Drugs, Alcohol and Cam Girls

[KayleePond]

concern troll

A person who posts on a blog thread, in the guise of "concern," to disrupt dialogue or undermine morale by pointing out that posters and/or the site may be getting themselves in trouble, usually with an authority or power. They point out problems that don't really exist. The intent is to derail, stifle, control, the dialogue. It is viewed as insincere and condescending.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=concern+troll

Oooh this is perfect, we get these all of the time! I like having a name for this specific type of troll! :dance:

 

[Elsalil_Stiller]

Anecdotes

I have divorced parents. I have two BA's one MA, I speak five languages, have published writing, and I got bored with academia so I decided to support myself through camming to pursue my intellectual interests. In order to be a better camgirl I have stopped drinking, smoking, and eating unhealthy foods.

My little sister (note: this means her parents are also divorced) is currently in law school. She runs marathons, and doesn't abuse drugs or alcohol.

My best friend in high school has divorced parents, and although we used to watch porn together, she now has a MA in epidemiology and is in medical school so she can go save AIDS babies in Africa. She smoked a lot of pot in high school but gave it up when she got to college.

Another good friend from high school has parents who are still together, but she supported herself all through college and after as a dominatrix. She and her partner had a baby last year. They don't drink more than a glass of wine with dinner.

My BFF has divorced parents. She works at an elementary school part time and does medical billing from home the rest of the time. She hasn't drank in years. She does, however, live in an area with legal weed, so she takes advantage of that sometimes.

One of my exes has divorced parents. He is divorced himself (married right out of high school because that's what you do in Texas), but he own a successful construction company. He drinks a couple times a month, but mostly smokes weed in his downtime.

Another ex has parents who are still together. His older brother is a psychopath and a rapist, while my ex is just a pedophile. But he doesn't drink very often.

Another of my girlfriends has divorced parents. She works in an Emergency Room while she puts herself through mortuary school. She drinks on weekends but can't smoke weed for shit.

I have another friend who has parents who are still together. She runs a phone sex company and drinks white wine on weekends. She is married to husband who owns his own business, and they just bought a home.

I know a woman whose parents are still together, but she escorts so she can support her animal rescue refuge place outside of town.

I have a gorgeous, 6' blonde friend from grad school whose parents are still together, but she doesn't drink much and is so sexually repressed her first kiss was at 25, and yes, she's still a virgin and she's almost 30.

I'm not seeing a whole lot of patterns here. :hello2:

 

[JessieWolfe]

Random thought: I think that implying why someone abuses substances is because they are a camgirl, in any type of adult work will just push them away more. It is implying that they shouldn't be doing their job because it is having negative effects on them.

If op is concerned with the people he is trying to help he wouldn't be associating their substance abuse with their job, but rather one on one trying to get them help for their problem and not trying to say it is because of their job. Their job could be more benefit to them than any harm. Telling people their job is the reason behind their problems is just going to push them away.

Communication can be hard.

 

[Sevrin]

Just as a data point:

The models I've gotten to know best have been from Eastern Europe, specifically Russia. It should be noted that they are the majority of cam models on sites like MFC.

These models tended not to drink alcohol much at all, and almost never on cam, not only because it was not allowed by their studios, but also because alcohol has been a major destructive force in their societies, and, in some cases, in their families. There are, of course, independent EE models who do drink on cam, but if one's trying to draw conclusions about cam modeling and substance abuse, it's worth remembering that North American models, and specifically NA models who drink on cam, by no means represent most cam models.

 

[JordanBlack]

Besides addictions (I love my gin ), I can't help but notice a sentiment of negativity against divorce. Even disregarding religion convictions, morality and stuff, but when two people can't get along even if at one point they were in love, why should they make themselves miserable and stay together?

I think the horrible trend imposed, mostly by religious convictions, "until death do us apart", will make a household with children more prone to being horribly affected by the refusal of the contract bound individuals to go on their merry way, than anything else. Refusing to divorce, arguments or fights could be quite a hostile/ negative environment for any child to be raised into. One could say children would be more damaged by parents refusing to divorce than if they were to do so.

So my question would be, why in the world, anyone would paint a child raised intro a divorced family as a bad thing?

