Answered questions(5)
Healing America
This is a question about healing our sick society – our mentally ill society I would say. If American were a person she’d need therapy. Is there something toxic about collective self righteousness and outrage? I am so sick of listening to talk radio or news shows with my co-workers. We use morality judgments to feel superior to people with a different point of view. How do you fight against neat and tidy arguments that sound very correct and play into our baser impulses but do not represent the complicated, uncertain and messy reality? I feel like this media-driven poison is responsible for a lot of the hate in our society. We are in a hate spiral that is getting worse and worse and it is going to destroy us. How can we stop this at the level of society?
Read answer →Neighborhood danger
My neighbor likes to sit around, in his boxers mostly and drink beer and liquor from about 10 in the morning until he gets loud in the evening and then passes out by night time. It’s a schedule you can pretty much set your watch to and since he’s on disability (who knows what for because he seems fine to me) he’s got all day every day to do this. I have 2 young kids who like to ride their bikes and skateboards around the neighborhood. The problem is this guy thinks nothing of hopping in his truck no matter how drunk he is and it makes me terrified for the safety of my children and for everyone else in the neighborhood. I have told them to be on the lookout for him and to get off their bikes and head to the curb if they see him coming, but who knows if this will be enough. I have tried asking him directly to be more careful with his drinking and driving but my efforts were not well received and we do not have a very civilized relationship at this point. I have called the police him but they say that unless they catch him while driving drunk, there is little they can do in advance. They have asked me to call when he goes out while drunk, and I have, but so far that has not resulted in anything happening. Do we all have to wait here until he kills some kid before we can do something? Is there anyone I can call to get this guy taken off the streets?
Read answer →Don't Want to Get Addicted to Adderall
My girlfriend has an abundant supply of Adderall that she never completely uses and she’s willing to share with those of us that need a boost, so last year at school I was taking it a few times a month (and more often than in periods near exams) not to get high, but as a study aid. I am not very into intoxicants in general. I very rarely smoke marijuana and drink socially only a couple of times a month. I can see that some in my circle of friends are letting partying interfere with their success at school but I am all about doing well here and am not going to let that happen to me. Because I am not the kind of person that lies to get all wasted every weekend, I do not think I am very likely to develop a problem with using stimulants as a study aid. I am aware that these medications can be addictive, but I feel that as long as I use them responsibly, the risk to me is low. And when compared with the benefits of long and focused study sessions, these risks are worth taking. Is my assessment accurate? If I do not use stimulants to get high but only as an aid to studying and if I do not use them every day but only a few times a month, am I putting myself in any real danger of developing an addiction?
Read answer →Breast Feeding and Alcohol
How concerned should I be by the issue of alcohol in breast milk. I don’t know how much of it is passed through the milk to the baby, but I share a house with a young family and I have seen her have a bunch of drinks and breast feed on like a bunch of occasions. I asked her if it was OK to be doing this and she said it didn’t harm the baby but I think she may be wrong on this. What should I do here? Should I call social services on her? She seems like a pretty good mom in most regards but the drinking and feeding just weirds me out and if she does that in front of me, what is she doing when no one can see what she is up to.
Read answer →Enabling vs. Compassionate Support
How is what we do as a society not enabling? For example. It is enabling when I give my daughter a place to stay even though she is an alcoholic spending her disability checks on alcohol every month. If I kick her out she goes and stays at a shelter. She still spends her disability checks on alcohol but now it is the government that is paying for room and board, and not me…but most importantly, it is still not her. She is still free to spend her whole check on alcohol. Which she does. I understand that we have shelters out of compassionate reasons but I thought that doing the hard thing and not enabling was actually more compassionate than letting her stay…so is it not more compassionate also to not provide shelters and free food to homeless alcoholics? Don’t we want people to hit rock bottom so they can start to change for the better?
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