More Crack Here Than Dan Aykroyd!

So I'm reading this story at my favorite strange-news website about a woman found beside a house. It was late in the evening, she had her pants down around her ankles and at first appeared to be dead. Then she got up, refusing assistance. The police took her downtown, all the while she was insisting that she lived in the house (she actually lived about a mile or so away). The woman was in her 50's.

There wasn't much detail concerning why she was lying on the ground with her pants down, or how she got the idea that she was home. My guess is she was on drugs and maybe tried to urinate but fell over and passed out. At least that's what I'm hoping is what happened. It could be a rape, but only a doctor's exam would tell, since the woman couldn't even recall that she wasn't anywhere near home, where she'd been or what she'd been doing.

The thing that gets me is just how very pathetic this is. I have never been inclined to take drugs, although I have been offered some. I'm no longer a drinker because of medical problems, but I recall the days when one drink too many would make me feel like I'd been hit by a truck the next day. I just can't understand why people agree to take drugs in the first place, when these days it seems everyone is aware that most are addictive and self-destructive. In the case of alcohol, I can't understand why people enjoy intoxicating themselves on a regular basis if the end result is feeling like crap for a day or two after. After the second time it happened to me, I kept myself to a two-drink maximum, because it was better to be safe than sorry.

I don't understand addictions because I've avoided the things that cause addiction, so I can't empathize with how difficult it is to quit. Someone told me once an addiction was like breathing; it's just as difficult to "quit" breathing as it is to give up an addiction. If this is the case, why not be strong enough to turn away from the beginning? Why set yourself up for heartache and pain? Why risk having yourself found half-naked in someone's yard, with no knowledge of where you are, where you've been, and how you got there?

I just don't understand this.