[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.