Notices by Everyone Deserves Nice Things (suzaneraslan@anticapitalist.party), page 2

@tbeckett Oh, I was thinking about the specific shit that has to happen before they get keys, but yeah, I guess you're right.

@interneteh Oh my gosh, the bunny is kissing your cheek!!!!! 😍

Let me tell you right now-- in a stateless society, it wouldn't take 3-12 weeks to just move a person into a vacant apartment.

It would take 3 minutes, max, and that's if the key was tricky.

In much the way that nothing has convinced me more than working in real estate that all private property is theft and that the entire concept of being a landlord is evil, nothing has more firmly disproven the anti-anarchist cry of "But you can't get anything done or organize people without a state!" for me than working with government housing organizations.

@Excuse_haver I think it's because it's the one photo they have of him giving exasperated side-eye, which is the only reason he ever gets any coverage.

@morae @erinbee This is a pangolin!

@erinbee It looks like you have a pangolin hugging your neck, and I love it. (And also this picture is gorgeous!)

@alana There's a lot of stories people tell in AA about their family members or former partners being what's called, in the program parlance, "dry drunks"-- a lot of people may never even touch drugs, but they enact addict behaviors like whoa.

If opiates, or even any drugs at all didn't exist, they would choose something else.

@CheshireEmber Ooof, I am definitely not with the spoons to respond to this, because I think it requires a really thoughtful response, but I want to say thank you for sharing, and that really sucks for you and for them.

@lugh As someone who is on a controlled substance medication for neuro reasons, first of all, BIG BIG COMRADESHIP. I imagine having fibro makes as it difficult to get your meds (not just from a legal standpoint, but *literally*, as in dealing with the rigmarole to go to a doctor, get a scrip, go to the pharmacy, etc.) as it is for me with ADHD, and it SUUUUUUUCKS. OMG, it sucks. I literally need my meds just to deal with the hassle of getting my meds.

But, of course, you already have lost generations, here. They will never be kids again with community rec centers and sports and arts programs and whatever.

And getting adults who have been brainwashed into idolizing self-sufficiency as the ultimate religion to come together as communities, to be vulnerable with one another about their trials and pain and difficulties, and to be supportive of one another, is extraordinarily hard work.

Consistently what jumps out at me when I read these stories about the rise in opioid addiction and that it keeps happening in the Midwest in these little towns, is that there are no communities in place anymore. Everyone knows everyone's business, but no one actually engages in community, anymore. Everyone keeps up with the Joneses, but no one invites them over.

Illicit drug use, on the other hand, comes with a community of other users.

No one makes money off of AA.

No one has to spend money to go to AA.

If you can donate to pay rent for the meeting place and for the notoriously crappy coffee, great. If you can't-- YOU STILL GET TO GO.

No one is better or worse for having 10 years sober or 10 days sober; no relapses or 100 relapses.

Someone "leads" the meeting, but they are more of an administrator than a leader.

But most critically, it creates *community*.

It's why, even with all the baggage it has, *even with all the relapses*, 12 step programs are more successful than anything else (particularly more successful $$$ rehab) in getting and keeping people sober. There's a lot of research that's found that even with the small % of success, it's still way ahead of everything else.

I think, honestly, it's because AA is the only support model that is 100% divorced from capitalism and hierarchy.

Any large scale war on addiction that focuses on eliminating drugs is like going after plaster casts because you want to stop people from having accidents that break bones. The drug is not the problem-- it's a shitty, shitty solution to underlying problems in a world that makes actual treatment and support for psychic pain wildly inaccessible.

But the point is that something I learned in AA from listening to so many other addicts is that a drug doesn't create an addiction. Yes, some create a *physical* addiction, where quitting is dangerous or deadly even when used as directed (for instance, benzos), but for an addict the drug is dropped into the already primed catalyst of our psyche. We *all* had issues before picking up, and drugs just created a cell where we could hide.

~Six months of lead cultivation later~

Dude: *suddenly has need of work in your industry, hires some other dude he literally just met, never even offers you the gig*

@shoutcacophony Sean actually said to me, "You have taken your job in THE most capitalist industry and somehow turned it into a way to actually *help* people," and it kind of blew my mind.

Pretty psyched to be subverting power as my *job*, tbh.

Dude: What do you do?

Woman: I work in Industry. Do you need some work done in Industry?

Dude: I might. Give me your info.

Woman: Here. I would like to do a business.

Dude: I would like to do a sex.

Woman: I would like to do a business, so I will ignore that.

Dude: I will waste your time acting as if I want to do a business, but I just want to do a sex.

Woman: I will hope you eventually feel guilty enough to do a business.

Dude: I won't.