Hacker News Reader

People who support their faimiler through full-time jobs are lazy? I guess you've never met the benefit kings/queens and full-time alcoholics that live in my neighborhood. That would've calibrated your laziness meter.

View on HN

I've worked in social services, benefit kings/queens are a thing, but they are only a small visible part of the picture. It is incredibly uncharitable to call alcoholics lazy. These are people who very often have very difficult base struggles. It is an extreme luxury to be at a point where you can easily have a well paying stable job, not to mention the freedom and received ability to "create a startup," and to top it off, expect success. To look at all this with a self serving perspective, well that's laziness.

Many alcoholics I know are just leeching money off state and their families. Their main struggle is that they can't stop drinking.

Others are honorable and work (at least intermittently) to support their addiction. One guy is an oceanic ship captain, who work fixed-term contracts, and is 100% sober during them (one infraction would end his career). But, once he's back from the contract, he stops on the first gas station on route from the port to his home, buys a bottle of vodka and drinks it on the spot. This shows that controlling alcoholism is partially a matter of willpower and motivation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com