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Author
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Topic: I'm that someone
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Kokopelli
SENIOR DISCOUNT & Dispenser of Sage Advice
Member # 633
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posted July 25, 2018 01:37 PM
Seems like we're being a bit hard on the CDude.
But ………
The day may come when he's wearing a suit and tie sitting at a table with nothing but a microphone, a glass of water and a quivering asshole answering questions from stern people that have the yea or nay power over his proposal.
This is just the warm-up.
Stay strong.
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And lo, the Light of the Trump shown upon the Darkness and the Darkness could not comprehend it.
Posts: 7602 | From: Under a wandering star | Registered: Apr 2005
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Leonard
HMFIC
Member # 2
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posted July 25, 2018 04:13 PM
No no, I am not being hard on Lance. Nor is anybody else , that I can see. We are just talking, discussing an issue and everybody has an opinion. If he has the desire and the energy to pursue this very personal problem, we are not telling him to not do it. We are discussing it, not trashing him for getting involved. maybe he will benefit from the different perspective, might give him insight when he sits at that table testifying?
He knows we aren't beating up on him. Well, except for Fred.... No really, just kidding! Just kidding!
Good hunting. El Beebee
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EL BEE Knows It All and Done It All.
Don't piss me off!
Posts: 31509 | From: Upland, CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Paul Melching
Radical Operator Forum "You won't get past the front gate"
Member # 885
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posted July 26, 2018 04:52 AM
Weather or not I agree with his theorem , I applaud his action in trying to do something ! His love for his family is apparent and his strength and will are a good thing !
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Those who value security over liberty soon will have neither !
Posts: 4188 | From: The forest ! north of the dez. | Registered: Jul 2006
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Cdog911
"There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them."--George Orwell.
Member # 7
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posted July 29, 2018 02:55 PM
I don't take anything anyone is saying here as beating up on me. In fact, I DO take note of the opposing perspectives for the very reasons you have stated. I will, with luck, be forced to defend my proposal to people with whom I disagree. And yes, this is a great way to prepare myself for that opportunity because your opinions are not at all unlike those I will encounter. In fact, I'm meeting tomorrow with a psychiatrist with 30+ years of experience in dealing with this and I have no idea where he stands after reviewing my proposal.
Having said that, and acknowledging that I respect your input thus far, I must reiterate that I have already put the proposal in its entirety in the hands of folks far more experienced and well-versed in the issue of drug abuse and how we manage it than me, and the overwhelming response has been positive. The only real critique I got was from Dr. Stern who questioned my extending the treatment/incarceration to 240 days from the current 120 days, saying that just because 120 days works better, 240 days may not be better yet and may actually be counter-productive. This guy is a physician who specialty is managing addiction in Washington's prison system and once I further explained that days 121-240 are spent treating the psychosocial aspects of addiction and repairing the damage the addict has done respective to being able to work and be self-sufficient, he agreed that it was something that hasn't been tried and is worth consideration.
The Representative with whom I'm working is not new to this issue either. He was a District Court Judge before retiring from the bench and running for office. Before that, he was a CID investigator of drug crimes for the U.S. Army in Europe for over twenty years and Sheriff's Department here in Dickinson County after retiring there. He's totally stoked about this.
As to the decision versus disease, I'll answer that in a way some won't like. Cancer, diabetes, HIV, strokes. In three of the four, a proportion of our society is born with a genetic predisposition to these disease processes. If that were the only way to incur these diseases, then the argument against addiction as a disease would have merit.
But, people choose to smoke, and smoking (an addiction) has been proven well beyond a shadow of a doubt to be tied to cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and strokes, as well as a litany of cancers. I smoke cigars, and my wife smokes. My mother smoked herself into metastatic cancer and died, as did my step-mother. I figure the cause of my ultimate demise is pretty well established, but I choose to live for today.
People choose to eat unhealthy and fill their bodies with chemicals and preservatives in insane volumes that result in obesity and the related mortality that goes with diabetes.
HIV/AIDS is a disease often brought about by lifestyle choices, whether that's unprotected sex, using contaminated needles, and the like.
In each of these examples, those who ultimately die from these conditions often initiate their own pathway to that problem by choosing one behavior over another. We each have that right, and for the most part, every one of us is doing something that hastens our death because we choose to do so, and eventually, the product of those behaviors becomes a disease condition over which we have no means of control, yet we don't look at the cancer victim and condemn him or her for their pack-a-day habit, or the obese diabetic for swimming in Pepsi and Doritos every day of their life.
As to incarceration as a way to control addictions.... that's the very reason for this proposal. The judge that sent my boy to prison actually said, "We both know that you can't cure addiction with jail or prison.", and I guess I feel that he - with forty-some years in this business - probably knows that as well as anyone.
Again, Dalian told me how hard it was to stay clean in Lansing. Drugs were more readily available and cheaper there for him than they've ever been on the street. He CHOSE to stay well clear of those folks while there, and he fought the pull of his addiction every second of every day while he was there.
While my proposal, and my efforts, are designed to provide a cost-effective way to treat addicts that are justice-involved due to their addictions, the proposal itself isn't really solely a "treatment program". When dealing with the legislature and tax money, I have to approach this from the angle that best suits their concerns - how to reduce the costs of drugs and addiction to our society. Follow the money. Therefore, my proposal, to them, is a program to reduce recidivism in drug abusers and addicts. If we can treat offenders while incarcerated and help enough of them to the extent that we see a reduction in the total number using and getting re-arrested, thus reducing recidivism, we can reduce the costs associated with prisons, jails, and tax-payer funded rehabilitation.
Those are the costs we actually see, and that people like you guys don't like because every dollar used to underwrite those programs comes from your pockets. I'm right there with you, brother.
