"Don" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news5.newsguy.com:
Holy shades of Clockwork Orange Batman!
> It snuck right under the radar screen in broad daylight rendering the
> original concept chaste and obsolete.
> Of course, the signs were there all along, cleverly disguised as
> reststops for the fridge raiders.
> HA!
> ---------------------------------
> "We have reached a point at which it's commonly understood that when
> people snort cocaine because they're depressed or want to function
> better at work, that's drug trafficking; but taking antidepressants
> for similar purposes is practicing medicine."
>
>
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But cocaine is addictive, and more destructive. IOW, there is no real "right" way to use it. Tolerance is built up quickly. Plus, and worse, is the "come-down" - when added on top of an existing serotonin imbalance/deficit, it's **horrible**.
When properly prescribed, antidepressants actually can lead to a restoration of the serotinin imblance, meaning, the majority or peiople don't have to be on them long-term. For those folks who do need to be on them, because the neurohormonal imbalance is not correctable, antidepressants do not lead, AFAIK, to tolerance, i.e. the requirement for ever-increasing doses.
"Don" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news5.newsguy.com:
Addiction is a physiological process wherein a foreign substance takes over a biochemical function in a way which leads to the desensitization of the target receptors such that ever-increasing amounts of the substance are required to maintain the function. "Belief" is irrelevant. If you have extreme surgery, or some other condition, that requires the use of opioid analgesics for longer than 5 to 7 days, you *will* become addicted, because the opioids (opium-derived drugs and their derivatives/variations) bind *preferntially* to both pain receptors and endorphin receptors. (((Preferential binding happens with some substances - the chemical basically "hogs" the receptors. One example is Carbon Monoxide, which IIRC "hogs" oxygen receptors, blocks oxygen from getting to the places where it's needed. Opiods "hog" pain and endorphin receptors. The toxins produced by _Clostridium botulinum_ bind with neurchemcial recptors on nerve endings, disallowing chemical signals to be transmitted, thereby leading to the symptoms of botulism. SImilar bit for curare. THat is biochemistry - not a amtter of "belief" or "disbelief".))) When the condition no longer merits continuation of the opioid, the patient *will* experience withdrawl symptoms, the seveirty of which *will* be proportional to both the dosage and duration of the opioid.
That is a biological/physiological fact.
The recent use, OTOH, of the word "addiction" to refer to pretty much ANYTHING that gives people great pleasure, and becomes a habit, and which they therefore find difficult to resist or give up, is more a matter of impulse control, or rather, the lack thereof. And I don't say that because I'm pure or perfect or don't have vices or any similar horse- hockey - I say because it's a case of "been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. For example, I'm obese, but I'm *not* going to sit here and whine about being "addicted to food"; it's my own fault in that I (1) eat too much and (2) esp. these past few months have placated my aches and pains via various gustatory overindulgences.
I also tend to like opioid pain-meds waaaaaaay too much, so I've ended up arguing with my various medical professionals, on more than one occasion just this past year, to NOT give them to me. (((THe major exception is a recurring viral lesion/erosion that occurs on my cornea one cevery couple years, which is so excrutiating that all the opioids do is relieve the worst of the pain - no buzz thre at all, just partial relief.))) I don't reject the meds on "moral" grounds, and not because I "don't need/want" them!! It is merely that I know how easy it is for tehm to take hold, so the best thing to do is resist the temptation in the first place. No more, no less. -- Is it easy? No. Is it pleasant? *Hell* no, esp. not when real pain *does* exist. It's just that I have enough brains, and enough impolse control, to know that avoidance, and its short-term unpleasantness, is the best course of action over the long- term.
In recent years, then, the word "addiction" has been inaccurately applied to things that are "hard to resist"/"highly pleasureable" - IOW, to a lack of, or choice to ignore, impulse control. It's similar to how increasing numbers of "wants/desires" have come to be called "needs", and so on.
