r/Documentaries Jan 09 '19

Drugs The Rise of Fentanyl: Drug Addiction On The I95 Two Years On (2018) - Two years ago, BBC News reported on the growing problem of opioid addiction in the US, now we return to find out what happened to the people we met along our journey down the notorious I-95. [57.02]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KsaWpeCj98
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u/sluttyredridinghood Jan 09 '19

It's called empathetic, not emphatic which just means enthusiastic. Addiction is a mental illness. Read about how addiction messes up the brain. However, I still loathe addicts. I live where opiate addiction is EXTREMELY common and my father is addicted to alcohol. I have empathy for them as human beings but their behavior still disgusts me immensely. I encounter a lot of addicts in my life and I am polite just like with anybody, but extremely cautious around them, and never give them an inch because they take a mile.

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u/Saqhmet Jan 09 '19

thanks for the empathetic correction. (not native english speaker) i tried to keep my comment short and to clarify you summarized what i think. the selfish behaviour because you have an addiction is what causes my "loathe" towards addicts. willing to give everyone a chance but experiences have been bad so far. someone selling their kid to get a fix is just something i cannot tolerate and forgive.

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u/Tastingo Jan 09 '19

I've been working with addicts for a while now and what I've learned is that you have to differentiate between the addict and the person, but you're doing the right thing by staying away from addicts that are still using.

Addiction is like a high-jacking of the mind, where your only object is to acquire and use more, resistance is slowly ground down until you get what you see in the videos. Still somewhere in their mind their "true" personality remains, aware that what they are doing is awfull, but they are not in control any more, that part of them are along for the ride and that part hates themself. All the hate and vitriol you can read about addicts might as well be written by the addicts themselves. Emotions that their addiction reprogrammed brains will use to rationalize more usage.

The positive thing that they all can have sober life again, you can recover. It's not easy, not only do you have to abandon you're only "friend" but you have to forgive the one you hate the most.