All too often in mental health we see another soul being released from the misery of life. Andy isn’t the first in 2022 and certainly won’t be the last in the few short days left of the year.
I didn’t know Andy. I knew of him. A resident of a House of Multiple Occupation (HMO) just behind The Esplanade in Weymouth. He was likely cold in his room when I visited a neighbour of his this week.
I do know that his friend, the shopkeeper nearby who regularly sold him his favourite whisky was asking around why he had a yellow complexion and was so gaunt? The answer, mate, is the poison you were selling him. There are deeper answers too.
You Can’t Eat the View
In an area with a seaside tourism economy and close to fuck all else, there isn’t much for those who fall. We have to face it, that the desperately poor economic planning of the Tory councils locally leave those who fall with almost nothing to climb back into the world of work.
You can’t eat the view, so they say. With an economy built around the beautiful views of Weymouth Bay and close to nothing else, what jobs are there for those who want to work other than seasonal hospitality? The answer is pretty much diddly squat.
Anaesthetic
The middle class Tories around these parts will likely complain about the drug use locally, ranging from alcohol to cannabis to heroin. But what if there was nothing to drive you? No big pay cheque to make you smile when you go shopping, or planning a holiday in the Maldives?
The answer is that you’ll likely want to feel alright sometime, so why not get blasted? If you get blasted enough you will feel alright all the time! The fact is that until the economy gets to the point where everyone is included, people will use anaesthetic to get by.
Heroin is a well known painkiller. Yes, you may have used an opiate to feel better when you get a bad back. Might have even used it enough to get flu like symptoms when you come off. Heroin – another opiate – in enough quantity can stop you feeling altogether – not dead, just numb.
You may be half cut still from Christmas? Alcohol is another painkiller, if it has the minor side effect of clouding your judgement and in sufficient quantity, killing you. Alcohol is by far the biggest drug of abuse and kills tens of times more people than heroin does every year.
Weed? The majority don’t get severe mental health problems but like H and booze, is a well understood and freely available painkiller.
A Marxist Utopia?
What if the economy served everyone to the point that they had enough not only to live on but to enjoy life say, 3-4 weeks a year on holiday? You would see alcoholics in all classes, but you certainly wouldn’t find so many in the working class using anaesthetic to get through their lives of daytime TV and walks on the beach.
I actually feel sick saying this, but I’ll be accused of going all Chairman Mao in suggesting that to solve the problems of the poor, the rich just need to pay a little more to make lives worth living.
Andy’s life would have been worth living if he had a decent home, a job and perhaps a holiday or two a year. That lies firmly in the hands of those who plan the economy. Dorset Council? His death is your fault.
- Weymouth has sadly experienced a number of suicides in the last few months of young people in their teens or early twenties. This cannot go on. We have to change society and quickly. Many people need saving from it!
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