Another great — and hard-hitting — read. The "euphemism creep" you describe is all too real, and not just in the world of addictions.
It's gone so far that whereas we in medicine used to be able to freely call something a disorder — a disease, even — without that being perceived as pejorative, in the brave new world of gender fluidity we've tossed even that aside, in favour of discarding the clearly abnormal in favour of calling it a flavour of normal.
"Toxic empathy is the kindness of heart that makes us want to give every kid a trophy. To let the screaming toddler eat the chocolate bar an hour before supper. To shut down free speech because someone’s feelings might be hurt. To avoid enforcing educational standards because someone might actually fail and feel bad." Exactly!! This caving in to 'protecting' people's feelings have brought us to today's failures. What is wrong with a little reality check? A little tough love? A little less coddling and a lot more instilling responsibility? Bonnie Henry is enabling addicts to remain addicts and it doesn't stop at her. Let me get my conspiracy hat on here for a moment, I think what we see in our country is all by design. If you are an addict or someone who abuses alcohol or drugs, you are more likely not to care about what is going on around you. The real culprits can get away with a lot more than if people were fully conscious. By the way, my brother worked at Rideau Regional back in the late 70's. Thanks for the thought provoking articles! :)
In Sudbury, only 40% of the kids in school meet the provincial standards in math and about 1/3 cannot read and write at the provincial standard. Only 17% of the Grade 9 students in Timmins meet the provincial standard in math.
I just saw a report that shows the 30 schools in Illinois where not a single student can read at grade level. Not one. Yet no one talks about this. Not the politicans, not the school boards, not the teachers and not many parents.
A woman who trains new hires in a local retail store had a high school graduate who couldn't count change. During training, the trainee handed the customer her change: two quarters and a dime for 45 cents.
Instead of worrying about lower standards, we argue about boys playing on the girls sports teams and the dozens of new pronouns.
The families that can afford it are giving their kids private lessons in the evenings and on weekends.
Our society is ill. I fear that we are becoming like the Weimar Republic and the Tsar's Russia; a society that is seriously sick.
I come from a long line of teachers (both grandma's were schoolmarms, as was my mom, and my dad was a teacher for his whole career too). I have a family member who is quitting teaching 10 years earlier than planned because of the complete collapse of standards (behavioural and educational). He has basically thrown up his hands and said "why am I bothering with this charade". Everyone gets a degree. Dean's lists have been ended in many areas because they make some kids feel bad about themselves.
Want to be really scared? They are now picking med sctudents based on DIE and "soft" skills. ie: yeah, your degree is only in sociology and women's studies, and your marks aren't that great, and you didn't do MCATs, but you seem really nice! One of these "soft" admission students was working with me in ER and was unable to tell me what 1/4 of 6 was (we needed to know very quickly for a person who had bled, was unstable, and needed fluid and blood by IV). She got very flustered when I asked and spluttered "I'm not very good at math!".
Excellent, as usual. This series is very well-timed - I was flabbergasted when I read the updated Code of Ethics for LPNs in January, and under the first principle, "LPNs promote optimal health and well-being", one of the expected indicators is to "support harm reduction through choice and the promotion of safer practices." This is not promoting best practice and client safety, and I'm shocked that our country is pushing so hard to promote "harm reduction".
Wow - that's shocking that they wrote it right into the Code of Ethics! "You must agree that harm reduction is great or you are unethical". That is sad.
More great stuff! ...........don't you sleep?....a couple of points. Continuing our mutual admiration for Dalrymple his 'In praise of prejudice,' short and brilliant, says it all on disposing of the non-judgemental nonsense. The language thing is one of my bugbears....as with pronouncobblers it is meant to be kinder and 'inclusive' and....yet it's purveyors are often the worst authoritarian, divisive managerilists enforcing radical woke on the severely normal and they are not the caring staff crying when the patients die. And it deliberately confuses....individuals using plural pronouns, confusing mental handicap with milder, neurological 'learning disability'
The one thing I take issue with is the illness concept. Yes it may not be true....I think it isn't ....but it is a bedrock of AA etc, as is the arguable belief in a higher power, which have done more to help the addicted than any number of clever initiatives by doctors and the increasingly totally deranged like safe supply of smoking fentanyl. I see Bonnie H. is getting huge pushback for this nonsense as the bodies pile up.
Good points. I should have been clear that I am specifically against the idea of addiction as a "physical illness" or "brain disease". Toxoplasmosis and tumours are "brain diseases". Addiction is addiction.
Also, Chris, I know you said you won't step into the debate here, but if you ever feel like it, I'd love to hear your thoughts on community options living vs. institutions for the mentally handicapped/mentally ill. That's something I've also been thinking about and would enjoy reading whatever you'd have to say about it.
It's certainly a very challenging issue. I'm happy to message you privately with my thoughts. Julie and I have considered writing a Substack about it. Sounds like we should put it on the list...
Very well written. It’s ironic that physicians who are themselves addicts are forced to abstain completely with PHPs, or lose their livelihood. The success rate is predictably very high.
