This weekend I went to see Beautiful Boy, a movie about 18-year-old Nic's struggle with crystal meth and other such fun things. The movie finished with a line which shook me:
"Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50. While addiction treatment is M-A-S-S-I-V-E-L-Y under-funded and under-regulated, there are those working tirelessly in all communities to combat this epidemic."
Addiction treatment, we are told, is massively under-funded. As a tinnitus sufferer, I'm disheartened to see this mindset repeated across various media outlets. "We're finding that services are not able to reach out and engage those who are most at risk but who aren't voluntarily coming into treatment. There's an awful lot of unmet need, and the system at the moment isn't able to reach out and deal with those people", says independent.co.uk, bitterly complaining about "lack of money" and "reductions in investment".
"They're vulnerable people with complex needs and demand for our support is increasing. Yet we've seen our funding slashed by 42% since 2010. The situation is the same across the country", says The Guardian and wonder why treatment centres are being slashed. And there are plenty of those sharing this concern. They believe junkies have been massively sidetracked and that they should be prioritized in respect to funding. Should we now listen to their appeals? We haven't considered a few facts from a tinnitus sufferer's side of things first. JUNKIES are those who HAVE intervention. They have options. All we "have" is a fucking tinnitus masker and a bunch of charlatan behavior therapies which do nothing to reduce the loudness of the tinnitus. Essentially, there are NO therapies for us!
Addiction treatment is not under-funded. Drug addicts are the most expensive people for society to keep! In my country, they prey on welfare. They are not ashamed to use up tax money. And for them therapies are all free. As for us, we have to pay for all of our PATHETIC therapies. We cost society from relatively little to practically nothing at all, since most of us work and are expected to function normally in spite of our condition. The sympathy that goes to us is on the same level as to junkies!
Most stories do not end like Nic's in Beautiful Boy. Report indicates state addiction treatment is massively ineffective as, according to Boston 25 News, "more than half of the adults entering state-licensed, residential addiction treatment centers in Massachusetts do not complete their treatment programs and one in eight are readmitted within a month of being discharged, according to a new state report." Administration officials of Boston say they have invested significantly in substance abuse prevention and treatment, including an $18 million spending increase in 2016!!
Keeping in mind researcher Professor Rauschecker who recently said that if we'd get the funding needed, he is certain we'd cure tinnitus in five years (instead of his ten), it's a disgrace that such a substantial share of money goes into simply extending the lives of ungrateful junkies, most of who no amount of treatment can rehabilitate into functional individuals! It's time to take ALL that money away from the addicts, and put it into tinnitus research where it belongs. Otherwise, we're looking at 10+ years, possibly a lifetime, of incessant ringing in our ears. Not one junkie shall get any more funding, before we sleep quietly!
FIRST silence, THEN shitty human waste!
"Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50. While addiction treatment is M-A-S-S-I-V-E-L-Y under-funded and under-regulated, there are those working tirelessly in all communities to combat this epidemic."
Addiction treatment, we are told, is massively under-funded. As a tinnitus sufferer, I'm disheartened to see this mindset repeated across various media outlets. "We're finding that services are not able to reach out and engage those who are most at risk but who aren't voluntarily coming into treatment. There's an awful lot of unmet need, and the system at the moment isn't able to reach out and deal with those people", says independent.co.uk, bitterly complaining about "lack of money" and "reductions in investment".
"They're vulnerable people with complex needs and demand for our support is increasing. Yet we've seen our funding slashed by 42% since 2010. The situation is the same across the country", says The Guardian and wonder why treatment centres are being slashed. And there are plenty of those sharing this concern. They believe junkies have been massively sidetracked and that they should be prioritized in respect to funding. Should we now listen to their appeals? We haven't considered a few facts from a tinnitus sufferer's side of things first. JUNKIES are those who HAVE intervention. They have options. All we "have" is a fucking tinnitus masker and a bunch of charlatan behavior therapies which do nothing to reduce the loudness of the tinnitus. Essentially, there are NO therapies for us!
Addiction treatment is not under-funded. Drug addicts are the most expensive people for society to keep! In my country, they prey on welfare. They are not ashamed to use up tax money. And for them therapies are all free. As for us, we have to pay for all of our PATHETIC therapies. We cost society from relatively little to practically nothing at all, since most of us work and are expected to function normally in spite of our condition. The sympathy that goes to us is on the same level as to junkies!
Most stories do not end like Nic's in Beautiful Boy. Report indicates state addiction treatment is massively ineffective as, according to Boston 25 News, "more than half of the adults entering state-licensed, residential addiction treatment centers in Massachusetts do not complete their treatment programs and one in eight are readmitted within a month of being discharged, according to a new state report." Administration officials of Boston say they have invested significantly in substance abuse prevention and treatment, including an $18 million spending increase in 2016!!
Keeping in mind researcher Professor Rauschecker who recently said that if we'd get the funding needed, he is certain we'd cure tinnitus in five years (instead of his ten), it's a disgrace that such a substantial share of money goes into simply extending the lives of ungrateful junkies, most of who no amount of treatment can rehabilitate into functional individuals! It's time to take ALL that money away from the addicts, and put it into tinnitus research where it belongs. Otherwise, we're looking at 10+ years, possibly a lifetime, of incessant ringing in our ears. Not one junkie shall get any more funding, before we sleep quietly!
FIRST silence, THEN shitty human waste!
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