How do you know this again? I feel like a lot of people just assume this. Where did you learn this?

The biggest reason for homelessness is lack of affordable housing according to the vast majority of studies I've been exposed to. The number one reason families lose their home is medical bankruptcy, usually for a physical injury and not mental health reasons.

A lot of homeless people aren't addicts or crazy. It is easy to write them off as such because it is easier to believe that people end up that way due to a moral failing or poor decision making, but sometimes they just got hurt at work or their wife got sick and they couldn't afford their mortgage.

bad commie

Enlightened right-wingers such as myself don't view mental problems(including addiction) as moral failings.

Actually, most people don't view mental illness as a moral failing, but addiction is another story.

This post was edited by IceMage on Feb 10 2017 03:54pm

he's right about medical bankruptcy....

Thats pretty weird because it's something that just doesnt exist here in france.

they show it at tv-circus like this:





This post was edited by Saucisson6000 on Feb 10 2017 03:56pm

what if its addiction brought on by a mental illness tho

Meanwhile I reject the dichotomy of mental illness and free will entirely. People are bags of flesh and fluid and our decision making is a product of our chemical 'imbalances' and neurons firing off, we are all machines however complex. A physical addiction may provide a strong influence towards shaping behaviors that won't be overcome by personality. If its within our power to fix the addiction, we can remove it as an influence in that persons judgement and return them to being a functional member of society. Fixing influences of violent disposition due to more complex character flaws might be outside our current technological powers. Maybe in the future being a sociopath will be curable instead of merely medicated into submission., maybe we'll perform reconstructive surgery on the brains of infants with autism using nanobots. If we want to separate what "mental illnesses can be effectively treated" versus "decisions arising from complex and irreducible personality flaws", thats fine. Addiction has pretty discrete pathology.

Addiction is it's own mental illness. It's a separate diagnosis. It frequently goes hand in hand with other mental health issues, like depression/bi-polar/etc, but it is separate.

Unless you're simply referring the physical manifestation of addiction brought on by another mental health issue, in which case carry on.

i was actually just being a smart ass

i've personally seen a lot of abuse tied to depression/bipolar from people i know....

The most likely and most profound medical interventions in the future will IMO be genetic technologies, esp. CRISPR.

I'll be back to discuss this topic, especially what Mr. Shill has to say. It is a topic I love ☺ and am quite invested in. I'm a couple cocktails into the night and seeing some stand-up comedy soon so it will be tomorrow.



Self-medication is real. When social systems fail the masses need an opiate.

This post was edited by Skinned on Feb 10 2017 07:16pm