My current struggle: drug addiction.
No, not with me, but how to unpack why it is "bad". I'm trying to model its impact on a city. Here in San Francisco it's a huge issue.
Community impacts:
Society's degredation?
Government cost?
Economic overhead?
Personal:
Lowered potential in career, relationships and personal goals?
Increase in depression?
General unhappiness?
Thoughts?
@jurban Any "use dependency" (aka addiction) is detrimental because it fails to address the problem(s).
Whether that be food, drugs, shopping, etc., it's nothing more than a 'band-aid' on issue(s) that you're not addressing.
Unaddressed problems spill out in a myriad of ways, sometimes making addressing them even more difficult because the problem can seem overwhelming.
@Daren
Thanks.
I keep asking myself the heartless question "so what?"
I think the answer with your insights is that if we are dealing with underlying issues we're sub-optimal in many other aspects of our life.
We lower the happiness of those around us.
We are less productive at our jobs.
We have less ambition.
The addiction increases the impact/scale of these outward effects.
@Daren
Sounds like there is a need to define the Meaning of Life in that journey.
@jurban Having beat several "use dependencies" I can say that they all start here:
You have to care more for yourself than you do about your use dependency. Full stop.
If you don't have that you don't have a foundation upon which to build a new you that doesn't include that thing. A new you that addresses the issue(s) that have you using.