 

[Sevrin]

So my question would be, why in the world, anyone would paint a child raised intro a divorced family as a bad thing?

Because it's not good? Now of course a child raised in a home full of strife isn't better off, but a child from a broken home will likely carry some scars. I was first a half-orphan, and then the child of alcoholics, then the child of a divorced couple, yet still alcoholic, home, and have met many who grew up similarly at many stages in their lives, so bear me out. Most of regret not having been raised in the happy families that cereal and minivan commercials promise us.

There's no need to blame religion. Human nature and physiology has been around since before whatever religion you may have a bee in your bonnet about even existed. The ease with which babysitters may be found on Craig's List don't enter into the discussion of what human children optimally need to thrive, either.

Human children take quite a while until they are of an age when they can take care of themselves. It takes time until they can physically provide for themselves, but, just as importantly, their brains take even longer to develop the judgment expected from an adult. Thus, nature itself suggests that parents should be around for more than the few years it takes to get the baby out of diapers and into kindergarten, both fairly recent developments in the history of our species. The child, in turn will be genetically programmed to depend on those parents, the ones whose genetic code he or she carries, and therefore, in theory the ones most interested in its maturing, the ones imprinted on him or her from the earliest conscious moments, to be close by for the duration.

A single parent will have a very hard time raising that child. Extended family will certainly help, especially if some of the member responsible for raising the child are of the opposite sex of the responsible parent. For better or for worse, however, society will not let that child forget that the "ideal" family includes two biological parents, or functional facsimiles, at least, and the child will inevitably grow up with the feeling of being an outsider, a social anomaly. None of that's to say that the child won't be able to function in society, or find happiness in life, but he or she will have to deal obstacles nature didn't intend for there to be.

That child will have been cheated by a couple of people who did not think about the responsibility of having a child beforehand, or have he maturity to set their differences aside to raise their child afterward. It is to prevent this type of damage to the offspring of our species that your average religion does encourage couples to love each other and stay together, ideally indefinitely.

 

[weirdbr]

So my question would be, why in the world, anyone would paint a child raised intro a divorced family as a bad thing?

Because society in general is stuck to ideals from hundreds of years ago (mostly thanks to religion) and can't look at things rationally? Like any discussion of 'A vs B', it focus on the failures of case A (divorced couples), hiding their successes, while promoting the successes of 'B' (married couples) and hiding their failures...

Honestly, I wish people would also look at the impact of failed marriages that should had ended up in divorce for the sake of everyone involved and didn't; I would be willing to bet you will find stories as bad as those blamed on divorced couples...

I could tell mine in full, but instead a short version: parents that should had gotten divorced a long time ago but waited until about 18 months ago... Meanwhile, constant psychological abuse from my father towards everyone else, including random threats of violence (and which ended up becoming reality only for me three times; luckily for me he misjudged my willingness to defend myself as well as my strength.. And he was dumb enough to not learn the lesson until the third time). If anything, that experience taught me how to not be a father (and how much of a saint my mother is...).

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

So my question would be, why in the world, anyone would paint a child raised intro a divorced family as a bad thing?

Because society in general is stuck to ideals from hundreds of years ago (mostly thanks to religion) and can't look at things rationally? Like any discussion of 'A vs B', it focus on the failures of case A (divorced couples), hiding their successes, while promoting the successes of 'B' (married couples) and hiding their failures...

Honestly, I wish people would also look at the impact of failed marriages that should had ended up in divorce for the sake of everyone involved and didn't; I would be willing to bet you will find stories as bad as those blamed on divorced couples...

I could tell mine in full, but instead a short version: parents that should had gotten divorced a long time ago but waited until about 18 months ago... Meanwhile, constant psychological abuse from my father towards everyone else, including random threats of violence (and which ended up becoming reality only for me three times; luckily for me he misjudged my willingness to defend myself as well as my strength.. And he was dumb enough to not learn the lesson until the third time). If anything, that experience taught me how to not be a father (and how much of a saint my mother is...).