I’ve seen SLS referred to a lot lately in medicine (Shitty life syndrome). Unfortunately, high costs of living and crushing debt are pushing more and more folks to the fringes. I wish I could change your crippling, unfair poverty (or social situation or family or job etc…) but here’s a pill instead. Call me a cynic, but humans just aren’t that resilient, overall, such that if things are, on average, getting shittier and shittier, there will be more addicts and deaths of despair. Shift the overall bell curve of a society towards shittiness, and more of the tail end are gonna fall off. We need real fundamental change, especially economically.
I prescribe reading Theodore Dalrymple's "Life at the Bottom". In this book, he makes the point that in London, for instance, rates of crime, littering, random assaults, and addictions were actually lower back when people were (MUCH!) poorer. And rates of depression actually fell during times of war.
I think what makes people happy/fulfilled/resilient is not money, but a feeling of societal cohesion and solidarity and community. Knowing how they fit in. Having a common narrative to cleave to (a la Joseph Campbell). We are a FAR richer society than a generation or two ago by almost every measure. All through a time when poverty in Canada and the west was falling, addictions became far more common.
The evidence just doesn't support "people use drugs because they are poor". I think it supports "people use drugs because they feel purposeless and alone".
I agree. I tend to think that people use drugs because they feel hopeless or to cover up their true feelings of worthlessness. I have had friends over the years who became addicts and what set them off was they just didn't want to 'feel' shitty so that high brought a little relief but then the drugs got a hold on them which made it very difficult to kick.
I agree—it’s not all economics. Perhaps the decline of the “third place” is contributing—somewhere other than home or work where we go to be social and get fulfillment. It’s hard to define “shittiness,” but being behind the financial 8-ball and having a ready supply of a cheap, effective chemical solution (though deadly) doesn’t help.
Totally agree about the "third place". Almost all of the traditional vehicles for community cohesion - volunteerism, church, union activities, walking one's kid to school - have disappeared, leaving us with FaceBook friends only.
The reason I'm against the economic argument is that it just doesn't hold. This is true over time as poverty rates have changed. But also if you take a snapshot, you see that certain groups (take ethnic Chinese or Indian immigrants, for instance) are much poorer than the average Canadian, but have far lower rates of addiction. What they have going for them is tight family and cultural bonds and moral traditions. If money explained addiction, they should be very commonly addicted.
Another great — and hard-hitting — read. The "euphemism creep" you describe is all too real, and not just in the world of addictions.
It's gone so far that whereas we in medicine used to be able to freely call something a disorder — a disease, even — without that being perceived as pejorative, in the brave new world of gender fluidity we've tossed even that aside, in favour of discarding the clearly abnormal in favour of calling it a flavour of normal.
We're behaving like low-grade imbeciles :)
"Toxic empathy is the kindness of heart that makes us want to give every kid a trophy. To let the screaming toddler eat the chocolate bar an hour before supper. To shut down free speech because someone’s feelings might be hurt. To avoid enforcing educational standards because someone might actually fail and feel bad." Exactly!! This caving in to 'protecting' people's feelings have brought us to today's failures. What is wrong with a little reality check? A little tough love? A little less coddling and a lot more instilling responsibility? Bonnie Henry is enabling addicts to remain addicts and it doesn't stop at her. Let me get my conspiracy hat on here for a moment, I think what we see in our country is all by design. If you are an addict or someone who abuses alcohol or drugs, you are more likely not to care about what is going on around you. The real culprits can get away with a lot more than if people were fully conscious. By the way, my brother worked at Rideau Regional back in the late 70's. Thanks for the thought provoking articles! :)
Lower our standards. Sure thing.
In Sudbury, only 40% of the kids in school meet the provincial standards in math and about 1/3 cannot read and write at the provincial standard. Only 17% of the Grade 9 students in Timmins meet the provincial standard in math.
I just saw a report that shows the 30 schools in Illinois where not a single student can read at grade level. Not one. Yet no one talks about this. Not the politicans, not the school boards, not the teachers and not many parents.
A woman who trains new hires in a local retail store had a high school graduate who couldn't count change. During training, the trainee handed the customer her change: two quarters and a dime for 45 cents.
Instead of worrying about lower standards, we argue about boys playing on the girls sports teams and the dozens of new pronouns.
The families that can afford it are giving their kids private lessons in the evenings and on weekends.
Our society is ill. I fear that we are becoming like the Weimar Republic and the Tsar's Russia; a society that is seriously sick.
I come from a long line of teachers (both grandma's were schoolmarms, as was my mom, and my dad was a teacher for his whole career too). I have a family member who is quitting teaching 10 years earlier than planned because of the complete collapse of standards (behavioural and educational). He has basically thrown up his hands and said "why am I bothering with this charade". Everyone gets a degree. Dean's lists have been ended in many areas because they make some kids feel bad about themselves.
