CRACK HO
What is the saying? Recognizing you have a problem is the first
step to overcoming it. Something close
to that. Hey, I get it. Alkies Anonymous might help some people, in
theory. Me, I think they are weak and
don’t want to change, not really. Their
life sucks enough they want to kill themselves but don’t have the courage to
wear a suicide vest and go take a little sightseeing tour of the state capital
while they are in session. Hell, at
LEAST a lawyers office! An admin
building at a particularly leftist university?
Damn, dude, there are SOOOOO many lamp post listed worthy targets out
there. Take your pick.
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But, no. Everyone gets all weepy and stupid and wants
support and a helping hand. And you know
what, perhaps I’m being a dingus and that really does work. I mean, sure, I was an alkie for a time and
stopped that crap myself, weaning off.
And I only lived with one for fifteen years. But I admit I could be wrong. It’s a good
thing, to get people off booze because alcohol makes them combative and
dangerous. Get them smoking three packs
of cigarettes a day so the state doesn’t lose any addict tax money, and
drinking all coffee and no water, and then throw in a bunch of sweets and junk
food.
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That’s the ticket! Substitute one addiction with three! At least you can claim Baby Jesus got them to
quite drinking. Now they can live longer
and be a bigger drain on the medical industry.
A failed liver? No extra
available, please move your alcoholic ass along. But lung cancer? Cha-ching!
That chemo is pure damn profit for the hospital, and we can keep you
alive much longer! Thank you for your
service to the OTHER 20% of the economy.
You know how Russia reduced alcoholism?
They kept increasing the tax on vodka.
They certainly didn’t fawn all over the humpers. Don’t have money? Suffer!
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But then, AA is kind of
just for rich people with White People problems, isn’t it? You see many unemployed Black people at the
meetings? Why would you? Perhaps some Oreo’s ( I wonder why they don’t
call Blacks with White cultural mores “Hydrox’s”. Oreo ripped off the idea from the Hydrox
cookie. Hell, Oreo is in my word
processor spell check. Hydrox isn’t. Oreo got all the fame and fortune ). Not ghetto Blacks. They might well be alcoholics and drug users,
but they don’t feel any need to complicate their lives by trying to remove the
things that dull their pain. Why would
they want to?
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And that is right about
where your average American is. First,
they cannot admit they have a problem.
Second, if they know they have a problem, they have no interest in
solving that problem because they want to dull the pain ( is that Tom
Petty? I think I’m channeling him here
). I am not speaking of alcohol or
heroin, but debt and oil. The addiction
is off the charts for these people. And like
most addicts, the source of the addiction is perceived as a solution. So what if I drink? It relaxes me at the end of the day ( I mean,
duh, that’s what it is supposed to do.
You might want to stop after the first pint if you are merely relaxing,
however ).
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I need a car because I
live too far from shopping ( duh, don’t shop so much ) or B, C, or D
reasons. I’m not trying to start a flame
war here. As I’ve stated many times,
better addicted to a car than to a mortgage ( better cigarettes than booze-at
least with tobacco you make far fewer stupid decisions ). I need a mortgage or a car payment or credit
cards because…Well, no, you really don’t NEED, but you do want. All I hear is that you cannot make better
decisions because you are supporting the bad ones you already made. And sometimes you honestly cannot. I don’t presume to know the details of your
life or if they will fit into my singular solution.
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But even if you feel you
cannot change ( I’m too old and the house is paid for so I can’t move out of
the ghetto ), I wonder if you aren’t just unwilling to give up your addiction. For instance, on the ghetto house for the
geriatric. You can’t get a reverse
mortgage, buy junk land and live out there in an RV? Or you won’t, because you love the pampered
creature comforts of a home over a shack/cabin/hovel? Enough that you risk getting mugged every
time you go out of the house ( “the stores are so close where I live!”. Right, so close to where the muggers live ).
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Oil Age luxuries, like on
grid living and abundant credit ( not cheap credit, unless you are a
corporation or government body ), are an addiction. And yes, we are all somewhat addicted. My employment is predicated on the resource
pig Internet. Which started as a way to
save resources, but has been anything but.
The corporations hijacked the resource, using it as a money saving
device which the rest of us pay for ( taxes and subsidized power rates and ISP
extortion for the masses ), and to some degree most of us are also addicted to
this resource we pay for that only profit’s the big players.
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The trick is to see how we
are addicted and do something, anything, to minimize and protect ourselves from
it. If you cannot admit you have a
problem you can’t fix it. I was addicted
to alcohol, I got out of a high stress job, giving up potential security, and
weaned myself off slowly. Cigarettes are
not exactly good for you. So, again, go
to a lower stress job and minimize the habit ( one cigarette a day isn’t going
to kill me, and is probably healthier than eating tuna and breathing the air
off California as Fuki is the gift that keeps on giving ).
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The analogy I use is that
of a crack whore. The first taste is
always free. Give the bitch some smack,
get her hooked on it, them turn her into a prostitute so she supports you and her
habit. Pretty soon she is doing anal in
the alleyway for a $5 rock, no teeth and a bonus dose of AIDS. Uncle Sugar is your pimp, and he’s got you
hooked on credit and petroleum luxuries.
Which means you are his bitch.
His ho. And how long before you
are down in that alley, willing to do anything for your next fix? I trust you are ashamed of yourself. And only you can change things. No one else cares. If there was an AA for Uncle Sugar addicts,
the others would just be there because of their own problems they need to
unburden.
END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2D3Ir9V )
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there
The ideal scenario would be to have some small stipend or cash flow (pension-trust fund-diasbled) to carry your expenses when going galt into the hills, or hermitting like ted kazynski unibomber hate the world mode. Being able to live low to the ground off grid, or boondocking around the edges of society in an r.v. is only half the challenge. My personal impediment is having a income or cash flow to transition into that idyllic lifestyle, without screwing it up and being homeless or in a perpetual refugee status. I guess a known situation is a powerfull crack addiction to break, before being able to go all wolverines! And digging into the hinterlands.
ReplyDeleteEven if you have to drive into town from some distance, sleeping in your vehicle, what about just working two days a week? You then get the benefit of both worlds. Sure, details to work out, but just as a general guideline.
DeleteYeah your right there, good idea. Be an amazon jungle or seasonal worker at drone job or such.
Delete"hate the world mode"? Well said. I was homeless once. It wasn't so bad. On cold nights I would crawl under my truck in a small ditch I scooped out so the rain wouldn't hit me , I could stretch out and the heat from the oil pan made it warm for hours. I'm to tall to stretch out on the bench seat and no one can sleep crunched up like a ball. (bad back)
DeleteWhat does occur when you are homeless, alone and maybe starving is it gives you time to think! You access your situation from the standpoint of reality, maybe for the first time in your pathetic life and you decide what to do about it. Things improve if you make the right choices. I bought a camper shell from a thrift store and put it on my pickup truck. It was like being a home owner! From there I got an ice chest, a sterno stove, I built a bed frame with storage underneath. I'd park at a Dennys or a Walmart, someplace with a bathroom open all night. That was 30 years ago! I've improved my situation quite a bit since then. Some of it was luck, some of it was playing the game skillfully.
RP,
DeleteGod bless you.
i went hungry some as a kid and had very few clothes. makes you appreciate everything gratefully.
Living in a van down by the river is how I'm spending my winter. It beats shoveling snow in the frozen north. My lovely wife and I do have a small income, so as long as live frugally, it all works out. Cheaper than heating oil and a lot less work than splitting firewood.
ReplyDelete