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Cedar, this theory of yours is a true thing. The drugs (meth is the worst) change the physiology of the brain and that is what makes it so hard to stop. Not just the cravings but a kind of psychosis which remains for a long time. And there are psychiatric diagnoses which are notable for an absence of empathy...bipolar is one.


I am in agreement with you about the empathy and the integrity. I am thinking about moral development. There are stages there too that correlate with the stages of cognitive development identified by Piaget.


If one begins drugs at 16, this would arrest moral development (while using and sometime after), I think, but I have never looked at the research.  But I am writing about something I do not understand or know much about. I will try to look to see if there is research.


But it all boils down to one thing: our adult children's lives are their own. They are responsible, not us. In our culture in this day and age, they owe us nothing except respect.


That we only got the memo until many years we spent suffering, is a sadness. But now we know.


I would almost be tempted to disinherit a son that spoke the words that inferred he wished me dead before it was my time, in favor of leaving his share in trust for his children.


For a while my Mother had her trust set up like this, that the grandchildren inherit and not her daughters. I remember my sister was all bothered about it, and I, thought about it not at all.


COPA


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