those who would exploit thier ignorance,trust, confusion, misery and kindness.
The viciousness I get in reply from some arrogant people to just doing what my heart demands of me so I can live with myself is mind boggling.

To be cared for,you gotta care for who cares for you back in the way you can, anything else is greed and looting.Money isn't as important as quality of life when none of us asked to be here and we all suffer.(in various degrees and ways of course) This existance could stop at any momentand all the wealth in the world cannot love you.That's why it's important to care.We all need each other no matter how much we like to pretend we could do better without certain people in the way.

[noiretextatique]

105. we do all need each other

i have suffered from depression all my life. i am sure there is a physiological/biochemical component to my problem, but after years of therapy, i have also come to understand it is partly a learned response. i learned this response as a child...it was a way to escape from a toxic family situation i didn't have the skills to handle. my i was younger, i experienced the kind of depressive bouts that completely immobilized me...i would literally stay in bed for months. i tried anti-depressants, but i could never really tolerate them physically. since i tend to process intellectually, what really helped me was study...the study of how i can to be the way i am.

as i began to understand the part of my depression that was a learned response, i began to feel more in control and realize there were some things i could do to unlearn what i learned, and replace those old thought patterns with new ones that more beneficial. i never really understood the concept of "happiness" until i began study it. i know that may sound strange, but since i carried around so much anger and sadness, it always seemed to color even the experience of happiness.

people have told me that i just need to "get over" it, but i have come to understand that what i really need to do is to learn to LIVE with it...and boy, that sometimes takes more energy and strength than i can muster. but, i have been fortunate to find support in some healing communities and with some family members. and i've also learned that my family environment is STILL a trigger for me...and i'm still learning how to manage that.

i was so moved by your story, and others i thought i'd share mine. i believe our purpose on this earth is to help each other live and to better each others lives. i support any and all efforts with MY tax dollars to do so. what i do not support is callous selfishnish, greed, destruction and inhumanity...or the kind that seems so commonplace these days. i would never begrudge one cent given to support people...i think that should the main purpose of government. for me, it is the main purpose of my life.

this culture is toxic...and it is becoming more and more so as we speak. we are inextricably interconnected, so that if there is pain and suffering anywhere, there is pain and suffering everywhere. it is inhuman not to feel empathy and compassion towards our fellow human beings, no matter what mistakes they have made, not matter what their circumstances. perhaps it takes having faced and lived adversity to understand this.

[study_war_no_more]

121. just to add to what you said

I also examined my reaction to depression and its value as a writer much of the impetus to write was to state what my depression was. A actual pretty sane reaction to living in a country I love and is sliding down the tubes. What love and beauty and what worlds I find in each grain of sand has its opposit side of the coin the Neomorlocks who know not the self acceptance to treat others as equals. Anyway my point is since I was depressed I have learned not to hide it but to value its signals as my soul telling me to pay attention and love this world more fiercely. Knowing norietblu to be a very accomplished artist it prompted me to share this.
Mitakuye Oyasin- we are all related!!

[cap]

111. keep on plugging...

these times are a true test of moral character. Yes, character does matter; but not when it is a hollow shibboleth used to mask hypocrisy and cruelty.

One of the people at Mom's eulogy described her as a person who had tremendous moral clarity and stood up for what she thought was right even when she was the only person to do so.

It is not easy. But keep on truckin' and over time people do notice these things, surprisingly. There are people around who do see this in you.

Your parents or someone in your environment instilled true moral values in you. They just didn't tell you how hard it is to live up to them :) !!!!!!

But I think times will change. I do believe in an innate force of goodness in the world that will triumph over the evil surrounding us.

Ya gotta believe.... they didn't say that without a reason!!!

[DemBones DemBones]

113. Your story is one that people need to hear. One of many, I should

add, as most "normal" people are clueless about the straits the disabled / addicts/ mentally ill find themselves in.

I want to focus attention on one thing you said:

"None of us chose where or to whom we were born,noone has chosen the limits we struggle under alone."

