What Addicts Don’t Need: The Kindness That Kills
‘Harm reduction’ can become enabling — and recovery sometimes begins with saying ‘no.’
by Chris Jansen
July 19, 2026, 10:22 PM
Iwas about two weeks into rehab when my brain started coming back online and I began to take an interest in my fellow inmates. I’ll never forget this young guy, Gabe. He was a handsome blond kid, a track star in high school, until he was spirited away by a mistress named Fentanyl and gave up his life to serve her. Drugs& Medications
I remember him because at first I couldn’t figure out what he was doing there with the rest of us shipwrecked losers. He was smart and funny and popular with the other addicts, and his life seemed to be just beginning and full of promise. The last time I saw him he was out in the parking lot, carrying a clear plastic garbage bag full of his clothes and climbing into a Cadillac Escalade.
The stern slaps of abstinence are what worked for me. About three weeks into treatment, I experienced the miracle of what we call “spiritual awakening,”
“Might as well put a gun to his head,” observed Lewis, an elderly black gentleman who had been in and out of places like this and seen a million junkies come and go. “He cried to his mama. Said ‘Mama, I wanna go home,’ and she come and got him.”
Now the social dynamics of rehab are a curious hybrid of high school and jail. There are popular kids, outcasts, class clowns — as well as sadists, snitches, psychopaths, and perhaps surprisingly, more than a few saints (as Lewis turned out to be). There are a few who, when paroled, make it. And many who don’t.
https://spectator.org/what-addicts-dont-need-the-kindness-that-kills/
