I eventually couldn’t even click the link. I got a NSFW warning or something and it wanted me to log in/create an account and that was a hard pass from me!
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Maybe this is a topic for another thread. It’s not a competition.
I can tell you horror stories about elderly single folks who couldn’t even get a ride to treatment, let alone a lasagne or even a family member to drive them 16 mins let alone 16 hours. People released from surgery/chemo/radiation who would go back to squalid living spaces with not even minimal groceries and would bounce back through the ER within hours and eventually have to wait for a bed in a rehab facility just to get fed and have a clean sleeping surface to protect their open surgical sites from infection.
Can we not pretend cancer makes one magically coddled and supported? I know more people who suffered alone with inadequate or no healthcare coverage than I do people who had pancake fundraisers or collection jars from a loving, local community.
Let’s just not do this, please.
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And afaik her enabling parents, who get her money “from the bank” aren’t addicts, last I checked.
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My challenge with the addicts in my life is seeing that the addiction is not all of them; it’s not their entire personality, and seeing past the addiction to the whole person.
A person can be brilliant, kind, talented, artistic and also an addict.
Once the label addict is attached, it comes to define the whole person and obscure all the other personality traits.
“Addict” when applied to the Kanareks is short of a shorthand, with addiction standing in for delusional, selfish, narcissistic, dishonest and grandiose. In some cases, looking past the addiction to the whole person is a worthwhile exercise. In the Kanareks’ case, when you look past the addiction, all you see is more pathology.
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Being an addict is not a character flaw. However addicts tend to lie and that is important to remember.
I have cancer.
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Amen.
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In a perfect world!!!
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It had qualified as criminal a long time ago.
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Full disclosure: I do have a Reddit account. I am not sure that I have actually posted anywhere but did some reading on AITA and some subreddits. But - I would not be good at “hiding” because I am smoofox there as well. I guess I am not very good at this 10 degree chess or ninja stuff… 
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Unfortunately, the nature of addiction is a huge barrier to wanting to get help. There have been addicts in my family (some now deceased). It is heartbreaking when they are their own worst enemy.
None of the above is give Lollypop and her laundry guy a pass. They would be rotten human beings regardless of whether they were addicts or not. And then there are Lollypop’s parents–addiction doesn’t seem to come into play, and yet they are awful.
Rebecca
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I would say that it’s not a character flaw, until it becomes an excuse for addict behavior, like we see from certain people.
Many addicts in recovery work the program straighten up and fly right.
God bless them.
Some just can’t stop the behavior even when they’re not using. The problem isn’t their addiction, the problem is their behavior.
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This is so true. I’ve watched addicts simply change the direction of their addiction. They cannot change their behavior, but they can change the addiction.
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Mine is still impulsive, short tempered, quick to take offense,…and still makes really bad choices, even after asking your advice and then choosing to do the opposite of what you’ve advised…just like when she used.
And yes replaced the substance addiction with addiction to other, in most ways healthier, activities
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I couldn’t pinpoint why I think addiction, obesity, and some other syndromes are too easily labelled as “diseases,” (for which pharma is grateful), but you pinpointed it for me precisely – there is an element of choice. Thx
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It’s actually the opposite. There are some medications that treat alcohol addiction that are rarely prescribed because the medical community as a whole buys the concept that it’s a character flaw. Judges send repeat offenders to AA rather than to treatment by a doctor.
It’s worse for opiate addicts. There are more bureaucratic hurdles to prescribing Suboxone than to prescribing OxyContin.
Six kids in my family, four were or are addicts. Two of them died sober but from effects of various addictions, one is on Suboxone for life, one drinks herself to sleep every night alone in her apartment.
Why are my other sister and I not suffering the same fate? Because we don’t have the disease. It’s not a choice.
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In really sorry for you and your family. Addiction is heartbreaking for everyone in the family.
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The “choice” is that there is an option to have a cure. A “cure” exists for these “diseases.” Getting the patient to the cure might be difficult, but it is a path not available for other diseases.
Calling these chronic health issues a “disease,” seems to abdicate the role that one’s personal responsibility to be healthy plays.
Perhaps you and your sister aren’t suffering the same because you made different lifestyle choices?
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No quotation marks required.
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I struggle with this dichotomy daily. My sister is an addict. I am not. Her behavior, and, if I am being honest, my reaction to it, have caused an irreparable rift between us. Our dad was an addict and his youngest son has completely destroyed himself by addiction.
It’s hard not to be angry with my sister and half-brother. It’s hard not to think they had a choice. For a fact, my sister had to get sober for medical procedures. But she went back to using as soon as she could. I think she is sober now, but not sure. And it’s hard not to blame the addiction for the hurtful behavior. Surely she wouldn’t be so hurtful when sober? Or would she?
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I think there are different types of addicts.
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