It is most undoubtedly unpleasant to forgo something which gives one
*intense* pleasure, but it's by no mans impossible. OTOH, with true (physiological) addiction, you cannot choose for your neurons to not act in accordance with their fundamental biochemistry.
Well, I suppose it can work for some people. But you have all the shit that people use to cut the drugs they sell. You're better off eating Chinese melamine. As for jamming a c-note up your nose, I've done microbiological cultures on money, and I don't even touch my forhead after handling money, never mind jamming money into my nose and allowing it to contact my mucous membranes - that is just *begging* for a disease.
Then there is the immediate damage to the mucous membrane caused by the drug itsefl - it causes immediate irritation that leaves one more vulnerable to infection, and more sensitive to allergens.
IMO, it's idiotic. Also, IMO, teh horrid "come-down" compeltely sux, and it especially sux, as I'd mentioned, for someone who already has clinical depression - the aftermath *worsens* the deperssion. WHy do you think people become addicted in the first place? t's because some people can't tolerate the let-down, and keep chasing the "buzz".
I stand by my opinion that there is no real "right" way to use cocaine. The risks far outweigh the brief buzz.
Except with crack cocaine, it seems, which is said to be "instantly addictive" because of its interaction with the brain's neurochemistry...? ((I cannot speak from experience, tho', because there is no way I'd ever willingly try that crap.))
The choose to take the drug, and *continue* taking it, yes. But positing a possible "addiction" to jelly sandwiches is absurd and unfactual.
The next day? How about the next hour? How about drinking OJ and doing productive things right off the bat, skipping the silly drugs to begin with? And if someone *does* do productive things, taking pleasure from them, and enjoying other things in life, why would that person even want to bother with the risks (of contaminants, bad reactions, visits from the police, association with drug dealers, infections from ramming something up their snoot that might have as many pathogens as a toilet bowl, and so on)? If a stupid brief little "buzz" is worth the risks, maybe the person needs more counseling or whatever than he/she wishes to admit.
You seem to be confusing SSRI's (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) with the Dopamine reuptake inhibitors.
SSRIs inhibit one or more of the Cytochromep450-class enzymes, and it's thought that, *for some of them, but not all*, the specific enzymes inhibited slows the metabilic degradation of cocaine, thereby appearing to act synergistically with its effects, however, IIRC, CYP450-class enzymes are also inhibited by even small amounts of grapefruit juice - so are you then going to take that and claim that the over-use of grapefruit juice leads to the same effect as does the over-use of cocaine?
I'm going from memory, but you should check into some of the pharmacological literature, especially before implying that two drugs yield similar effects.
I'm not just making this stuff up, and it is not mere opinion - read the pharmocological literature. Taking antidepressants has been shown, in some people, to increase the number of receptor, therby providing its own "cure" so to speak.
Again, I specified *clinical depression*, not someone being mopey because they didn't get an A on a test, or some other form of "the blues".
You're lookinig at it simplistically. Mild to moderate depression, i.e "feeling blue/down", is usually both situational and short-lived.
Clinical depression is physiological, long-term, and often severe.
The two things are different; don't say that the proverbial apples are the same exact thing as the proverbial oranges.
Not in the case of clinical depression. You're talking about "the blues" or "feeling down". The term is "situational depression". A severe form of that results from the death of a lvoed one, or having one's house burn down. But the name is the key - it's situational. Most poeple get past it and get on with life (although, in some cases, severe situational depression *can* lead to clinical depression, due to the varying degrees of physiological degradation that often occurs with long- term intense stress).
Clinical deperssion is a neurochemical imbalance and/or a defect in some or all of the neurochemical receptors in the brain. IOW, it is a physiological condition, very similar to the way in which Type 1 ("juvenile") diabetes is a physiological condition. One person's body cannot produce sufficient amounts of the endocrine hormone insulin; the other cannot make, and/or the brain's receptors cannot pick up, sufficient amounts of the neurohormone Serotonin.
