[mikrl]

I’ll take baffling as a compliment.

The opioid thing is relevant because lots of people I grew up with in my home city fucked up their lives, and I’d have done the same had I stayed because social networks, living in poverty, decay and hopelessness etc.

Leaving broke me out of that and gave me access to better social capital which was (perhaps an exaggeration) a difference between life and death.

YMMV but if you’ve grown up in a decaying urban area, you know what I’m talking about.