I agree with you. However, lets not put drugs and meds into one category and alcohol into another... They are all drugs. Sometimes there are addicts who abuse medication. But I would never tell any addict, regardless of drug of choice, which prescription they can or cannot take.

I always find it interesting how the system separates alcoholics from addicts. For instance, when I drank the system said that I was drinking to self-medicate my mental illness. When I started to drugs (not heavily--at first) they would insist that my mental health problems were due to drugs (even though the drugs came after the mental health stuff).

Doctors, largely, are much more likely to prescribe benzos and the like to alcoholics. I know many alcoholics on benzos, most addicts I know will not be prescribed much of anything. Furthermore, often the system denies help all together to drug addicts (and not alcoholics).

I have been stuck between the two systems for years... any time we classify things too strictly it becomes problematic, in my opinion... I know of many people who have had problems with abusing meds. I know more who have been saved by meds. What bothers me most is when anyone assumes to have the answer to somebody elses healing.

It always amazed me when they would give me a methadone dose so high that I was throwing up daily but simultaneously would not give anything for anxiety. Of course, on that much methadone I didnt need anything for anxiety, but the principle of it seemed off...

Too often we focus on the drug and not the person. I would not change my date if I smoked pot tomorrow, either. But if I were the type of person who smoked pot then ended up in a gutter (the way I do with heroin), I would change it.