r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	MildoShaggins
Comment	I manage a pharmacy with just shy of 100 opiate replacement therapy patients and formerly helped to run the busiest needle exchange in Scotland, so I've gained a bit of insight into how addicts think. What strikes me is that they all suffer from a complete lack of long term thinking skills. They'll blow up in your face over the slightest thing and need to be talked down and talked through the consequences of their actions. Many of them do this despite having previous experience of being barred or being taken away by the police, and all the rigmarole that follows (their drug worker might only be able to find them a pharmacy on the other side of the city). They'll spend all of their money on a new pair of trainers leaving them with no money to feed themselves. They commit the pettiest of crimes seemingly not because they don't care about the consequences, but because in the moment they're incapable of thinking of them. Short term thinking infects every aspect of their lives, not just how they think about drugs. So many of them live so impulsively that it's not hard to see why they share needles, regardless of how plentiful the supply of free, clean needles is in Glasgow. It actually makes me wonder if there's a chicken and egg situation going on - is a certain type of impulsive person more inclined to become an addict or do the conditions that addicts live in influence people to develop such traits?
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/f8phjn/glasgow_faces_perfect_storm_with_hiv_spike/fiofojn/
Created	Mon 24th Feb 2020 10:12pm
Status	normal ()

I manage a pharmacy with just shy of 100 opiate replacement therapy patients and formerly helped to run the busiest needle exchange in Scotland, so I've gained a bit of insight into how addicts think.

What strikes me is that they all suffer from a complete lack of long term thinking skills. They'll blow up in your face over the slightest thing and need to be talked down and talked through the consequences of their actions. Many of them do this despite having previous experience of being barred or being taken away by the police, and all the rigmarole that follows (their drug worker might only be able to find them a pharmacy on the other side of the city). They'll spend all of their money on a new pair of trainers leaving them with no money to feed themselves. They commit the pettiest of crimes seemingly not because they don't care about the consequences, but because in the moment they're incapable of thinking of them.

Short term thinking infects every aspect of their lives, not just how they think about drugs. So many of them live so impulsively that it's not hard to see why they share needles, regardless of how plentiful the supply of free, clean needles is in Glasgow. It actually makes me wonder if there's a chicken and egg situation going on - is a certain type of impulsive person more inclined to become an addict or do the conditions that addicts live in influence people to develop such traits?