Editor,
Re: Canada's top court says B.C. can sue opioid providers for health-care costs on behalf of other governments
Drug addiction clings to and mentally debilitates a substance abuser.
Societally neglecting, rejecting and therefore failing people struggling with crippling addiction should never be an acceptable or preferable political, economic or religious/morality option. They definitely should not be consciously or subconsciously perceived by sober society as somehow being disposable.
Too often the worth(lessness) of the substance abuser is measured basically by their "productivity" or lack thereof. They may then begin perceiving themselves as worthless and accordingly live and self-medicate their daily lives more haphazardly.
But, even with all we know today about addiction, addicts are still seen by many (supposedly) sober people as simply being products of weak willpower and/or moral crime.
At the same time, pharmaceutical corporations have intentionally pushed their own very addictive and profitable opiate resulting in immense suffering and overdose death numbers 鈥� the real moral crime 鈥� and got off relatively lightly and only through civil litigation.
Although always sympathetic, decades ago I'd also look down on those who had "allowed" themselves to become heavily addicted to hard drugs or alcohol; yet, I myself have suffered enough unrelenting PTSD symptoms to have known, enjoyed and appreciated the great release upon consuming alcohol or THC.
The unfortunate fact is: the greater the induced euphoria or escape one attains from the self-medicated experience, the more one wants to repeat the experience; and the more intolerable one finds their non-self-medicating reality, the more pleasurable that escape will likely be perceived. In other words: the greater one鈥檚 mental pain or trauma while not self-medicating, the greater the need for escape from one's reality, thus the more addictive the euphoric escape-form will likely be.
Especially when the substance abuse is due to past formidable mental trauma, the lasting solitarily-suffered turmoil can readily make each day an ordeal unless the traumatized mind is medicated. Not surprising, many chronically addicted people won鈥檛 miss this world if they never wake up.
Meanwhile, most people, including me, self-medicate in some form or another (besides caffeine), albeit it鈥檚 more or less "under control."
And there are various forms of self-medicating, from the relatively mild to the dangerously extreme, that include non-intoxicant-consumption habits, like chronic shopping/buying, gambling, or over-eating. With food, the vast majority of obese people who considerably over-eat likely do so to mask mental pain or even PTSD symptoms.
I utilized that method myself during much of my pre-teen years, and even later in life after ceasing my (ab)use of cannabis or alcohol. Though I don鈥檛 take it lightly, it鈥檚 possible that someday I could instead return to over-eating.
Frank Sterle Jr., White Rock
