Know before you speak – Why etiquette is important


You know, I try to write this blog from a completely objective point of you, but guess what – I’m a person, so things take on a personal tone once in a while.

There’s nothing I hate more than readers who come to this site, read a single post, and then decide they know who I am, or what I’m about. It’s taken me more than 13 years to get to this point in terms of my knowledge, experience, and viewpoint on drugs, addiction, and policy issues. It all started with 8 years of some personal “experimentation” with the behaviors I’m talking about. I’d love to say I was doing it for science, but the last three years were far from enjoyable for many around me. Since then I’ve studied statistics, neuroscience, public-health, and psychology. And I’m not done. Staying in the academic world, I keep educating myself on issues related to addiction from every field I have access to.

So please, if you have opinions, share them, but if you want to insult me, make sure you know what you’re talking about, because I’ll tell you if you don’t. Personal attacks are easy to make through an internet connection, but being stupid will leave an obvious stain and will cause me to either remove your comment or just reveal how ridiculous it is. I don’t like making personal attacks on people – not in posts, not in comments, and not in real life. Don’t tell me how you do, or don’t, want me to die because I probably don’t care how you go and I certainly don’t want the experience to be bad.

I know blogs are a little loose, but let’s keep this at least somewhat professional, okay?


7 responses to “Know before you speak – Why etiquette is important”

    • yes… deep breaths. But still, sometimes people have to be put in their place. From now on I’ll feel better simply not approving personal attacks.

      But thanks 😉

  1. It never ceases to amaze me how rude people can actually be; nor is this the forum for such. Something obviously brought them here to your blog – probably cause they’re an addict. Sounds to me like they need to work on some bigger issues.
    Keep up the great work man, we appreciate it….and I’m a HUGE fan of the delete option.

  2. thanks for the post.
    Sorry to hear of your troubles there. I think a lot of people feel they know addiction better than the other and occasionally yu might say something they disagree with and well, you get the result.
    Of course it is easy to critique you because they sit safely in their office, coffee shop, or wherever. Pray for them to find guidence and love. 🙂

  3. I do not intend to insult, in reading through much of this site i find the name “All” about addiction a little presumptuous as there so many philosophies regarding addiction, causes, recovery, a slip, the term “relapse”, physiology of addiction and so on. I find a lot of good stuff on this site, I am always put off just a bit by any claim by a site to knowing “all”. Yes as a chemical dependency counselor of over 20 years, 2 degrees, certified in WA. state, and still working on my education and understanding of the many known aspects of addiction, I’m bound to have an opinion. No harm intended, I would recommend this site as good reading to my clients. Cheers and happy holidays.

    • Thanks for the honesty Jim. The title was originally meant to say that everything on the site was about addiction. Slowly we’ve been trying to integrate as much knowledge and as many angles and opinions about addiction as possible, so hopefully one day the “all” will be able to mean “everything.”

      Hope you’ll enjoy reading in the future.

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