Imprisoned into a life with a junkie....it's amazing to watch them go on their binges---alcohol, speed, or downers...any which way you dice it....the life can suck really bad as their family member. They lie, steal, cheat, and abuse everyone in their perimeters. Their love is toxic. Their ways are tainted. Their thoughts are distorted. Their perception is incongruent with "normal" anything. They always leave you asking yourself, "WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?" The only answer you are ever going to really be able to understand is simple----"Because they are chasing a high you will never get if you haven't been there!" What do you do when a loved one is entangled in this nightmare? Do you risk your own life to save them? Do you put your guard up and shut them out? Do you yell at them? Do you put them in detox? Do you intervene? Do you turn your back on them? Do you chase their lies? Do you try, try, and try to save them when they are not caring enough about themselves to care about you? Do you love them unconditionally or condition the love you share? How do you PROTECT YOURSELF FROM JUNKIES? Look; I've loved addicts my whole life; beginning with my parents. I've loved functional addicts and then learned the hard way about dysfunctional addicts. I've attended Alateen, Al-Anon, and AA meetings to understand it all. I am most intrigued by the folks who get up and go to work daily under the influence of mind altering substances. This scares me. They act so average and leave work to chase down the drug dealer; go home and get high in the privacy of their homes. They get up and start it all over again. Countless stories about the origins come from abusive childhoods to getting pain killers from a doctor that led to their addictions. Any which way you try to comprehend the excuses for their behavior; drug users remain consistent in that they live a deviant lifestyle to sustain their habits. I love it when addicts say they don't like me....God is good...like oil and water watch the rooms split with their snub nose; holier than now ways. Please Lord; show me those quickly who don't like my attitude. I am quite okay with it. I am quite okay when someone who is a known substance abuser says they don't like me! Woohoo! Then, I don't have to risk being abused by them. At least I know up front they disdain me...no need to be robbed, lied to, or to waste pointless niceties trying to be tolerant of those who disdain sobriety and truth. It's even more fun to watch them cringe as I politely hug them and wish them blessings and peace. I love hearing them attempt to reciprocate my politeness with a choked throat full of hate. Perhaps I get a kick out of it. I don't know. Maybe I am addicted to killing them with kindness. Believe me that I don't lose sleep over people who don't like me. I refuse to allow them to steal my blessings, my spirit, and my sleep. I don't have any losses over adults who are complicit in their own self destruction. I may weep if they die too early; but those who abuse others while on their missions to get high contribute to everything that makes life for the real people harder.... The lies, thieving and abuse leads to inflated taxes to afford more police, more welfare, and higher prices across the board for insurances, for products at stores, and to recover from their actions. Our worlds are drained protecting ourselves from "friends" who are culpable of setting us up to have our homes robbed. Sadly we cannot even share basic schedules of our lives with folks we may have in our realm as our lives may become victims of their survival. The thought that countless social service programs for those who have abused themselves with alcohol and drugs drain the public dole but little folks who get assistance for food when they are unable to "earn enough to survive" but are trying-is such an insult. It's also pathetic that folks who have hurt themselves with such self injurious behaviors can get public housing while women and children cannot--leaves me contemptuous. I apologize; but I do genuinely understand the middle class mentality which snubs the needy. They work and pay taxes and those taxes are used for all these amazing resources.... why should they do anything else to help society at large (including voting or volunteering!)??? Then of course; we must recognize that the addicts walk around society in a fog most of the time. We the people are left to worry about it all....our safety, our security, and our souls. So, as I think about how these deviants try to excuse their actions; I try to be forgiving. I try not to judge. I try to be fair and reasonable beyond all boundaries... Yet, I am sick of them laying around expecting the world to come to them or hearing about them taking advantage of someone else at any level. I'm sick of looking at them lying to your face. I'm sick of caring about them. It's all inescapable by geography. It's not like you can move to the burbs to escape the less than desirable world of crap that destroys our families. I hear horror stories about the con artist teens of the suburbs. I hear about how they learn crazy crap at 10 years old and begin lying to hard by junior high school that they become absolute faceless people in the crowd by adulthood. It's outrageous. And to think about my young children and the future ahead for them.... How do we teach our kids to be good citizens when in every direction deviants are demising the basic core values of our world? I do my best to teach my kids to be able to make sound decisions in a room full of wrongdoers and I pray they remain strong and steadfast under peer pressure. I often wonder what happened to society at large to be under such great demise? From littering to leaving this world with a history of lies covering their identity. People just don't seem to care anymore like they once did. It's like seeing the powerless controlling our world with their mighty positions in life...the IRS abusing the TEA PARTY, the collection agents attempting to power stroke the broke, and the case workers attempting to project their own expectations upon others and sanction them in turn for getting assistance. Corruption-it's everywhere...and the junkies are just another quota for the political world to use to ascertain federal funds for whatever programs can be thought up to attempt to fix this latest crisis. Worst of all.....thinking about all these junkies totally paying for a product which the profits go to support a war in Afghanistan where our very own American soldiers are dying daily (opiates). I do have to admit that when I realize how selfish these junkies are to pay for the weapons that kill our American troops via their drug activity---I get sick to my stomach. Spending 9 years serving our nation in uniform makes me know at heart the pain of losing troops...they are my family. So, as you stick that needle in your arm, may it be bad shit....may it stop you today from ever being able to buy the product that kills our soldiers again. While my compassion, consideration, and humanity have long been driven to understand addiction; today I am disgusted by it more than ever. Dealing with con artists, manipulators, and the abusive premeditated intentions of these junkies is destroying and devaluating life long efforts of real folks. It's almost amazingly predictable to watch them work their "mojo" on others....pathetic. Well, forgive my opinion of the day. Just totally deflated by useless people dragging on the heels of those who work tirelessly to make our world a better place. Those using want nothing but a high...not a home; not a car; not a treasured possession or a cheap possession....but they will definitely work to rob you of your time, energy and possessions if you give them a chance... Now we know why most people get ugly up front---to protect themselves from the garbage people who are indulging into a fun life at other's expense...Oh the good times they have while we work to recover from their damages. ERRRR! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin Traffic is heavy worldwide, with the biggest producer being Afghanistan.[80] According to a U.N. sponsored survey,[7] as of 2004, Afghanistan accounted for production of 87 percent of the world's diacetylmorphine.[81] Afghan opium kills around 100,000 people annually.[82] The cultivation of opium in Afghanistan reached its peak in 1999, when 350 square miles (910 km2) of poppies were sown. The following year the Taliban banned poppy cultivation, a move which cut production by 94 percent. By 2001 only 30 square miles (78 km2) of land were in use for growing opium poppies. A year later, after American and British troops had removed the Taliban and installed the interim government, the land under cultivation leapt back to 285 square miles (740 km2), with Afghanistan supplanting Burma to become the world's largest opium producer once more.[83] Opium production in that country has increased rapidly since, reaching an all-time high in 2006. War in Afghanistan once again appeared as a facilitator of the trade.[84] Some 3.3 million Afghans are involved in producing opium.[85] http://www.abc22now.com/shared/news/top-stories/stories/wkef_vid_12927.s... http://www.wkyc.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=2350488316001&odyssey=mod%7... http://medicalexaminer.cuyahogacounty.us/pdf_medicalexaminer/en-US/Outbr...