https://aeon.co/essays/most-drug-users-s...e-not-poor
EXCERPT: ‘I’m at the point in my life where I’ve been doing this 20 years or so. [It’s been] probably 22, 23 years, and I’m ready to quit,’ said Clyde, a long-time methamphetamine user now in his mid-40s. When we met in 2011, he was beginning to grow weary from decades of partying and staying up for days at a time. We sat in a conference room at a homelessness resource centre in Northern Colorado. From across the table, his pale blue eyes were bloodshot with fatigue.
By the time of my first interview with Clyde (not his real name), I’d been conducting research with active meth users for about three years, so his sentiment wasn’t news to me. After all, the highly potent central nervous system stimulant wears out most people eventually. The lack of sleep, the growing paranoia, the skyrocketing proportion of bad days to good all drive users to seek sobriety.
As with many others I studied, Clyde’s use fluctuated, sometimes dwindling to complete abstinence for weeks or even months; he talked frequently about leaving the drug behind for good. But he always went back. Intermittently homeless and plagued by debilitating and difficult-to-treat mental health issues, his circumstances seemed to lock him into his addiction.
Yet Clyde’s story – the part where he doesn’t quit – is not the norm. Most users, even the majority of those so hooked that we label them addicts, recover on their own without ever undergoing formal treatment....
EXCERPT: ‘I’m at the point in my life where I’ve been doing this 20 years or so. [It’s been] probably 22, 23 years, and I’m ready to quit,’ said Clyde, a long-time methamphetamine user now in his mid-40s. When we met in 2011, he was beginning to grow weary from decades of partying and staying up for days at a time. We sat in a conference room at a homelessness resource centre in Northern Colorado. From across the table, his pale blue eyes were bloodshot with fatigue.
By the time of my first interview with Clyde (not his real name), I’d been conducting research with active meth users for about three years, so his sentiment wasn’t news to me. After all, the highly potent central nervous system stimulant wears out most people eventually. The lack of sleep, the growing paranoia, the skyrocketing proportion of bad days to good all drive users to seek sobriety.
As with many others I studied, Clyde’s use fluctuated, sometimes dwindling to complete abstinence for weeks or even months; he talked frequently about leaving the drug behind for good. But he always went back. Intermittently homeless and plagued by debilitating and difficult-to-treat mental health issues, his circumstances seemed to lock him into his addiction.
Yet Clyde’s story – the part where he doesn’t quit – is not the norm. Most users, even the majority of those so hooked that we label them addicts, recover on their own without ever undergoing formal treatment....