Want to be really scared? They are now picking med sctudents based on DIE and "soft" skills. ie: yeah, your degree is only in sociology and women's studies, and your marks aren't that great, and you didn't do MCATs, but you seem really nice! One of these "soft" admission students was working with me in ER and was unable to tell me what 1/4 of 6 was (we needed to know very quickly for a person who had bled, was unstable, and needed fluid and blood by IV). She got very flustered when I asked and spluttered "I'm not very good at math!".
Excellent, as usual. This series is very well-timed - I was flabbergasted when I read the updated Code of Ethics for LPNs in January, and under the first principle, "LPNs promote optimal health and well-being", one of the expected indicators is to "support harm reduction through choice and the promotion of safer practices." This is not promoting best practice and client safety, and I'm shocked that our country is pushing so hard to promote "harm reduction".
Wow - that's shocking that they wrote it right into the Code of Ethics! "You must agree that harm reduction is great or you are unethical". That is sad.
More great stuff! ...........don't you sleep?....a couple of points. Continuing our mutual admiration for Dalrymple his 'In praise of prejudice,' short and brilliant, says it all on disposing of the non-judgemental nonsense. The language thing is one of my bugbears....as with pronouncobblers it is meant to be kinder and 'inclusive' and....yet it's purveyors are often the worst authoritarian, divisive managerilists enforcing radical woke on the severely normal and they are not the caring staff crying when the patients die. And it deliberately confuses....individuals using plural pronouns, confusing mental handicap with milder, neurological 'learning disability'
The one thing I take issue with is the illness concept. Yes it may not be true....I think it isn't ....but it is a bedrock of AA etc, as is the arguable belief in a higher power, which have done more to help the addicted than any number of clever initiatives by doctors and the increasingly totally deranged like safe supply of smoking fentanyl. I see Bonnie H. is getting huge pushback for this nonsense as the bodies pile up.
Good points. I should have been clear that I am specifically against the idea of addiction as a "physical illness" or "brain disease". Toxoplasmosis and tumours are "brain diseases". Addiction is addiction.
Also, Chris, I know you said you won't step into the debate here, but if you ever feel like it, I'd love to hear your thoughts on community options living vs. institutions for the mentally handicapped/mentally ill. That's something I've also been thinking about and would enjoy reading whatever you'd have to say about it.
It's certainly a very challenging issue. I'm happy to message you privately with my thoughts. Julie and I have considered writing a Substack about it. Sounds like we should put it on the list...
Very well written. It’s ironic that physicians who are themselves addicts are forced to abstain completely with PHPs, or lose their livelihood. The success rate is predictably very high.
I’ve seen SLS referred to a lot lately in medicine (Shitty life syndrome). Unfortunately, high costs of living and crushing debt are pushing more and more folks to the fringes. I wish I could change your crippling, unfair poverty (or social situation or family or job etc…) but here’s a pill instead. Call me a cynic, but humans just aren’t that resilient, overall, such that if things are, on average, getting shittier and shittier, there will be more addicts and deaths of despair. Shift the overall bell curve of a society towards shittiness, and more of the tail end are gonna fall off. We need real fundamental change, especially economically.
I prescribe reading Theodore Dalrymple's "Life at the Bottom". In this book, he makes the point that in London, for instance, rates of crime, littering, random assaults, and addictions were actually lower back when people were (MUCH!) poorer. And rates of depression actually fell during times of war.
I think what makes people happy/fulfilled/resilient is not money, but a feeling of societal cohesion and solidarity and community. Knowing how they fit in. Having a common narrative to cleave to (a la Joseph Campbell). We are a FAR richer society than a generation or two ago by almost every measure. All through a time when poverty in Canada and the west was falling, addictions became far more common.
The evidence just doesn't support "people use drugs because they are poor". I think it supports "people use drugs because they feel purposeless and alone".
I agree. I tend to think that people use drugs because they feel hopeless or to cover up their true feelings of worthlessness. I have had friends over the years who became addicts and what set them off was they just didn't want to 'feel' shitty so that high brought a little relief but then the drugs got a hold on them which made it very difficult to kick.
Yes - if a person's life is so empty and awful, sometimes being stoned out of reality is an improvement.
I agree—it’s not all economics. Perhaps the decline of the “third place” is contributing—somewhere other than home or work where we go to be social and get fulfillment. It’s hard to define “shittiness,” but being behind the financial 8-ball and having a ready supply of a cheap, effective chemical solution (though deadly) doesn’t help.
Totally agree about the "third place". Almost all of the traditional vehicles for community cohesion - volunteerism, church, union activities, walking one's kid to school - have disappeared, leaving us with FaceBook friends only.
The reason I'm against the economic argument is that it just doesn't hold. This is true over time as poverty rates have changed. But also if you take a snapshot, you see that certain groups (take ethnic Chinese or Indian immigrants, for instance) are much poorer than the average Canadian, but have far lower rates of addiction. What they have going for them is tight family and cultural bonds and moral traditions. If money explained addiction, they should be very commonly addicted.
Just making the victimhood more prevalent instead of empowering them to take personal responsibility.
Bonnie Henry should not be a doctor or politician - or out of jail.