When I was in grad school twenty years ago, taking an educational psychology class, the prof had us all do a test that indicated whether we had internal or external "locus of control" (i.e. did we think we controlled out lives or did we think others controlled our lives?) Being achievers who had graduated from college (actually, I already had a master's degree in biology) and were now grad students, we all scored high on internal locus of control. We all agreed that we had made our own way in the world, that we hadn't relied on luck. No doubt some would have extended this to say "Anyone can succeed," but, speaking for myself, I did not think this was the case. In taking the "test." I was reflecting on my own experiences in working hard to get what I wanted and on hurdles I had overcome.

A British student in the class disagreed. He challenged us: "Aren't you lucky that you weren't born in the slums of Calcutta?" And he was right.

I still believe in working hard and "making your own luck," up to a point, but the Brit made me realize it is important to reflect on luck in a cosmic sense. I have the bad luck to be disabled now, with chronic pain, but I'm still lucky not to be living in the slums of Calcutta. I'm also lucky that I'm the one of four children in my family who has never had a problem with substance abuse. At least, it's my belief, based on observation, that substance abuse can screw up your life worse than physical illness.

If it's any consolation to the alcoholics and other addicts here, I will say that having an illness (lupus) that is not visually obvious (i.e. I don't "look sick") and is not well-understood has many frustrations akin to yours. There are plenty of people who make comments suggesting that they think I could pull myself up by my own bootstraps if I tried, plenty of people who don't seem to "get it" that I am sick and that "chronic illness" means it doesn't go away, plenty of people who think I would do better if I quit taking all my medications. All in all, I think people are just not very empathic.

[noiretextatique]

101. my nephew has spent most of the past 8 years in prison

his crime? he is mentally ill. his first brush with the law happened when he was sixteen and he took his grandfather's car without pemission. though his grandfather did not press charges, apparently my nephew, in his delusion, threatened a police officer. he claimed to be in a gang (laughable, since he's been in private schools and pampered his entire life) but since he is a big, black man...he was charged with "making a terrorist threat." it didn't matter that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and suffers from delusions of granduer.
so...he was sentenced. and of course, since there is no real treatment for his condition in prison, he kept getting into trouble, which added more and more time to his sentence. once he was released, he voluntarily sought help. he was in one of psychotic episodes, and apparently threatened the staff...with a broom. the called the police...back to jail. it's just heartbreaking...where in the fuck can he get help, if not in a mental hospital?!?!
we have contacted everyone fron the ACLU to the state prision authorities...no one is willing to do anything. he's just a statistic.
he's going to be released in august. he is now fully institutionalized, and god only knows what has happened to him in prison these past eight years. he will be eligible for ssi because of his diagnosis but i'm so afraid that he will just slip through the cracks...again.
i an helping my sister find some programs that can help him, and of course, the family will do what we can.

[DemExpat]

99. I agree that everyone needs a safety net.....

and I have lived in a culture which provides just that. But after many years of this social 'experiment', the negative effects of "too much welfare" are becoming apparent to me. People DO become dependent on the state, and are therefore 'doomed' to a kind of underclass position. It stifles initiative in many people, and causes resentment of the 'normal' workers who have to pay for all of this welfare with extremely high taxes.

I don't know what the answer is.

I enjoy living in a country with a safety net....for me and my family members if we should ever need it, and for the relative social stability of not having extreme poverty and the resultant social problems to painfully be aware of around you, as in the States.

But I also have been following the political and social effects of an extensive welfare system for over 20 years, and definitely see negatives. (The abuses, the dependency, the entitlement...super high taxes, etc.) With globalization, the European Union, and all that stuff, it will be hard to sustain this type of government.

What I would love to see is this safety net with incentives to get out of it again, and perhaps to ask of each person receiving welfare to do something for society in return.....there is so much 'work' to do out there that doesn't get done because there are no people to do it....or who want to do it. Nursing homes are in dire straits for lack of people to help with the patients.....while there are high numbers of unemployed receiving benefits who don't want to work.......

Even those on disability could do something valuable for society IMO, and it would be a good thing to not have people feel entitled to money without 'earning' it in some way.
Even alcoholics and addicts.

Just my view of this issue from another culture.

