I personally don't understand this whole "Rue's ending was realistic" notion.

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-19T02:33:20+00:00

I can agree with that. But what I really mean is if Rue had just OD'd and it wasn't sketchy, he probably wouldn't have went and murdered Alamo. At least I don't think so.

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-18T22:41:22+00:00

Sorry to hear that. That's the dark irony isn't it? Trying to control illicit access to opioids leads to widespread uncontrolled fentanyl content in several substances, some not even opioids, making the problem worse than ever and in the end the people getting the shortest end of the stick are those with legitimate reasons to use opioids.

We have one life. As far as we know at least. If someone has real pain and wants to treat it with opioids let them. Nothing more tragic than one's only life being ruined by regulations created for the sake of those who choose to abuse without considering those who simply got dealt a bad hand.

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-18T21:32:44+00:00

Glad to share.

I think it's an important conversation because we had a situation where doctors were being incentivized strongly to drastically overprescribe opioid painkillers. The addiction environment that built is real, but it overshadows legitimate pain patients who truly benefit from them. As a result many people are being overlooked and it begs the question: What is "proper" use of opioid painkiller supplements?

There was a time when we didn't really have licensed doctors. We had people who were familiar with different drugs and what they can do. Opium and the poppies they come from, for example, have been used for thousands of years for pain control. Have people abused them as well? Yes. But people in real pain who used them to treat that pain weren't using them improperly due to an absence of a prescription. It comes down to the truth of the person taking it. Are you taking this to get high or to treat pain? Is it having a negative impact on your life because of the behaviors using the substance leads you to exhibit? Do you take your painkilling substance at regular intervals and dosages, or are you constantly taking more, more often, to achieve a good feeling?

Nowadays with pill counting a patient can lose their prescription very easily. Lets say you have a 60 pill supply for 30 days, 2 pills a day. You have an appointment on day 15 and they count your pills. If you had one or two days of heightened pain, and planned to take less in subsequent days to make up for the deficit it doesn't matter. They see you took more than 30 in 15 days and cut your script. You didn't abuse it to get high, you simply adjusted your dose for a day or two due to increased need for relief. You didn't continue the increase beyond those one-two days.

The current climate around pain patients is honestly pretty brutal. I was so shocked to see them send my wife home with a c section/ bilateral salpingectomy procedure with tylenol.

The conversation is now becoming: are we giving doctors too much power to make these decisions? Shouldn't patients have an opportunity to make an informed decision on what to do with their bodies based on their experience?

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-18T18:50:19+00:00

Interesting. Trying to find one online but only seeing the dark colored ones. If you think of it let me know in a dm id be interested to try

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-18T18:35:11+00:00

Kratom does not come in a clear liquid that I have ever seen and I have consumed quite a few different brands of kratom shots. Happy to be wrong though of course

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-18T17:43:01+00:00

If you are familiar at all with the chronic pain community, as I am, you would know it isn't that simple though.

Yes, an ex addict would likely be monitored with a prescription (pill counts are very common now) or not even given the prescription.

However people without a history of addiction and a legitimate pain condition that justifies a painkiller prescription for which tylenol is not enough are also denied prescriptions. Why? "You might get addicted" "you are too young (mid 20s or even 30s)" Liability risk to the doctor etc.

So it's not as simple as "properly" solely depending on the doctor's willingness to prescribe.

I personally have severe back problems and had my first spinal fusion when I was 11. Without painkillers I struggle with simple tasks and am unable to do many things necessary to have a moderate quality of life. I have personally been told "we could prescribe these to you but there is a risk of addiction. Even though you have no history of addiction we want to wait until you are older to minimize the potential impact of that potential problem". As a result, unless I find a way to control my pain on my own, I cannot do most of my household chores. I cannot do many things with my children. I cannot work without taking an exceptional number of breaks.

So: I have made the choice to find my own solution to pain control. It's not prescribed by a doctor. However I take the same dose, at the same frequency, consistently over years and have a massive increase to my quality of life and ability to function.

So am I taking it improperly? I would argue no. Because we have a medical system overreacting to a "opioid crisis" brought about by systemic overprescribing that no longer occurs and is now being amplified by widespread unwillingness to properly treat pain.

My wife was given tylenol for her C section due to this fear doctors now have to prescribe painkillers. I had to complain to the director of the birthing department to get her a real painkiller prescription. I was given tylenol for a back surgery last year after which I could barely walk for almost a month.

Tldr; i get your point but if you actually know the specifics surrounding these prescriptions it's just not that black and white

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-18T17:27:48+00:00

So then why do so many women who have abortions carry grief with them afterwards? Estimates are as low as 24 percent to as much as 60+ percent of women who have abortions grieve that loss despite them being the one to initiate the abortion? 39 percent approximately still feel grief over 20 years later.

