Do drug addicts deserve any sympathy?

Question

I feel these days no one can say they didn't know that for example, heroin is addictive. When you take drugs you know the likely result. That's fair enough, it's your body, your life. It's up to you how you kill yourself. But why is society expected to carry the can? How many people's lives are ruined, not just the drug takers, but their families, and the people who get burgled or attacked to fund addiction. However small the amount you take, you are helping fund major crime. The addict is 100% guilty.

Answer 1

yes...they need help, professional help.

Answer 2

In todays world with drugs that grab onto the brain so friggin fast, yes, I feel sympathy as noone starts out wanting to become an addict and pretty much ruin what they have in life during that time, if they survive it. Im more mad at all the money in taxes that are paid to "educate' kids about drugs, instead of realistically using the money for rehabs, they couldnt build them fast enough with the amount of addicts there are, its very sad. Personally I am dealing with someone in my own family who is an addict. They do work, but, its so hard on the family waiting and wondering when they will crash and burn or die. They are into oxy, and I guess that grabs on with some people really quickly and the person doesnt know it, until they wake up sick, and thier friends tell them, their sick because their hooked. "Friends yes thats the term, those who also are addicted, or are happy to have a new customer.

Answer 3

You have a good point. The majority of people seem to get hooked due to trying to be cool with their friends on a Saturday night and end up in a bad way because of it. They deserve no sympathy. Then again some people turn to drugs due to being abused sexually or psyically by thier family or spouse. These people I feel do deserve sympathy. I think if we sorted out society so that people could start their lives in happy families (or at least ones that don't abuse them) then maybe we could section off the rest of the people and refuse to help them. My brother turned to drugs due to mental problems and has been put in hospital several times before the use of drugs and after. He suffers badly from bi polar disorder and has tried to kill himself more than once. He will always have my sympathy as it was his condition that made him the way he is. The drugs were a way to escape his condition.

Answer 4

Drug addiction, substance dependence or chemical dependency is the compulsive use of psychoactive drugs, to the point where the user has no effective choice but to continue use. Drug addiction has two components: physical dependency, and psychological dependency. Physical dependency occurs when a drug has been used habitually and the body has become accustomed to its effects. The person must then continue to use the drug in order to feel normal, or its absence will trigger the symptoms of withdrawal. Psychological dependency occurs when a drug has been used habitually and the mind has become emotionally reliant on its effects, either to elicit pleasure or relieve pain, and does not feel capable of functioning without it. Its absence produces intense cravings, which are often brought on or magnified by stress. A dependent person may have either aspects of dependency, but often has both. Although the high may last only a few minutes, it also produces more longer-lasting effects in the brain.

Personally, I feel the rehabilitation centers seem to make the addict feel that though he is responsible, people should have sympathy for his condition. This may be callous, but I don't feel sorry for them. In fact, I am sick of seeing "interventions" where people have to babysit someone for what they had control of in the first place! I have family members who have succumbed to drugs because of life's hardships...well, guess what, those same hardships fall on other people and they manage to survive! Society needs to stop acting as though we are responsible for what others have done to themselves. Get the help you need, stand up and be contributors to society - be part of the solution, not the problem!

Answer 5

As a free-thinking intelligent adult, taking heroin is utter lunacy and you really only have yourself to blame, true, however, we all do stupid things - especially as hormonal peer-pressured idiot teenagers.
If a person is stuck in a vicious circle of dependency, no matter what that dependence is, and they want out, then, as a fellow human being, they do deserve a little sympathy and they deserve help, because as much harm that a drug addict can cause, a changed person can count for a whole lot more.

Answer 6

Drug addicts come from all walks of life and some have become addicts through their Gps. Not all adicts are on heroin etc but are addicts through no fault of their own. Take a look at the people who were prescribed Valium and were given repeat prescriptions for years, slimming tablets, steriods, the list is endless.
We can all get on our high horse and and accuse people of self inflicted abuse but what if someone close to you became an addict on whatever drug would you shun them, I wouldnt. My chldren were teaching me the signs of drug addiction when they were 10yrs old, thank God they were taught in school because they were peer pressured at a later date to take drugs. We all have choices, live and let live.

Answer 7

Only a very limited amount of sympathy in my opinion. Human suffering is sad, but in the case of drug addiction, this suffering is self-inflicted.

No matter what sort of upbringing someone's had, noone takes heroin or crack for the first time in total ignorance of the consequences. Everyone know that such substances are devastating to one's health, expensive and often dangerous. No hard drug is INSTANTLY addictive either, although the highly addictive ones become so very quickly.

Too many people in modern society believe themselves to be 'victims', that they are not responsible for their own choices and actions, and that's a very corrosive attitude.

The only exception I can think of is the patient who becomes addicted to the medication they have to take - they did not choose to become an addict. Not that this would excuse criminal behaviour on their part to feed an addiction.

Answer 8

I think we should ask ,what caused the person to take drugs in the first place?
I know someone that had a terrible accident and is disfigured and to cope with his day started taking drugs to forget what he looked like , finding out that it did'nt change the way he felt about himself tried to stop taking the drugs, but was addicted, he is ashamed of himself for starting drugs ,given time he may get up the courage to go to the Doctor and say "I am addicted to Cocaine" help me.
I wait for that day !!

Answer 9

People who lack compassion have an empty hole where their humanity is supposed to be. Nobody needs your sympathy. You dole it out to those you decide deserve it and pass your judgments on everyone else. Drug users have big problems and some of them get over it. Your problem is that you think you're better than them. You are unlikely to ever get over it. What a self-righteous miserable excuse for for a person you are.

I don't use drugs, but I'd rather be the most degraded junkie than be you.

Answer 10

I have been dealing with this my whole life. I am tired of people saying that it is a disease. These people know the first time they use what it's potential effects are. I really makes me angry, it is just a cop out for them to say they can't help it. These people are selfish and think that it is society's responsibility to take car of them... it isn't, they made their own bed so they should have to sleep in it. My mother was a cocaine addict, my father died 4 years ago of a heroin overdose and I just lost an aunt in May of a meth overdose. I was there when it happened to my aunt b/c her 2 children called me b/c they couldn't wake their mother up. Hell no they don't deserve sympathy, those that give it to them are just enabling them to continue ruining peoples lives!!!!

Answer 11

Of course they deserve pity. Most of them are trapped in a poverty cycle, some do it through peer pressure, some do to impress. Whatever the reason they need professional help and a supportive Government that doesn't encourage drugs with soft policies, then cut funding when the problem escalates ten-fold.