At the same time, if we can develop a program consisting of all the different aspects of existing programs that we know work, and that we know are cost-effective when done properly, the unseen costs like returning a guy to having a job and supporting himself, as well as being able to provide for his kids, spouses, and families so we don't have to pay their way, lessen the losses due to thefts when people steal to feed their habit, reduce the number of violent crimes due to drug use where we have to cover the medical costs, or loss of life, loss of productivity - these are all ways that we can reduce the actual costs to all of us, as well.
I've asked a LOT of people if they know anyone addicted to meth. You can say the same thing about heroin, opiates, etc.. The vast majority have said that they don't. Yet, just in my small town, as much as 70% of kids are meth-involved, ranging from a one time use to a full blown addiction to selling/ manufacturing/ distributing. How can it be both ways? That tells me that people are blind to the problem. The drug problem is all around us, yet the majority are completely ignorant of that fact. They drive down the street or walk thru the store and see nothing of concern. Knowing what to look for, I can travel the same routes and point out obvious signs of drug use/ abuse everywhere. It isn't that it isn't visible - they just don't see it. 49 will back that up, I bet.
When we look at the problem, people cite the number of overdose deaths, or addicts, and those numbers are meant to shock us, but they don't begin to accurately portray the facts. Each one of those abusers has a mom, a dad, siblings, spouses, children, grandparents and people who known them, love them, employ them and work with them. Their addiction will impact each and every one of those relationships over time, through divorces, child abandonment, loss of income while mom or dad are in prison or dead, loss of productivity to employers and co-workers, and the emotional toll on anyone who cares for or about them. When you look at how those numbers expand and explode, it's "yuge".
And again, we can continue to do as we're doing and paying for the problem the way we are now, or we can work to develop a way to get these folks into treatment by whatever means necessary as a way of reducing the costs to taxpayers like you.
Doing nothing isn't working. People are dying. Tax money is being wasted on ineffective programs and for-profit enterprises that benefit from the frequent flyer addiction attendees.
Will this help everyone? No. Will this program cure and resolve the addiction problem? Oh, hell no. People will be people and do stupid shit. Will this program save my son from himself? Not unless he makes the right decisions to take advantage of this program, or whatever program they offer. His chances are exactly the same as any other addict facing the same challenges.
In one sense, we're lucky in Kansas. Our problem is meth, rather than heroin.
When I was in college, I studied owls. Great horned owls. There were those that questioned why we were studying a species that is so common when there are endangered species out there that would better benefit from the dollars we were spending.
We knew that what we were studying wasn't designed to save GHO's from extinction. But, what we were doing was applicable to species like peregrine falcons and California condors, and the people that were hip-deep in saving those species were eager to see our results. We used GHO's because they were so common and were essentially expendable. We could make mistakes, correct course, and try again until we got to where we needed to be. I was the youngest presenter in 1986 at the Raptor Research Foundation's Annual Conference at the University of Florida in Gainesville. I was a snot-nosed college junior from Silo Tech K-State, and I found myself sitting at a large table after my presentation defending and arguing the results of my work with the biggest names in raptor ornithology from the United States and Canada, and I held my own to the extent that several of those programs - University programs - used our data and results to modify the way they handled their birds. Not my first rodeo.
This is somewhat our situation here. Meth gives a person a second chance. They'll fight their way through an addiction in many of the same ways as if their drug of choice were heroin or painkillers. Except, that you often only get one chance with the latter because that shit will kill you at the gate.
In short, my proposal is intended to pursue two key macro-objectives - develop a way to manage the meth crisis in Kansas today, and lay the groundwork for dealing with the inevitable heroin crisis that's coming.
The alternative is that we angrily just stand by and watch people die by not doing anything differently than we are right now because the problem hasn't impacted us personally.
Yet.
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I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and, because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
Posts: 5438 | From: The gun-lovin', gun-friendly wild, wild west | Registered: Jan 2003
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Cdog911
"There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them."--George Orwell.
Member # 7
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posted July 29, 2018 03:01 PM
Having just read what I posted, I noticed for the first time in a long time what I have at the bottom of each entry. I guess I finally caught up to that.
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I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and, because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
Posts: 5438 | From: The gun-lovin', gun-friendly wild, wild west | Registered: Jan 2003
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Leonard
HMFIC
Member # 2
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posted July 30, 2018 06:52 AM
Well, again, Lance. It really does sound like you are dedicated and your heart is in the right place. The fact that you have a personal stake in your proposal and solution is a big help.
You know, with many of us, it's hard to get behind just another drug program that doesn't work and gobbles up tax money, when we have no skin in the game, no personal attachment as you have. Myself, I see choices being made and find that I lack sympathy for these assholes that are doing it to themselves and for the most part have no interest in recovery. They will go right back to the drug of choice as soon as there is a bump in the road; they have no willpower. And, it drives me nuts to get involved in something where they have no commitment and no honesty and no desire to get clean. That's the thing, most of these addictions create particularly accomplished liars and thieves. It's hard to help people that fight you every step of the way.
Good luck! It does sound like you are committed. Silo Tech, huh? That's a good one!
Good hunting. El Bee
[ July 30, 2018, 06:53 AM: Message edited by: Leonard ]
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EL BEE Knows It All and Done It All.
Don't piss me off!
Posts: 31509 | From: Upland, CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Paul Melching
Radical Operator Forum "You won't get past the front gate"
Member # 885
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posted July 30, 2018 08:57 AM
Bumps in the road are smoothed by Devine
intervention not willpower ! 12 steps to recovery A.A. has saved more people than any Gubmint program !
you can take that to the bank !
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Those who value security over liberty soon will have neither !
Posts: 4188 | From: The forest ! north of the dez. | Registered: Jul 2006
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