DemEx

[study_war_no_more]

100. welfare is a lie

lets see twenty years of study so you started to look at this in the eighties. Well jump back another twenty years to the sixties when white flight from the cities was in full swing and the jobs went out to the suburban rings. I would recommend a movie called (medium cool)for a fast history check. LBJ was the only President in recent history to attack the welfare situation head on not by slashing funds but by offering job training (what a concept huh!) but conservatives put an end to that very quickly with compassionate arguements such as yours. There are so assumptions based on misinformation or lack of education about this issue that I can only urge you to really do some digging for the roots of welfare in our system as for europe and their free medical and educational opportunities wow what a welcome change that would be for over half of Americans instead of serving in poverty a inflated military budget that oppresses people in the world just like themselves. Please do yourself a favor and do some research.

[DemExpat]

122. We have very high taxes here for our benefits

my husband's are almost 50% of his salary.....
Don't think Americans would go for that.


and no fear of a huge military budget like in the US. I also cannot fathom the justification of the billions of dollars going to war at the cost of medical, housing, and educational aims of people at home.

The free medical system here is in big trouble now, going under from the bureaucratic waste and over-regulation, and education is not as free as it was 10 years ago.

My older brother in Texas has had 20 years of decent disbility and welfare benefits. He is getting into big trouble now because of cutbacks, but he also admits that he has been too complacent in expecting this continued help.

Boundless compassion is virtuous, but a balance of compassion and self-responsibility is needed.

Just my observations as someone with a foot in each culture.

DemEx

[cap]

109. but I don't think America offers that much of a safety net...

Your argument leads to the conclusion that Europe and Japan must have a bigger problem than we do... lots more ingrates living the life of Riley on all those benefits... right? You are happy to be living in one of these countries so that you can take advantage of these services because you believe that you are worthy to receive them. You criticize Americans who recieve these services because they are not worthy to receive them.

Also the nature of the problem has changed because of Clinton's welfare reform. But where are those welfare mothers these days???? Where are those able bodied ingrates? I just don't see them. In Montgomery County, MD, teachers are noticing a really weird phenomenon: there are kids arriving to start school in kindergarten who don't know how to talk! They are just grunting. They don't know how to do the basic things that a five year old knows how to do. They are like animals. The parents have been working 2 jobs each and aren't at home enough to interact with the kid -- or they are just too tired. The teachers are really worried because these kids can never really catch up. Linguistic skills have to be acquired at an early age... these kids are graduating from high school and are hardly able to communicate -- they are on the level of the mentally retarded, but they aren't retarded. They will be somebody's slave because they can't communicate well enough to defend themselves.

Read about Welfare reform, we are down to the hard core unemployable, now. The drug addicts, mentally ill, and alcoholics. Plus we are cutting the supports for these people. Look at the unemployment figures. There are good decent people who can't get jobs. They need help -- and yes, that means welfare.

I really don't find Mississippi or TX to be model places to aspire to. Low taxes, low services. Their life style, educational system and services aren't attractive.

I just don't see the shanty towns of the Mississippi delta or the Third World as something to aspire to. There are a millions of people with a substance abuse problem. Creating shanty towns is not the way to go. They are a public health hazard. When they do disease control in the Third World, they eradicate these slums. This is so the healthy population doesn't catch the diseases running rampart there.

My sister's family is a potential candidate for welfare. She has an autistic child. Max MAY go to college if he receives the appropriate intervention RIGHT NOW. He may not. If he can't be helped, he will be living with her or one of us until he dies. His intervention costs $60K/year. We can not afford that on our personal savings. If her marriage were to fall apart, she could not work. An autistic child is tremendously demanding. She only works 10-15 hours/week as it is. Her husband doesn't make a lot of money and couldn't afford too much in child support to afford much child care. So we hope they can make it together. They have a very hard life with that kid.

We must reorient our priorities so that we can compete effectively in the global market without a race to the bottom. But part of our priorities must be taking care of the OWS -- old, weak and sick. It is truly an abominable future you are posing: a Darwinian survival of the fittest. Unfortunately, as our posters are saying it is not a survival of the noblest, just the strongest and the least moral.

The truly sad thing is that a lot of addiction is from untreated mental illness. We are choosing not to fund welfare systems that take care of them. A certain amount of crime is from sick people who need help. Schizophrenics and Manic Depressives often have violent components to their illness. It is just sad. More and more research is showing that these illnesses derive from chemical imbalances in the brain that can be treated with appropriate medication and therapy.

One of the posters is complaining about "Normal" people. I don't find these people to be "Normal" -- they are dark abberrations who have lied and cheated their way to the top. They may even be criminals (if the law was applied fairly). I think she may have less problems than what she thinks she has. She is just in a bad society. Society doesn't work for minorities and women in this country. Why are all the senior positions in the companies occupied by white males?????

