Destiny Rozek, 22, of Holbrook, New York on Long Island has struggled with opioid addiction for the past four years, a struggle she said has worsened during America’s coronavirus pandemic.
Rozek explained that several detox facilities have closed and coronavirus safety protocols have limited the assistance several other facilities once provided. She went to a detox facility several weeks ago, but was discharged after a couple of nights because they needed space in the ward.
“There was no therapy or anything to help me. They didn’t even help me find an outside place to go to after and I was still sick when they let me out but they needed space because it was busy,” Rozek said.
Heroin addict insists it’s all about me, me, me.
I’m shocked, shocked I tell ya.
It could have been a bad mistake to name the child ‘Destiny’.
Bigger welfare cheques are required to compensate for price rises due to the disruption of the heroin supply chain by covid19
Struggling to care about someone who caused their own issues, frankly…
If she has a kid it’ll be called “The other one”.
Just out of interest, are these rehab clinics more intensively used in autumn and winter when it’s a bit nippy out on the streets?
The poor woman has my sympathy, but it’s rather limited. Opioids do have something of a bad press; people know that using them can lead to some very hard times. Thinking it’s a good idea to start is like thinking it’s a good idea to stick your hand in the toaster.
Sam,
Fair point, but that’s not quite how it works. You see your mate sticking his hands in the toaster, he says it’s nice and warm, you can’t see any obvious harm, and besides, you’re feeling quite cold. You stick your hands in, it tingles a bit but you do indeed feel warmer. All those people who told you toasters were dangerous must have been lying! (Echoes of Trump / Brexit / distrust of experts.)
It takes a while for the addiction to build up and the damage to take hold.
Dr. Daniels, aka Theodore Dalrymple, is quite adamant that heroin addiction is quite easily shrugged off with a few days in bed. There are drugs, alcohol for example, for which sudden withdrawal is dangerous, but heroin is not one of them. The whole “cold turkey” thing is a creation of the media which of course addicts are only too happy to perpetuate, demanding endless rehabilitation and then blaming someone else when it doesn’t work or isn’t available. Which is exactly what this tart is doing.
@RdJ – other doctors disagree though. And some people don’t accept the concept of addiction at all.
It seems to me there is a spectrum of habit, compulsion, addiction & illness. It is all very well saying ‘it’s your own fault’, for being fat or a smackhead, but I am not so sure. I have tried a lot of drugs and not suffered drug addiction, unless you count cigarettes, which I smoked for 15 years or so. But I come from a stable background and have lived a privileged life compared to many. Most of the people who end up drug addicts, especially those addicted to opioids, had shit lives prior to their addiction. There are few people from prosperous middle class families who end up ODing on fentanyl.
I note that people’s sympathies tend to be limited outside their own vulnerabilities. On the other thread, there is little sympathy for chubsters, but I would suggest that if the majority of the population or a significant minority is overweight, it is unlikely to just be down to personal weakness. More than 60% of the population is overweight in pretty much every Western European nation. Are they all feckless weaklings?
There was no therapy or anything to help me. They didn’t even help me find an outside place to go to after and I was still sick when they let me out but they needed space because it was busy,” Rozek said.
It is not that she is making this all about her that annoys me. It is that she is utterly oblivious to the selfishness of her demands. She seems to think she has a moral right to sneer at the law and community standards, to steal my DVD player, take my money and get annoyed because are not fast enough to fulfill her every whim.
The Singaporeans have a cure for opiate addiction – a short trip at the end of a rope. 100% effective. If we execute them, they will not bother us any more.
MC October 6, 2020 at 11:28 am – “Most of the people who end up drug addicts, especially those addicted to opioids, had shit lives prior to their addiction. There are few people from prosperous middle class families who end up ODing on fentanyl.”
My experience is the exact opposite. Most smack users I know went to very good schools and came from very prosperous families. Given that heroin users are notorious for their dishonesty, drama-seeking and self pity what is the evidence otherwise?
“More than 60% of the population is overweight in pretty much every Western European nation. Are they all feckless weaklings?”
Well yes. Frenchwomen don’t get fat because divorce is so easy and French men cheat.
With obesity, I imagine that the reason it is rife is because the way that life for most people in the western world has changed dramatically over the last hundred years or so.
Most people have centrally heated homes, so no shivering (or burning calories) to keep warm.
Food is cheaper, tastier and more omnipresent than it ever has been.
With the advent of taxis, public transport and the car, people no longer have to physically exert any effort going to and from work.
And work itself has tranformed from physically demanding labour with long hours, into watching daytime TV from the comfort of your own sofa, whilst working on the laptop & phone.
As BIS often says, most people comfort eat, rather than eat out of necessity because they’re hungry hence the chubsters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DawWUWSJmc
Andrew M,
Yes, point taken, but their mate’s testimony is not the only information available to them. The media are full of accounts of the holocaust of opioid addiction in the States. This one just adds to the stock of info. Who wants a lifestyle of being messed about by bureaucrats while feeling like shit?
