RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman

I think that would be a fair guess. Or else they underestimate them or do not grasp the nature of physical addiction/chemical dependence.

 

Insomuch as a lot of addicts don't believe they're actually addicted, you're right.

But no one does it because they think it's good for them. They know it's unhealthy.

They know the horror stories about withdrawal. They just think it doesn't apply to them.

 

Dick, have you ever had a beer?

 

For a very long time, nobody thought cocaine was addictive or harmful.

Also, prescription painkillers are at the root of this, and those come with a doctor's blessing so how can they be bad?

 

Do you consider your use of this site behaviorally addictive, Dick?

 

Yeah, doctors would never lead us astray.

 

I think in many cases, it is the latter. They just don't realize how powerful the addiction will be. They assume they are too strong to fall victim to it.

It also depends on what addiction we are talking to. How old are people the first time they try heroin or cocaine? I honestly don't know. Something like tobacco? They tend to start VERY young. My father was 12 when he smoked his first cigarette and 52 or 53 when he smoked his last (not long before he died from lung cancer). My brother was 12 or 13 when he started and I don't think either of them was that far off from the norm. In my father's case, it was so long ago that he didn't really know how bad they were for him. My brother didn't have that excuse, but no way in hell was he old enough to truly grasp what he was getting into.

 

To answer the glass house questions:

Yes, I have failings.

Many failings.

 

Some people are addicted to posting here.

Has this been mentioned yet?

 

I'm not saying that addiction is necessarily a disease and a moral failing. I'm just saying it can be both. I think it's silly semantics to try to tag it all of one or all of the other.

Bottom line: Chemical dependence is real. It's serious shit. And people caught in its grip, as fellow humans, deserve our sympathy and our assistance, not our judgment.

 

... in 700 words.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/700-words-that-explain-exactly-what-it-feels-like-to-do-hero

 

Now here's an interesting tangent -- David Bar Katz, the playwright and friend who found Hoffman, sues the National Enquirer for $50 million over its story that the two were lovers and that he had seen Hoffman doing drugs. Weirdly enough, the article said that info came from an interview with Katz.

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=850951