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I realise something. My ‘fuck it, I just want to get smashed’ moments are usually about boredom and pleasure-seeking. When I get drunk, it’s a choice. For so many others, it’s about obliteration — a way to block out the pain. Yet, despite the tragic circumstances that cause already vulnerable people to seek solace in a bottle or through a needle, as a community we still treat addiction as if it’s a character failing. How often do we turn our heads as we judge the unpleasant-smelling man staggering through the train carriage? It’s funny how we view public drunkenness as socially unpalatable if it’s an old man drinking Scotch from a brown paper bag, but it’s a bit of fun if it’s a group of young women causing a commotion on a hen’s night. It makes me wish, once again, that I’d shown more compassion to my granddad. I was young, but I still judged him.
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