[fifthesteight]

It's not a flippant response, but I would certainly consider yours to be. You have never suffered from addiction, therefore your frame of reference is skewed, but forgivable.

Having never suffered addiction you physically and psychologically cannot understand the affliction. It controls your thoughts, your body, your actions and decisions. It has costs well beyond every night drinking- costs paid in broken marriages, lost friendships and worse.

Pointing out that you have never suffered from addiction is not flippant. It is in response to a lot of what you have already written. You don't know the pain of which you are so dismissive, far apart from the 'coldness' of text. You express yourself and your understanding very well, and your words are sharp.

[kelnos]

I think you don't understand what "flippant" means. The parent's response was certainly flippant. He displayed a (to borrow the phrase from dictionary.com) frivolous disrespect for my curiosity and questions.

I would absolutely agree that my frame of reference is different (I wouldn't say "skewed"; that's a bit of a weird and disrespectful way of putting it), but I'm asking questions with the intent to try to understand better what people who have struggled with addiction have to go through to get better.

You accuse me of being dismissive, but I am anything but: I am asking questions trying to understand the forces at work here. The parent was very dismissive of me and my effort to understand.

Let's teach by example here.

Dismissive: I think addiction isn't real because I've never experienced it.

Dismissive: I'm going to imply that your questions are stupid and invalid just because you haven't experienced what we're talking about.

Not dismissive: [pretty much everything I've said up till now]

[fifthesteight]

Your attitude continues to be less than stellar. You act like a babe in the woods who has no frame of reference and only innocently asks questions to further educate yourself. From my perspective, you condescend, and continue to do so. You are a member of society, presumably older than sixteen, and so you very well know how pointed this line of questioning can be.

Perhaps my uncalled-for overreaction is due to the loss I've experienced at the cost of addiction, from my own mistakes and mistakes made around me. For me there has been a significant loss of life both in my immediate family and friends.

HN is a pretty weird place to ask these questions, and I understand perfectly well what flippant means- thanks for not being dismissive or condescending.

I admit I may overreact, but only because I find your questions- especially the way you responded to be- to me disingenuous.

Though I should never discourage someone from learning, and judging by my reaction i see why anonymity and text are the right place.

(i can tell that i overreacted, and responded emotionally and strangely. I am bipolar on top of addiction issues and reading this post back to myself it's apparent. I'm being an ass. I'm leaving my post because maybe my broken train of thought can be a bit of a learning experience? i'm sorry i am so rude.)

[kelnos]

Thanks for explaining. I'm just trying to get the point across that I just don't understand, but would like to. I happen to think that HN is a pretty reasonable and normal place to engage in discussions about these sorts of things, so it seemed natural to me to ask.

I can only ask you to believe me when I say I'm not being disingenuous here: I am genuinely curious about all this stuff, especially since I have no first- or even second-hand experience with it. I am sorry if I come off as somewhat clinical or detached... as I mentioned and we all know, it's very hard to get tone across via a medium like this.