Unprecedented Restaurant Pain

The following chart shows the natural log of the sales of food services and drinking places. Constant exponential growth is seen as a straight line.

This is probably the most disturbing exponential trend failure that's ever been posted on this blog. The pandemic makes the Great Recession look like a minor hiccup. Will things ever return to normal? How many restaurants will actually survive?

What Is Creating the Worst Addiction Crisis America Has Ever Seen?

1. Cigarettes.
2. Alcohol.
3. Debt.
4. Powerful painkillers.

As I've said in an earlier post today, this week's cover of Time Magazine states the answer is powerful painkillers. Ain't that a hoot.

They're the most powerful painkillers ever invented.

And they're creating the worst addiction crisis America has ever seen.

There you have it. If it is in print, then it must be true. Here is a quote from the article to support the claim.

By 2011, 17,000 Anericans were dying every year from prescription-opioid prescriptions.

This would probably be a good time to point out that Time Magazine once declared snowboarding to be a fad. As an avid snowboarder in the 1980s, I never forgot that. I wondered, at the time, how many drugs they must have taken to state such a thing. Fad my @$$, lol. Sigh.

17,000 deaths may seem like a lot, and it is. However, in the real world we tend to take all the numbers and sort them before deciding upon the worst.

1. Cigarette smoking: 480,000 deaths per year.
2. Alcohol use: 88,000 deaths per year.
3. Total credit market debt: $58.7 trillion.
4. Prescription-opioids: 17,000 deaths per year.

Cigarettes, alcohol, and debt can be purchased over the counter, but prescription drugs are where the worst addiction crisis is? Yeah, right. Good luck on that theory.

This must be Pile on Time Magazine Tuesday! All the cool kids are doing it. I know I can't help myself. Sensationalized covers like this hurt us all. It certainly doesn't do my chronically in pain girlfriend any good. Not one bit.

Mind Blowing Epiphany of the Day

May 22, 2015
Migraine, Chronic Back Pain Tied to Suicide Risk

"There might be something about someone with significant pain that puts them at increased risk.

Might be? Something? Someone? What will those crazy researchers think up next!

I bring this up because Time Magazine is demonizing powerful painkillers on its cover this week. There's a picture of pain pill on a fish hook, as if chronic pain sufferers are like fish waiting to be caught. Shameful.

Based on the heavily sensationalized cover, I'm guessing the author has never experienced chronic pain.

My girlfriend does. She gets 24 "powerful painkillers" a month to help her deal with her chronic dystonia pain. Picture a serious muscle cramp in her neck that never goes away. The funny thing is that there are actually more than 24 days in a month, the relief only lasts 4-6 hours, and in order to be effective the painkillers need to be taken 2 at a time. Do the math.

Here's something even funnier. I bought her two large bottles of Vodka last year. We still have more than a bottle and a half. I'm not a drinker and she doesn't want to get hooked, not that we'll ever see a story about that. There isn't nearly enough drama to sell magazines.

Do people abuse drugs? Of course they do. There will always be people who will become addicted to addicting things. Take debt for instance. We sure love a good debt addiction! Can't ever seem to get enough! And the funniest thing is, excessive debt doesn't offer any pain relief at all. It's just pure pain, the kind of pain that real painkillers can barely dent.