I am afraid not, the reason it is painted as a bad thing is because there is literally 50 years of sociological research that show that children of divorce parents fair worse than parents who remain together. For instance this recent Scientific American article ] [url=http://www.scientificamerica...w.scientificamerican.com/artic ... en/?page=1[/url] which argues that most kids do fine after divorcee acknowledges there are differences.

She found that 25 percent of the adults whose parents had divorced experienced serious social, emotional or psychological troubles compared with 10 percent of those whose parents remained together. These findings suggest that only 15 percent of adult children of divorce experience problems over and above those from stable families.

Now depending on how you frame this 75% of adult children of divorce do just fine or these adult children are more than twice as likely to experience emotional problems as adults who didn't go through divorcee. t is serious problem or not.

In a review article in 2003, psychologists Joan B. Kelly of Corte Madera, Calif., and Robert E. Emery of the University of Virginia concluded that the relationships of adults whose parents' marriages failed do tend to be somewhat more problematic than those of children from stable homes. For instance, people whose parents split when they were young experience more difficulty forming and sustaining intimate relationships as young adults, greater dissatisfaction with their marriages, a higher divorce rate and poorer relationships with the noncustodial father compared with adults from sustained marriages. On all other measures, differences between the two groups were small.

A quick google search should provide weeks worth of reading on the subject. One of the more interesting areas of research is what is better having parents that hate each other and fight like cats and dogs but remain married for the sake of the kid or those who get divorced? It has been sometime since I read the studies, so do your own research on the result. I suspect that your parents did you a favor by waiting until you were an adult to get divorced.

 

[weirdbr]

I suspect that your parents did you a favor by waiting until you were an adult to get divorced.

You know, that phrase alone makes me want to ignore your reply as potentially trollish - how is years of abuse a 'favor'? I can say with certainty that we would had been better off if they had divorced earlier - we wouldn't had been raised with a constant strong bad role model present and would have suffered little to no hardship as my mother is/was capable of providing for us; plus, thanks to my grandmother's final act before passing away, me and my siblings already owned a house that would fit us and still have rent out parts of it to make more money.

Now, back to the studies...

As you said, there aren't studies to compare whether unhappy/broken marriages are more impactful to children when compared to divorced couples (and to be fair, it would need to compare both bad divorces and 'good' divorces). And that by itself is telling: it's selection bias, which makes the results questionable to say the least.

Also, those studies need to be redone/updated as they cover from 1975 to 2000; the added access to information that we've had in the last 15 years has changed society a lot, helping reduce considerably a lot of stigmas, including the stigma of being raised by divorced parents. This has key implications that are likely to considerably change the results.

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

I suspect that your parents did you a favor by waiting until you were an adult to get divorced.

You know, that phrase alone makes me want to ignore your reply as potentially trollish - how is years of abuse a 'favor'? I can say with certainty that we would had been better off if they had divorced earlier - we wouldn't had been raised with a constant strong bad role model present and would have suffered little to no hardship as my mother is/was capable of providing for us; plus, thanks to my grandmother's final act before passing away, me and my siblings already owned a house that would fit us and still have rent out parts of it to make more money.

Now, back to the studies...

As you said, there aren't studies to compare whether unhappy/broken marriages are more impactful to children when compared to divorced couples (and to be fair, it would need to compare both bad divorces and 'good' divorces). And that by itself is telling: it's selection bias, which makes the results questionable to say the least.

Also, those studies need to be redone/updated as they cover from 1975 to 2000; the added access to information that we've had in the last 15 years has changed society a lot, helping reduce considerably a lot of stigmas, including the stigma of being raised by divorced parents. This has key implications that are likely to considerably change the results.

Obviously I don't know any of the particular of your situation, all I can go by is the statistics and the conclusion of these are fuzzy enough that I don't really remember the details. So if you say
they should have divorced earlier, no reason for me to argue with you much less be a troll.

With a 1.5 million divorces and many thousands of master and PHd in sociology and psychology all looking for thesis topics there are thousands of studies out there on the topic. Including those that try and answer the question should we stay together for the sake of the children. I imagine there are even some recent studies on the subject. It is harder to do social studies that hard science studies, but far from impossible. I wouldn't dismiss them as bad until you've read some.

