No, I don’t think I’ll stop commenting here.
I have plenty of experience with addiction, I’ve had it in my family and I am sure I am susceptible myself. Everyone has an excuse, and “suggested” genetics is a handy one.
Everyone who wants to duck responsibility has an excuse.
My dad was a lifelong alcoholic who got sober in the last years of his life, and dedicated a good part of his remaining life to helping others. It was a family intervention that helped him. He went to and ran AA meetings, sometimes as many as four a week for the rest of his life.
Not once, ever, for any reason, did my dad EVER blame anyone other than himself for his addiction. Never. And I respect him more than anyone else, and that is one reason. He was always an advocate of personal responsibility, and instilled that in us.
And my dad, who spent the last 15 years of his life among addicts of all kinds up to four nights a week, providing jobs for many of them at home if he couldn’t find one for them where he worked, knew what he was talking about even if he didn’t have some piece of crap degree from some piece of crap researcher that said people can’t help themselves and have no responsibility for their actions.
Perhaps you didn’t read my post. I’ll summarize it again for you: I sympathize with addicts and believe we should help them. But I detest people who say it isn’t the addict’s fault.
A person may have been dealt a bad hand, genetically, personally, or economically, but a lot of people are, and they don’t become addicts.
Awesome that you’ve changed your tone once someone called you out on it. Your first post was cold-hearted and mean. Now you’ve softened your stance and explained your personal experience. Sad that you had to deal with addiction, I have had to also. But I have a seriously different viewpoint. Once addicts take that first drink/shot/pill, their brain makes it very hard for them to make any appropriate choice (<- that is the kicker right there).
I have no compassion for anyone on this thread telling me an addict has a choice. For goodness sake, many can’t even take a Tylenol 3 without serious consequences. Without absolute surety (because science hasn’t created a easy home test <- makes it hard to choose), many can not take a prescribed medicine (opiod or a psychotropic drug) or a drink without potential consequences of awakening the addiction. And then it’s over.
You should avoid using the word “choice”, it really isn’t one.