“Roué le Jour
Dr. Daniels, aka Theodore Dalrymple, is quite adamant that heroin addiction is quite easily shrugged off with a few days in bed.”
The large numbers of US servicemen who came back from vietnam and kicked drug habits being an interesting example.
I think the ‘rat cage’ experiment was enlightening. Give rats nothing else to do and they cheerfully become addicted to opiates. Give them a cage full of toys and other interests and they don’t bother.
There is a very simple solution which should satisfy the cruel and envious who hate to see someone enjoying themselves as well as the liberals who believe in personal responsibility. Just make heroin freely available in the shops just like any other product. Even if it is addictive, most of the harm from addition is caused by low quality and intermittent availabilty. The liberals should be happy as people have personal choice, and those who want to hang addicts should be happy as they’ll believe that the addicts will quickly poison themselves.
Prohibition doesn’t work for alcohol – why should it work for anything else?
60% of the population is not overweight. 60% of the population is “overweight” by a ludicrous definition which takes no account of age, situation, height, ethnic background etc.
My friend, just 50, has pushed over to being “overweight”. He’s fit and active and not even remotely fat. He’s far healthier than I am, towards the middle of “healthy” weight. You actually don’t want to be too skinny as you get old.
I look around and I see far too many people that are impaired by their weight. My workplace has one grossly obese woman, a couple of definitely obese people and one or two young ones heading that way. But 60% being so fat that it makes them unhealthy? Not a chance. The lack of exercise all round is a bigger issue than weight as such.
They made her leave the rehab clinic after a few days because they needed the bed? Did she not still need to be in rehab? Was she over the worst? How do these things work?
I’m always confounded when I see beggars in London (usually junkies) asking for £18 for a hostel for the night. Why on earth do hostels charge people for a bed. There aren’t enough beds for all the homeless, so some proportion of money given must be used to buy drugs or booze (before COVID there were plenty of food handouts). Also, where do they think they get their money from if not from begging or crime? Why don’t the hostels campaign for you to give the donation to them and then let the homeless in for free. Giving money to junkies helps keep them on the street.
Locally we have months where the overdose deaths have hit record highs and have been as much in a month as Covid has to date locally.
Much hand wringing from health officials about how these people have been failed by the focus on Covid, the focus instigated by the self-same health officials. When the Provincial Premier made a comment that addiction was a choice unlike Covid there was a quick apology and rowing back to the victim theme. Now of course despite being skint there’s another $30million pledged to help homeless addicts.
Anecdotally due to injuries both wife and I have had spells on opioids, in her case over 6 months, both of us just stopped and it was more the kind of flu couple of days feeling crap than the ‘cold Turkey’ kind of rehab in the media. Makes me wonder that if you don’t really want to give up then you’re body/mind will make the experience seem worse as we are experts at fooling ourselves
It could have been a bad mistake to name the child ‘Destiny’.
TMB, it’s Destiny’s Child I feel sorry for, their music is terrible.
“Just make heroin freely available in the shops just like any other product”. I’ve often wondered about this. Suppose I could go to the corner shop and buy a sterilised blister pack of two loaded rigs, each with 100mg of 100% pure BP diamorphine for a fiver, supplied by Phillip Morris or the like. What would happen? Would there be lots more junkies? Would it even matter if they can fill their needs so easily? Would OD deaths rise to 100 per day across the UK, or fall?
I don’t know, but afaik, no govt has ever tried it. (Note, I’m saying legal and safe supply by big companies, not merely de-criminalising possession ).
@Chester
60% of the population is not overweight. 60% of the population is “overweight” by a ludicrous definition which takes no account of age, situation, height, ethnic background etc.
It’s the same problem we have with radiation. We know that extreme levels of obesity bring with them health problems, including diabetes and heart issues, so it’s assumed (with zero evidence) that being 5% overweight must be 1/20th as damaging as being 100% overweight. In the case of radiation, there’s actually clear evidence that this linear projection of damage caused is wrong – people living in areas with naturally elevated background rates (Cornwall, Aberdeen etc) don’t seem to have any issues.
johnnybonk October 7, 2020 at 3:56 pm – “What would happen? Would there be lots more junkies? Would it even matter if they can fill their needs so easily? Would OD deaths rise to 100 per day across the UK, or fall? I don’t know, but afaik, no govt has ever tried it.”
Britain used to freely give heroin to addicts on the NHS until the mid-60s. They still do but not as freely. They stopped because the rate of addiction was growing.
I don’t think it is about the drugs. I think it is about society. A government has tried it – opium and its assorted offshoots were legal in Britain for a long time. No one much used them because society was not tolerant of people who did. Now we admire people who do. So it is likely that legalisation and free availability will lead to huge numbers of users.
But that is not really the issue. The issue is do you want it in the snacks your child’s school gives him at lunch time?
Not tempting fate with all the muso deaths of late, but Our Keef insists that his survival is due to injecting only the purest medical-grade opium.