In todays news...

[Potter]

Well boo rah for you.

Having spent a fair bit of time around other homeless people over a long time, I think I know why the majority are homeless...and it's not because they're forced to be there.

The exceptions are like my mate who lived with me in the YMCA (dead now god bless him), he heard voices and had different personalities in his head, we spent a lot of time talking about it and I believed him when he said it was impossible to hold down a job when you have three people having a violent argument inside your head and you can't hear yourself think.

But the majority are drug addicts through choice, or dossers through choice.
It's not easy to turn it around, but entirely possible, if they're pushed.

[Cousin Jack]

IME most street people have mental problems, often exacerbated by drink/drugs. Many of them are ex-military with PTSD. They may be drinking cider, but after a few cold wet nights sleeping rough I would be self-medicating with cider too.

Don't confuse cause and effect.

[irie]

As can one also read about everything on mainstream news in this thread which, curiously, is entitled "In todays news..."!

Indeed it is, but you might occasionally make a point yourself and discuss, instead of simply parroting what you've read somewhere.
N.B. this will mean you have to understand the subject.

It might also mean revealing where he actually stands on a subject too. That might be useful.

Bearing in mind my earlier post ...

Israel was created in 1948 in the Middle East in land that had been Arab/Islamic for hundreds of years. What could possibly go wrong?

... I support neither Israel nor terrorist groups such as Hamas and Heezollah. Iran and its proxies can lose many times but Israel can lose only once. The continued existence of the Hamas Covenant ensures that all parties must fight it out to the death.

[Count Steer]

But the majority are drug addicts through choice, or dossers through choice.
It's not easy to turn it around, but entirely possible, if they're pushed.

You don't know much about addiction at all do you?

[Count Steer]

Indeed it is, but you might occasionally make a point yourself and discuss, instead of simply parroting what you've read somewhere.
N.B. this will mean you have to understand the subject.

It might also mean revealing where he actually stands on a subject too. That might be useful.

Bearing in mind my earlier post ...

Israel was created in 1948 in the Middle East in land that had been Arab/Islamic for hundreds of years. What could possibly go wrong?

... I support neither Israel nor terrorist groups such as Hamas and Heezollah. Iran and its proxies can lose many times but Israel can lose only once. The continued existence of the Hamas Covenant ensures that all parties must fight it out to the death.

Well, I don't totally disagree, in general terms, but I am interested in the use of the term 'proxies' when you only apply it to Iran. The last time I heard the term used in conversation it was implying that either the the USA was an Israel proxy or vv, I don't exactly remember.

[Potter]

But the majority are drug addicts through choice, or dossers through choice.
It's not easy to turn it around, but entirely possible, if they're pushed.

You don't know much about addiction at all do you?

I know lots, it's 100% pure choice to get into and 100% pure choice to get out of.
You learn to become addicted to something and you can learn to not be addicted to it.

[Noggin]

But the majority are drug addicts through choice, or dossers through choice.
It's not easy to turn it around, but entirely possible, if they're pushed.

You don't know much about addiction at all do you?

I know lots, it's 100% pure choice to get into and 100% pure choice to get out of.
You learn to become addicted to something and you can learn to not be addicted to it.

I don't disagree in theory. But that is quite simplistic

Once in the hole of addiction (I think especially drugs), it is often very very difficult to 'just' pull yourself back out.

The first part is a choice - often misguided etc, but it's a choice to start on the way down that spiral.

But the second - a bit like telling someone depressed to just cheer up. Possible but incredibly difficult and unlikely without outside help or a change in 'something'.

[JackyJoll]

You don't know much about addiction at all do you?

He’s on here quite a lot…

[Count Steer]

But the majority are drug addicts through choice, or dossers through choice.
It's not easy to turn it around, but entirely possible, if they're pushed.

You don't know much about addiction at all do you?

I know lots, it's 100% pure choice to get into and 100% pure choice to get out of.
You learn to become addicted to something and you can learn to not be addicted to it.

So, tell me about the time you chose to live on the streets and why, freebasing, drinking White Lightning and shooting up and how you pulled yourself up by your stocking tops to become a master of the universe. lol.

It doesn't matter how low people go or how high they get...you just have to have been lower and higher. It doesn't matter how depressed they've been, you've been there and given yourself a kick up the arse and become yet another superhero.

Sigh.

[Potter]

So, tell me about the time you chose to live on the streets and why, freebasing, drinking White Lightning and shooting up and how you pulled yourself up by your stocking tops to become a master of the universe. lol.

It doesn't matter how low people go or how high they get...you just have to have been lower and higher. It doesn't matter how depressed they've been, you've been there and given yourself a kick up the arse and become yet another superhero.

Sigh.

I know exactly what I'm talking about through experience, I then subsequently worked for Phoenix House Projects, Turning Point and then the Probation Service. I still volunteer doing guest lectures when I'm in the country and I actively employ people that have been through it themselves, for example, I have a manager that works for us that spent fifteen years living on the streets as a young bloke.

"Freebasing" lol, do you even know what you're talking about?

[Count Steer]

So, you haven't actually been on the street but you know some people that have chosen to be there? You've worked with companies that build housing and the organisations that use it?

I'd like to know how anyone would inactively employ people too.

Freebasing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_base

[Potter]

So, you haven't actually been on the street but you know some people that have chosen to be there? You've worked with companies that build housing and the organisations that use it?

I'd like to know how anyone would inactively employ people too.

Freebasing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_base

I was homeless for a couple of years, lived in the YMCA, sofa surfed, etc.

You're showing that you know nothing, Phoenix House was a residential drug rehab organisation, they had rehabs all over the country, they changed now into something different, they're called Phoenix Futures, but they still do drug treatment centres. Turning Point was the same, drug rehab and mental health care, also lots of day centres and outreach.

