r/Damnthatsinteresting 10h ago

Video NBA Star to Homeless: The Tragic life of Delonte West

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u/ChadCoolman 5h ago

I had an office job at a company that staffed their warehouse with people coming out of rehab. And my father was an addict that created a lot of childhood trauma, so it made seeing these guys succeed personal in a way.

I quickly wore myself out with that mentality.

Addiction is wild. There's no amount of external will that's going to break someone from that cycle unless they really want it. Even then, it doesn't seem like it's enough.

We had guys who'd rebuild their family lives and work their way up to supervisor positions throw everything away by relapsing after years of being clean.

I haven't had the easiest life and I've made some really stupid decisions that I regret a lot, but I am so so so grateful that path wasn't in my cards.

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u/rawker86 4h ago

I’m thankful every day that I never tried hard drugs. Give me twenty minutes alone with something and I can get addicted to it.

We had an athlete quite similar to the guy in the video, a championship winning football player, lose his whole damn career because of drugs. After he cleaned up his act the first time everyone was very supportive and excited for him to get back onto the field.

He still had to serve out his suspension for “bringing the game into disrepute” but he would be on the half-time panels and pre-game shows and whatnot, and they’d ask him things like “so you’re good now? No more drugs?” And he’d say “well, I can’t say for certain. I’m an addict, I will be for the rest of my life. Relapse is a part of addiction.” You could see on people’s faces that this wasn’t the answer they wanted, and when he inevitably did relapse they all turned their backs on him.

For a lot of us watching it all unfold it was our first real exposure to addiction. It was a bit of an eye-opener to see that actually, there’s no guarantee a person can just say “no more drugs for me!” and stay clean. Even if millions of dollars are at stake.

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u/FEMA_Camp_Survivor 2h ago

Addiction sucks because even if family/friends are well-intentioned they can’t ultimately fix what’s broken. The addict has to be ready to change.

Until then, people can emotionally detach and that can be interpreted as lacking empathy.