I went back and read the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Plath had a nervous breakdown trying to come to grips with the American dream for the 1950's woman. Plath was an unusually sensitive woman who couldn't face the society that she was confronted with. Who was wrong? Plath or 1950's American Female culture? She was overwelmed. Fortunately, she had a family who could give her the health care she needed. Many people do not.

Remember, the 60's came about because people were having problems coming to grips with the society as it was. There is a lot in our culture that is fundamentally wrong and needs to be changed. We can do it.

Go see the movie "Gangs of New York" if you want to see the misery that people lived in when there was no social system in this country. Go look at Jacob Riis photographs for life in the tenement at the turn of the century. This is the face of no social services. It is so bleak I could have a mental illness just thinking about life in these conditions. We need to have a documentary photographer to take pictures of life under the Bush regime so that we never forget the cruelty of man to his fellow beings.

[Porcupine]

115. Shades of Johny Mnenomic- Our Tech culture is killing us....

Sometime in the last year or two I remember reading an article about how immigrants to the U.S. suffer less depression than the people living here already. There were several odd statistical facts.

The longer immigrants live in the U.S. the greater their rate of suffering from depression.

Recent immigrants had a greater rate of reported depression than their cohorts in their home country.

The children of immigrants report a greater rate of depression than the population as a whole.

The study's conclusion was that there was some unknown factor of U.S. culture or environment that CAUSES OR TRIGGERS depression and other mental illness.

Welcome to the United States. It sucks.

[cap]

116. current science fictions shows illustrate a dark side

they aren't optimistic. They tend to be these very dark battles. Unlike Cpt. Kirk who boldly went where no man has gone before. Star Trek and earlier science fiction had a premise of discovery of new and better worlds. Lost in Space was about a happy family in space who had an optimistic view that they would be found.

Nowadays science fiction is dark, combative, and violent. Oh yeah, add in gratuitous sex.

Makes me think of the artist Bosch. Bosch was an artist at the end of the medieval age. Very surreal, sinister, violent imagery.

He also did the Ship of Fools.

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/bosch/

[undergroundpanther]

119. to cap

Cap, I cry my eyes out.I worry about people that I know are good people but are tormented inside and treated like dregs because they suffer at the crap those who have no empathy do.
For the top 1% of society to feel powerful enough to exploit,loot manipulate,bully and lie to the majority of us ,the majority had to learn how to tolerate abuses,excuse lack of integrity,to practice cowardice and complicity with corruption and give into vicrious sadism coming out of heartless people they give thier to trust to .When trust becomes cheap the con man and bully can do anything they want..This is SICK.We are a race of traumatized people who identify with the bullies that make this world into a social darwinist nightmare! Only a sociopath could enjoy a game like this.

It's like we got a case of stockholm syndrome that effects the entire human species. We identify with bullies loudmouths and exploiters way to often.We evade the truth of the human condition in favor of fantasy, hubris and ego stroking.It breaks my heart.Soon our collective lack of integrity honesty,and backbone that gives tolerance of the bully within and without will destroy everything that could have made this earth beautiful wonder to be participating in. I am ashamed to be a human.

[cap]

125. don't despair

try not to take malice personally...

Just realize there are a lot of people caught up in the disfunction. A lot of managers don't know how to behave otherwise -- or are not given leeway to act in the way they should.

[DemExpat]

123. Mental illness will only grow in our 'evolving' world....

The costs of a welfare state are exploding, taxes are very high, and it seems like problems of people are growing too, the number of people with problems is growing.......can any 'state' be expected to take care of it all? How? And if so, is this desirable?

So what is the answer? I don't know. An ideal mix of compassionate welfare benefits mixed with big incentives for self-responsibility (treatment, training, education)?????

Perhaps Europe will develop a better system as an example for all if it can curb the excesses and abuses and stimulate real self-development and contribution to society of its citizens.

DemEx

[stumblnrose]

117. Stop whining

Be all you can be, just like Dubya. Get a job, the presidency for example, and do cocaine in the privacy of the Oval Office.

[Porcupine]

118. Yah, and loot the California treasury.....

anyone can do it really. It happens all the time.