What a damn shame

[Dave's Not Here Man]

www.fredericksburg.today/2023/12/22/pedestrian-struck-and-killed-late-thursday-in-spotsylvania-on-route-3/

The person crossing the road is at fault to the point where you might even wonder if it was one of those things that happens a lot around this time of year. I hope not because one thing about that type of move is that you've now probably ruined someone else's life, in this case a 17 year old, over your shit. Not saying this is what happened just that it's something that can't be ruled out from a short article.

Another thing I've noticed over in that area is the vagrancy problem. Several times in the past few months I've seen, for lack of a better term, crackheads walking around the shops and hanging out in parking lots by Rt3. At 48 years of age, on foot in that area later at night, and wearing dark clothing. Just saying.

Feel very sorry for them both.

[minx]

More people cross 3, 1 and 17 then we realize.

And I do see the number of homeless folks increasing - unfortunately we don't really have enough resources for active addicts, and most places that will help won't take someone who isn't clean already.
Micah does try to help, and I do believe they do a lot of good, but they can't convince landlords to take in addicts (and for the record, I don't believe that they do that - they simply ask if they would be willing to).

I 100% believe that addiction is a disease, and I've yet to meet the person who said that it's great to be an addict or an alcoholic. But like any disease, you have to want to get better and put in the work to do so. To use the traditional diabetes analogy - you can take insulin, yet still not be willing to make any of the dietary or lifestyle changes needed to keep it from progressing and destroying your life.

And FWIW, most addicts out there aren't folks who got hooked on Oxy either IMO - that didn't help things, but I also think a lot of people though that one hit wouldn't do anything, or thought that they'd be able to keep things under control.

A good friend of mine in Canada has a brother who's an addict. When he was arrested the first time, he was tossed in with the drunks and other addicts. He told the guard that they had to move him to another cell because he didn't belong with these people - he wasn't like them! The guard looked at him and replied "Yeah, they all said that their first time in too."


And I can't think of how the 17 year old feels right now - hitting and killing someone with your car is very traumatic.

[Dave's Not Here Man]

Addiction starts with a decision. Unfortunately very few people think about that first time, and not many catch on even after the second time. It goes from "if it feels good do it" to literally risking everything to feed your addiction/dependency. And drugs aren't always the drug of choice, so there almost has to be some disorder that predisposes one to addiction.

[minx]

I believe that there is a medical disorder that leads to addiction - some people have it, and others don't.
There is some research to say that at least some types are inherited (my paternal family has a long history of alcoholism and mental illness both my father, grandfather and aunt were alcoholics, my sister is a recovering addict, and I am bipolar).

There is still research going on, but it would be interesting if they could prove it was some sort of genetic disorder. I wonder if they'd be able to test for it then.