Moral cowardice, starting with me. TW: AIDS, opiates.

[oak]

Caveat: Everything I say here only applies to me and my moral cowardice.

There's a lot I'd like to say about this, but even at age 10 in 1986 I knew some lives were valued more than others.

People were sad, properly, when the space shuttle fell in pieces. People were happy, properly, when the baby was plucked out of the well.

I remember people were sad, properly, when a little boy (Ryan White) and a pretty woman (Liz Glaser) died of AIDS.

But nobody gave a damn when Freddie Mercury or Rock Hudson died. No one gave a crap. Everything was swept under the rug.

I learned at that age that certain lives are valued more than others.

At age 10 I knew something was happening, but I didn't have the moral opportunity to do anything about it.

Now, at age 40 I see another generation getting wiped out, this time with opiates, and nobody is saying anything.

Just like AIDS, a bunch of great people are dying, and we pretend like nothing is happening.

Again, I say this only to criticize myself. Here I am, 8+ years sober, with health insurance, wishing opiate addicts well. As if my wishing will help anyone at all. It won't.

Example: I am acquainted with a woman whose daughter (lovely woman, middle class upbringing) was prescribed opioids for migraines, segued into heroin, and died. My acquaintance stated that if she had a certain nasal spray on hand, one that immediately reverses an overdose, she could have saved the life of her daughter.

I promised my acquaintance I'd buy a dose of this spray. I don't know anyone on opioids, but I wanted to be prepared. A few days later I asked, meekly, at the pharmacy and they treated me like dirt, and misinformed me (I found out later) about the availability and price. They lied to me.

(I assert that they are complicit, morally, in overdose deaths if they are lazy and prefer to lie. But I am not posting here to take their inventory, much as they richly deserve it.)

I am sorry this is so rambling. I don't know where else to say this. I am just so sick, so tired, of the repeating of the same callous cruel indifference I observed as a child. We've learned nothing.

Worse, I have proven myself complicit and a coward.

I am grateful for my sobriety. But I don't want it to be an excuse, a plausible reason, to distance myself. At age ten I couldn't do anything. At age forty I don't know what to do.

[brownblob]

Don't be so hard on yourself. You obviously feel very strongly about this, but the truth is there are limits to what we can do sometimes. A lot of police departments are carrying this antidote. Maybe check to see if your local police department carries it and if they don't, ask Why not?

[Beany Boo]

It's okay to want to take care of someone for your own selfish reasons, or for no reason. You don't need to be morally brave to deserve that opportunity. Expectations are very high; too high.

[oak]

Thanks fellas!

I know you're right.

I very much appreciate your insight.

[manuel_moe_g]

This thread, from the original post to the comments, has so much compassion and strength and honesty to admire. Well done, gentlemen.

[oak]

May I request a safe space to get something off my chest?

I realize I am at once being too hard on myself, and far too easy on myself.

I'm not asserting that what I'm about to say is true or accurate, but it is how I feel right now. I'm not sure what the point is, but here goes.

1. Pokemon Go: I am using the Pineap berries while grinding Eevees; I'd like to evolve a Espeon. Either way, I like evolved Eevees for gym battles.

2. Soy milk, season salt, sofritas burrito, jelly, pop.

These are all things I care more about than people dying of heroin.

The following is happening every day, in my state, and I don't care: http://www.cincinnati.com/pages/interac ... incinnati/

Instead of fake concern, that leads nowhere, I may as well admit that I care more about Pokemon Go than I do that people are dying left and right. I can sit here, smug, sober and employed, telling myself that I'm not like those people. As long as they're Other, I can keep my distance.

Saturday is my big day for Pokemon Go. I get up early, take the four gyms in the little town nearby, and go the farmers market. I am planning to ask out the pretty brunette bank teller this Saturday.

From this past Saturday, to this Saturday, about 80 people will die of overdoes in my state. I care more about flirting than people dying.

What is more wrong: me doing this, or me saying this out loud?

[manuel_moe_g]

Hello Oak,

Leaving aside your moral obligation to heroin addicts for just a moment (we will get to that)...

These things that you list: Pokemon Go, Soy milk, season salt, sofritas burrito, jelly, pop, flirting.

For each of them, you ask yourself one question, and answer it honestly: Question: Does this thing work for me, or do I work for it?

If it "works for you", good, then it is part of a way of living where you accumulate an abundance of nourishment and joy and accomplishment.

If in fact "you work for it", then, good, you identified an addiction, and you can take concrete steps to limit its toll on your nourishment and joy and accomplishment. The steps could involve 12 steps, or could involve managed doses or abstinence or anything in between. We can discuss it here in the forum, in specificity.

No matter the case, you are maximizing your nourishment and joy and accomplishment. You are, as a true moral agent, first accumulating surplus.

Then, at the end of the year, you survey your monetary surplus, if you realistically have such, and can donate to a worthy charity.

And/Or, every 4 months, you survey your time&focus&talent surplus, and if you realistically have such, you can donate time to a worthy charity. Donating time can have a multiplier effect, and actually grow your abundance of nourishment and joy and accomplishment instead of depleting it, but we will just consider that gravy, we won't count on it at the very beginning.

All I have laid out above is doable by such a person as you, because I know you as a friend. And if you do it, you can look yourself in the mirror and say "I am, as a human, a true moral agent".

Because you have to put the oxygen-mask on yourself first, before you can put the oxygen-mask on another person, just like they say in airplanes.

Because you deserve to operate from abundance.

(And the opposite way, trying to operate from deficit, is unsustainable and sick. Sick people try to act as moral agents from deficit, and their supposed "moral acts" come out all sick and twisted, because their neediness ruins everything. We have all experienced alleged "giving selfless souls" who actually suck the life-force out of their "benefactors" who are actually their victims. Bleh! Or people whose "selflessness" is actually coldly transactional. Double-Bleh!)

Does this make any sense? Let me know where I should be more clear.

With great respect given to my friend, I close this reply for now.

[oak]

Manuel Moe, thank you for your lovely post!

You have given me much to think about, and I am turning it over in mind.

I will definitely work on, happily, what you encouraged me to consider.