Shadow Wrought's Journal: Consequences

I went up to court yesterday for a hearing in a civil case. It was delayed by a sentencing which I went ahead and sat in on it. The Defendant had struggled with a meth addiction close to 20 years earlier. He had cleaned himself up since then, found Christianity in a big way, and actually volunteered with youth to help them avoid similar mistakes. Unfortunately he suffered some type of serious injury on the job (the details of which I never learned) which caused him to start taking prescription pain meds. To which he developed an addiction.

Pretty soon his life is again in shambles, "A very dark place," he called it. He tried to commit suicide but something went awry with the gun and instead of killing himself he just put a hole in the ceiling. At this point, according to his story, he blamed God for his problems and shunned Him. Since he was unable to kill himself, he decided to try suicide-by-cop. In the ensuing rampage he committed a couple armed robberies at pharmacies (looking for more prescription meds) and did have his confrontation with Police. The details of all of this I don't know, except that he was arrested, unharmed, and soon recovered "himself" again.

His sorrow was very real, at least I didn't think it was the least bit feigned, and even the Judge felt that he was truly sorry of his actions. After half a dozen at least of his family spoke (22 of them showed up to give their support), the Judge handed down his sentence. Within the contraints of the law the Judge gave him the lightest sentence he could. 160 months.

If I was that judge

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'd also write an injunction that attaches the story to his medical records. That's one guy who will *need* to avoid perscription painkillers the rest of his life, and his doctors need to know his legal history.

Re:

[Shadow Wrought]

I don't know whether it can be done or not, but I'm pretty sure he's not going to ever take prescription painkillers ever again. One of quotes was along the lines of, "I hadn't touched drugs in 18 years, but since the Doctor gave it to me I thought it'd be OK." I think there's a certain sad irony that the patients who need the most communication with doctors are the ones least equipped to make it happen.

Addiction

[HomelessInLaJolla]

I feel that addiction is a socially created illusion. Anyone who develops an addiction to something is likely compensating for a huge deficiency someplace else. With $8.8 trillion in federal debt which keeps everyone in the working class (especially recovering criminals) on the brink of financial ruin I can't help but wonder where the problem is most likely being created...

Before I actually took the leap and said "F*ck it... I don't care if I wind up homeless, I simply am not going to put up with this gar

Re:

[iminplaya]

I feel that addiction is a socially created illusion.

Please, no. Don't think like that. Addiction is a real quantifiable phenomenon. With real brain chemicals that have a real effect when something gets out of balance. I would be very surprised if you are unaware of the effects of this [wikipedia.org]. And this [wikipedia.org] would definitely explain my addiction to milk. I drink it by the gallon. All this makes life look more like a semi-lucid dream than anything that we are really in control of.

Re:

[Alioth]

Addiction is real (although the root causes of substance addiction can be caused by many things, including stress driving people to drink etc). Physiological and psychological (physiological - i.e. cravings for alcohol and the DTs, and psychological - i.e. cravings for chocolate) are real and documented. Physiological addiction can be seen at the biological level.