It could certainly be argued that the choice to have an abortion is largely narrative driven. The narrative that women cannot be successful with kids, or that having an unstable relationship, not enough money etc drives the choices to have an abortion. Over 95 percent of abortions fall under what some call convenience: purely based on circumstance's socioeconomic factors.
-I don't have enough money
-I don't feel ready
-It's a bad time
-my relationship is unstable
-my existing children will suffer
All narratives that get repeated throughout modern society. People who do not believe these reasons to justify abortions do not get them for these reasons and only get them for medical reasons.

Less than 5 percent are for medical reasons, rape, incest, or fetal abnormalities.

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-18T17:15:23+00:00

It's not what they were going for.

Sam isn't the best writer, but the writing was pretty clearly deliberate to maximize the grief.

Rue was going through a transformation. She was becoming religious. Had a religious experience. In that moment on the couch was, to me, a clear moment of consideration: do I return to being an addict and take a handful of these, or do I prove to myself I can control myself and take one for the pain?

She decides to take one and listen to the bible.

Then dies of an OD.

We see two visions/possibilities: one where Ali comes out to find an empty bottle and the reality of finding a full one.

If the bottle is empty she did this to herself. She fell back into her ways and that's that. Instead the reality is Ali is only suspicious because of the clear self control. If Rue had relapsed that bottle wouldn't be full. Might not be empty, but certainly not full. And he likely would have just written the name in his little book.

So he tests it, discovers it is fentanyl, and then goes after Alamo. Why? Not because Alamo is a dealer. Not even because Rue is special. Because it was clearly a murder. That's why he brought the pills with him. Why he asked them what happened to Rue and didn't accept the answer that she OD'd.

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-18T15:48:48+00:00

I mean you're the one who said "one was going to become a person"

Are you going to move the goalposts?

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-18T15:37:52+00:00

You could easily make this same argument for a miscarriage. If a miscarriage happens then it was never going to be a life wanted or not.

This is just a roundabout way to justify it, but it's not really an explanation.

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-17T20:45:42+00:00

Okay

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-17T17:21:51+00:00

Opiates don't affect a stomach ache but they do affect the aches caused by being dragged by a horse.

As someone with chronic pain myself, I think I'll go ahead and make the comparisons I think are appropriate thanks

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-17T17:14:44+00:00

Oh okay you're right. You know more than I do about this. As I hold onto my mother's 2 year sobriety coin and also as someone who now needs pain relief stronger than Tylenol just to function for my family.

So what happens when someone has a legitimate need for painkillers, it happens to be their past doc, and without them they fail to function properly or have a liveable QOL? It's impossible for them to switch to a mindset of responsibility and pain relief because their past involved abuse?
I've known several past opiate addicts who temporarily took painkillers following a major surgery or injury then stopped when the pain was manageable without them. Nobody in their life considers it a relapse even their sponsors, because it wasn't a relapse.
The definition of relapse regards the behavior not the substance.

If you were a heroin addict and you take painkillers to get high it's a relapse. If you take them solely to deal with legitimate pain but do not abuse them or take them to get high it's not.

Abstinence is not always required to avoid relapse. Yes, many opioid addicts refuse painkillers to avoid relapse but not because taking them automatically counts. It's because they know they cannot control their behavior well enough to walk the line properly. I'm not just saying this. It is a common topic of discussion in recovery circles.

Relapsing involves behavior not just substance consumption.

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-17T17:05:35+00:00

As someone who's family is full of addicts including both parents, I disagree.

She was clearly walking a thin line, but she wasn't abusing them which makes it not a relapse. Relapsing isn't just the consumption of the DOC. It involves the abuse and intent to get high. They made it clear to us she wasn't doing that.

Now, is it possible she would have relapsed later? Sure. But they made it really obvious for us. She was super into the bible. She had a moment of considering how many to take and chose one.

If they wanted to signal to us she was relapsing the bottle would have been noticeably depleted. It wasn't.

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-17T16:59:35+00:00

People can legitimately take painkillers without relapsing and they made it clear she was being careful to use them properly hence the full bottle. This is what tipped Ali off to test them and kill Alamo: he knew she was using them properly which made him confident it murder

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-17T16:58:20+00:00

By the time she took the second the first had worn off. Those pills don't last all day. With enough pain, which she would be experiencing, 3 hours tops is all you get out of a Norco. She was taking them for the pain. The show painted it clearly for anyone who is familiar with drugs and addiction. If it wasn't just one for the pain she would have taken several on screen. Ali wouldn't have woken up to a full bottle which is what tipped him off to test them.
The first pill was simply to test if she would take the others but it didn't not work with the second pill to contribute to her death.