If a person is already clinically depressed, the expereince of a stress situation or loss will be more intense. Given that a great many, and perhaps most, people with clinical depression feel ashamed by it (since it's still often considered a "character weakness" or "laziness"), they can become adept at masking/hiding it from others, so, when a stress does occur, others might *mistakenly perceive* depression as being caused by the situation, when in truth, it's only that the stress has exhausted the depressed individual to the point where the mask cannot be maintained.
Yes, Don, there will *always* be a-holes, but the actions of one a-hole neither defines the totality of any group or given population, nor refutes the proven efficacy of a medication or its *potential* to help people who have the specific conditions it's formulated to treat.
Unfortunately, I know of no medication or medical procedure that can cure, or evenmitigate, the condition of being an a-hole...
And, what? You assign a blanket negative assessment to not only the meds, but to the people who do actually need to take them? - even though the knowledge, experience, and education required to scientifically asses either all diagnoses of depression, or all use of antidepressants, falls well outside of your area of expertise and/or education? Use one dooflolly as an excuse to belittle thousands of people of whom you know nothing? Descry a medication whose pharmacological, pharmaceutical, and biochemical details are unknown to you?
You can go ahead and sit there and talk about how blamelessness, by which I *think* you mean "abdication of personal responsibility", and descry medications as being no different from/better than something someone cooks up in their bathroom, and so on, but don't you *dare* say it's across the board, universal, or any of that. What you *see* is the irresponsible poeple, the ones who do stupid shit like abuse kids "because" they were abused - but I will tell you for a fact, what you DON'T see or hear about are the people who *don't* choose to collapse into a wonton state of irresponsible "blamelessness"; what you DON'T see is that people who were abused as kids, but became empathetic or even advocates for abused children; what you DON'T see is the people who suffer from crushing depression and yet try to live productive lives in spite of it, and maybe, just maybe, finally learn they can get treatment and manage to have some years where they can actually feel happiness; what you DON'T see are the people who buck every "marker", every "indicator", created by shitty conditions and/or psycho or a-hole "parents", and instead make the moral and ethical choice to *not* do harm to otehr living beings, human or otherwise, regardelss of what the personal consequences are for that hard choice, because it's mroe ethical to be harmed, than it is to cause harm.
I dunno, maybe you are in a position to be isolated from, and smug about, such things, maybe you are able to sit at a distance and form your judgemnets based upon tabloid silliness, and a media bias that's based upon the pathetic fact that monsters sell more media-time than does decency. Maybe you've been fortunate enough to have lived in a position where it's not been a matter of personal experience, and can instead to look at it from afar, through a haze of other poeple's selected news blips.
I'm not. So, pardon, but regarding the above, my assessments cannot be in agreement with your opinions.
"Don" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news5.newsguy.com:
For the most part, my response as very measured, becasue all I was doing was relating the facts.
I did not appreciate your implication, however, that just because one person is silly, it means that it applies acros the board to anyone and everyone who ever takes antidepressants. I've seen people harmed when that sort of thing was extrapolated to them.
Also, how could you think that your example (and implication) would not be provacative?
I don't, and did not, deny that a great deal of what get's *called* addiction is more of a lack of will. Nor do I deny (because I don't know it can't happen) that there might be people who don't develop biological tolerance/addiction. But I do have a good handle on the biology and pharmacology (even tho' I've forgotten a hell of a lot), and I remember at least the basics of neurotransmitter function. Certain substances do target neurological receptors more strongly than do the natural neurotransmitters, and so on - IOW that addiction can and does occur. That is a biological fact. WIth some substances, and i am not merely referring to illeal ones, repeated or prolonge duseage can even inhibit the body's abilty to produce the natural chemicals. Sudden cessation of the substance causes problems. That is a fact.
I don't know the circumstances of your observations, but I'd have a much easier time accepting the information if it was obtained in the course of scientific studies done under controlled conditions.
Because Donny's a st00pid ingrate with built-in prejudices re: addictions/addictive people based upon a set of lies, innuendo and third grade nursing pamphlets.
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