No one uses freebase, you have to wash it up with ammonia and have access to ether, no one on the street has that, instead they may wash up the gear with bicarb and cook it in the microwave, but that's a different drug than freebase, you might have heard it called Crack.

[Yorick]

Apparently, Braverman considers rough sleeping a "lifestyle choice" - Home Secretary Suella Braverman wants to restrict use of tents by homeless

The home secretary is proposing new laws to restrict the use of tents by homeless people, arguing that many of them see it as a lifestyle choice.

Suella Braverman's plan would introduce new penalties in England and Wales for homeless people whom authorities believe have rejected offers of help.

Britain "cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents," she said.

Housing charity Shelter responded that "nobody should be punished for being homeless".

Well, that clears one thing up - Braverman is even more disconnected from reality than I first thought.

If you look about and read the full story, it does make sense.

Too many folk just read the highlights.

[Count Steer]

So, you haven't actually been on the street but you know some people that have chosen to be there? You've worked with companies that build housing and the organisations that use it?

I'd like to know how anyone would inactively employ people too.

Freebasing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_base

I was homeless for a couple of years, lived in the YMCA, sofa surfed, etc.

You're showing that you know nothing, Phoenix House was a residential drug rehab organisation, they had rehabs all over the country, they changed now into something different, they're called Phoenix Futures, but they still do drug treatment centres. Turning Point was the same, drug rehab and mental health care, also lots of day centres.

So, why did you choose a lifestyle that made you dependent on Phoenix House and Turning Point? What were you addicted to? Or, why did you choose to help people that had decided to be addicted? For someone that talks about addiction you don't seem to know much about it other than it's what people choose to be.

[Noggin]

So, you haven't actually been on the street but you know some people that have chosen to be there? You've worked with companies that build housing and the organisations that use it?

I'd like to know how anyone would inactively employ people too.

Freebasing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_base

I was homeless for a couple of years, lived in the YMCA, sofa surfed, etc.

You're showing that you know nothing, Phoenix House was a residential drug rehab organisation, they had rehabs all over the country, they changed now into something different, they're called Phoenix Futures, but they still do drug treatment centres. Turning Point was the same, drug rehab and mental health care, also lots of day centres.

So, why did you choose a lifestyle that made you dependent on Phoenix House and Turning Point? What were you addicted to? Or, why did you choose to help people that had decided to be addicted? For someone that talks about addiction you don't seem to know much about it other than it's what people choose to be.

But, everyone's experience is different and how they deal with it is different. It isn't wrong, just different.

For some people, what Potter writes would work. For others it wouldn't. Same as anything in life.

On a different subject but similar mentality, people on here regularly say that if someone is fat "all they have to do is eat less and move more" whilst berating them for the lack of control that has caused them be ugly and (horror of horrors) FAT - there is zero accounting for any pyschological or physical reason for the fatness. But that's ok, because they are just fat.

But because someone has strong views about this different topic, they have to be made to explain in minute detail

I don't understand needling someone that had strong views because you don't agree.

Surely it makes like much calmer, easier and (for want of a better word) nicer to scroll by? It's the way I've stayed on the forum.

And yes, sometimes I do make a post to make an actual comment with actual views, but rarely and only when I get really fed up with reading the bickering - TBF, I do usually close the thread and read something else. Maybe I should have done that tonight

[Potter]

So, why did you choose a lifestyle that made you dependent on Phoenix House and Turning Point? What were you addicted to? Or, why did you choose to help people that had decided to be addicted? For someone that talks about addiction you don't seem to know much about it other than it's what people choose to be.

I had cancer, thought I was going to die, at the time it robbed me of my life as I knew it and it threw me off the deep end and into a bad place, it was eventually successfully treated via an operation and chemo, but it still wiped me out mentally and I ended up making some very bad choices for a couple of years, based on anger, grief, etc.

I suppose I could claim that it wasn't really a choice, but it was, I chose every single destructive step that I ever took. Once you own that, then you can change and take positive ones.

After I resolved my issues I wanted to give something back, so I worked with other people in the same boat to try and help them.
Still do. I've written on the subject, done lectures and lots of time working or volunteering.

[Count Steer]

I simply take exception to being told that whatever problem people have, be it drugs/alcohol/relationships/weight/depression whatever it's their choice and that all they need to do is buckle up and fly right. It's all too 'airport self-improvement books' for me.

Fin.

[Potter]

On a different subject but similar mentality, people on here regularly say that if someone is fat "all they have to do is eat less and move more" whilst berating them for the lack of control that has caused them be ugly and (horror of horrors) FAT - there is zero accounting for any pyschological or physical reason for the fatness. But that's ok, because they are just fat.

People are fat because they choose to eat more kcals than they burn.
That is the only reason.

It's a genuine revelation when you accept responsibility for yourself instead of blaming it on some unprovable theoretical affliction that you're apparently helpless against.
It's hard admittedly, but it's liberating when/if people finally get it.

[Potter]

I simply take exception to being told that whatever problem people have, be it drugs/alcohol/relationships/weight/depression whatever it's their choice and that all they need to do is buckle up and fly right. It's all too 'airport self-improvement books' for me.

Fin.

Depression is different, because that may be chemical and you can't simply think your way out of it, like you can't think your way out of cancer or a broken leg.

Drugs, alcohol, weight, is all a choice though.
Hard choice, not easy to change that behaviour, but it's a choice.

[Felix]

My wife was on venlafaxin what was piling the pounds. She was out working at the time up and down stairs as a private cleaner so plenty exercise. Eats healthy and never to much unlike me being a pig. Venlafaxin was a must not a choice.