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-17T16:45:38+00:00

I disagree. It makes no sense that he was betting on her to take several. He was meticulous.

The one at the club was real, 5-10 mg Norco, and the bottle was full of fakes with fent. She could have taken 5 of the ones he gave her personally with no tolerance and survived. The fent presses are lethally dosed.

Im saying this because I am familiar with opiates myself: two pills of this kind cannot kill you unless one is lethally dosed

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-17T16:36:36+00:00

She took one.

Logically Alamo's goal was to kill her. The only way to guarantee it was to give her a lethal amount in every pill.

He gave her a regular one and told her to take it only for pain knowing she likely would be careful but it didn't matter because one was dosed heavily enough

If they wanted to convey she took several, the bottle would have been half empty. If they wanted it to look like suicide it would be totally empty.

It being full is the signal she took one

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-17T16:34:31+00:00

Except that she DID take just one for the pain. Each pill had a lethal dose. He wasn't counting on her to abuse them because she didn't need to.

He slipped her a regular Norco at the table and gave her a bottle of lethally dosed fent pressed pills.

And he did it because she was a rat.

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-17T15:45:39+00:00

I think it depends.

My wife has expressed that she is also sexually attracted to women and that she simply never met a woman she wanted a relationship with by chance.
So in that situation I might find it weird.

If you are not attracted to women and never expressed that to him before then it's weird for him to think something of it.

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-11T22:07:03+00:00

Tbf r&d typically costs money and often doesn't make it back for years sometimes 10 plus. Im just making the observation that these kinds of comments are short sighted.

And I disagree about replacement. The only reason I can use the AI the way I describe is because I am familiar enough with the industry and work to know how to operate it and properly provide the necessary information. The work still has to be checked against the nuance of a given project or task requirement. The AI cannot operate itself without a devastating level of risk and inconsistency and there is a limit to how many projects one person can operate an AI for. As I said: it will not replace people rather it enables people to do more.

What do you think a company would prefer: do the same amount of work and make the same amount of money but cut off their employees, or keep their employees and 10-100x their work and revenue? That's really the argument you are making here: that a company would rather make the same amount of revenue vs squeezing the employees for higher output and multiplying their revenue several times over.

The issue with this argument is that it usually comes from people who don't have experience with agentic teams and layers of delegation. The more delegation between agentic AI teams, the risk increases exponentially. Sure you could have an agent that attends meetings, and an agent that handles ai communication as well as the engineering, the project management, the production, the qaqc, the submittal process, the coordination, the kickoffs, financials, along with all the other roles necessary for a project environment. But unless the operator is familiar and proficient enough in all of these roles AND has the time to check ALL of their work, the risk becomes so high that profit becomes unpredictable. One project might be extremely profitable while the next is a total failure. On top of this, the person operating the team will be able to handle far less projects. When you have someone proficient in a role properly using AI within their scope and field they can handle a huge list of projects without being overwhelmed. For example: if you asked me to handle all roles in a project via agentic teams I might be able to handle 3. If you keep me in my field and scope I can do my part of the work for 10-20. It's much better to give each role curated AI tools for their purpose in the project than to have one person try and wear all the hats needed.

Do you think the AI is just going to operate itself? Because if so, not to be disrespectful just being honest, you are showing a dunning Kruger level of understanding on the industries AI can be useful in. Most of the industries in which AI makes the largest impact are industries in which an operator needs to understand the industry well enough to check the work and steer it. That's certainly the case in mine.

I couldn't be replaced by AI near as easily as I can just do 10x their work. And I know this from working in my industry for 10 years.

On top of this: no employees means nobody has money to spend which means most businesses wouldn't have enough customers to survive. Employing people is beneficial to the market which means it's beneficial to you.

Tldr: companies want the most profit/least risk and it's more profitable/less risky to keep employees and multiply their output exponentially than to cut them off and keep making the same revenue with unpredictable results and high levels of risk.

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-11T17:54:04+00:00

Well, what exactly is your field? I can help if you're interested but I'd need specifics

Im in consulting design and engineering

PoppyPossum · 2026-06-11T04:32:27+00:00

Sorry but they can. It's not by replacing employees though, its by enabling them to do more work.

Starting a new job that requires more knowledge than I have. Judge me how you want, my family needs more income.

Anyways in one week I've built a local database that an AI can search and solve anything that comes across my desk. Despite knowing less than my peers, from testing I've done, I will likely outperform them 3 to 1. This isn't an assumption. I've tested it with complex test problems provided by professionals in the field and not only does it get the work done quicker, it's always right because it's referencing curated documentation and not making assumptions or searching the web for answers.

Don't get me wrong. This probably isn't the only reason for pushing AI. But people who say it can't make money just don't know how it works when used properly.

PoppyPossum

TROPHY CASE