Culture needs to stop blaming the addict for one simple reason: it doesn't work!
And here's why -
1. It's not the addict's fault
Many people must learn the definition of addiction in order to learn why the addict should not be blamed. Addiction is a psychological dependency. Anyone can be addicted to anything that makes us feel good - from social media, music, or even food. Most of culture is addicted to something. Our love for technology has fastened an unhealthy attachment to cell phone usage. When our supercomputer of a phone isn't in its usual place of our front pocket, we panic.
Everyone looks for something in life to make them feel good and alive. Something to escape the dread of separation, of consciousness. All humans fear death and have anxiety, but the way in which everyone copes is not the same.
(The video below sums up many of the arguments made in this article.)
2. Culture
People are influenced by their friends, home-life, and culture. If drugs are apart of one's neighborhood and more readily available, then there are higher probabilities of trying them. Lower-income neighborhoods are more prone to have a larger amount of drug dealers, yes, but that does not mean that it is their fault whatsoever. Impoverished neighborhoods have less business, jobs, and opportunities for teenagers and young adults to be occupied and off the streets.
3. Drug Abuse Doesn't Discriminate
All people are the same at our core. It is culture that shapes us, making us different. Drug abuse, however, does not discriminate. It doesn't matter what ethnicity someone is. Anyone can become addicted. There are those who have more addictive personalities, but that has to do with one's upbringing.
The fact is that ethnicity and race do not directly correlate to drug abuse. It is one's social class and culture that determines and aligns with usage rate. The racial disparity when it comes to drug use has become so colluded in America that stereotype has taken over. A study by the Huffington Post elucidates the whole racial controversy, showing that no ethnicity is better or more chaste than another.
3. Help Others, Don't Ostracize
The war on drugs has been a joke, a sham. America places addicts in prison, blaming and shaming them until they reach a spiritual awakening and chance their life for the better. That is not how rehabilitation works, though. Addicts should not be treated like criminals because they are not. They are victims to culture. You could be just like the heroin addict who lives down the street if you were given his circumstances in life. No man is better than another just because of the cards he was dealt.
We are all brethren made of the same stardust. Humanity should be helping one another instead of banishing those who need help into the dark.
4. Opioid Abuse is a Real Epidemic
The heroin addict who lives down the street is not much different from the old lady who is hooked on her prescription pain killers. Addiction is addiction, plain and simple. In fact, both are opiates made from the same plant. There is an epidemic on our hands, though. Opioids could kill up to 500,000 people in the next decade.
Pain killers are being prescribed at an alarming rate and it is proving fatal. The epidemic is simply out of control. Big pharmaceutical companies have become the real drug dealers of America. At the same time, prisons remain nothing but the privatized businesses that they are.
5. Physical Addiction is PHYSICAL
People who judge need to understand one thing: It only takes one try to become addicted to heroin or other hard drugs. When a new chromosome is introduced into the body, it is hard to just kick it cold turkey. The same concept applies to painkillers and other narcotics and drugs.
Physical addiction changes the chemicals in the mind and changes who a person is. Simple will power that people brag about is much harder to come by. Physical addictions also work hand-in-hand with psychological addictions, too - and especially because humans naturally function through routine. If something is ingrained into our fabric, it does not easily come out.
Addiction is so real that even with pain killers, 1 in 5 people become addicted after using a ten-day supply.
In conclusion, do not blame, shame, berate, or ostracize drug addicts as you are no better than them. Everyone wants to feel loved in life. We're all the same.