But fundamentally divorces is not good for kids and not great for society. That is true for fairly religious country like the US, very religious countries like those in Latin America, and non-religious countries like Sweden. So it is good news that rates have declined modestly in recent years in the US.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Including those that try and answer the question should we stay together for the sake of the children. I imagine there are even some recent studies on the subject. It is harder to do social studies that hard science studies, but far from impossible. I wouldn't dismiss them as bad until you've read some.

But fundamentally divorces is not good for kids and not great for society. That is true for fairly religious country like the US, very religious countries like those in Latin America, and non-religious countries like Sweden. So it is good news that rates have declined modestly in recent years in the US.

There have been recent studies on the subject. But they tend to disagree with your opinion. Studies like this one conducted by three PhD professors from two universities titled "Conflict or Divorce?: Does Parental Conflict and/or Divorce Increase the Likelihood of Adult Children’s Cohabiting and Marital Dissolution?"

Which basically finds in that situation it's actually better to get divorced.

Here's the gist of the study in an every day language article.
http://www.livescience.com/6648-divorce-bad-kids.html

Children who grew up in high conflict families fared better in their adult relationships if their parents got a divorce.

And here's the actual study itself as published by Princeton.
http://paa2011.princeton.edu/papers/111917

In sum, our research suggests that for high conflict families “staying together for the
sake of the children” may have more adverse consequences for adult children’s relationship
outcomes than parental divorce.

 

[PRISM]

Just as a data point:

The models I've gotten to know best have been from Eastern Europe, specifically Russia. It should be noted that they are the majority of cam models on sites like MFC.

These models tended not to drink alcohol much at all, and almost never on cam, not only because it was not allowed by their studios, but also because alcohol has been a major destructive force in their societies, and, in some cases, in their families. There are, of course, independent EE models who do drink on cam, but if one's trying to draw conclusions about cam modeling and substance abuse, it's worth remembering that North American models, and specifically NA models who drink on cam, by no means represent most cam models.

It might just be Russian model, I've known lots of models from Romania that do drink on cam many times, including ones that work in studios.

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

Just be clear Jerry divorce is bad for kids, which is not really opinion but a statement of fact. How bad is matter of opinion.

My opinion on the question of "should parents in bad marriages stay together for the sake of kids" is that you should read some of the numerous studies out there like the one you linked and make up your own mind. It is seldom an open or shut case. My parents fought like cats and dogs when I was growing up and continued to do so until my dad passed away at 71. Seeing my mom in a 15+ years relationship with another man, it is now obvious that blaming my dad for the fights was in fact wrong. My mom was the real instigator. If they had gotten divorce which I think most couples would now days, would have resulted in my losing a lot of quality of time with my dad.

 

[Sevrin]

And here's the actual study itself as published by Princeton.
http://paa2011.princeton.edu/papers/111917

In sum, our research suggests that for high conflict families “staying together for the
sake of the children” may have more adverse consequences for adult children’s relationship
outcomes than parental divorce.

I'm not arguing, since I've only experienced one scenario myself, but that "may" leads me to think that even the study's authors were willing to admit they didn't have all the answers. I think that kids are getting the short end of the stick either way.

 

[Ann_Sulu]

Also, I'd be pretty angry if someone told me it was my fault they made their lives miserable staying married to someone they didn't want to be with. That would be all sorts of scarring I think. Not to mention not having problems sleeping as a kid, because mom and dad are yelling again etc.

Yes, I can see how one could learn from those scenarios, but I wouldn't think of that as the best home to grow up in. Not saying mine was necessarily perfect, but I think most kids have enough stressful conflict in school. They should'nt feel like they're just entering a new stress when they should feel at home.

*edit I want to apologize for my phone causing this to maybe read weird. I believe the above at least makes sense, though definitely not in perfect English lol.

 

[Camgirl]

Divorce doesn't have to be bad. What about all the supportive step parents out there and positive co-parenting? I think that is a better scenario than staying together just for the kids when you are miserable. Showing your kids that you can work together as parents in spite of divorce is a good thing.

I think some disadvantages/negative effects of divorce can stem from bitterness between parents, parental alienation, and the anger that each parent may show towards the other in front of the kids (among other things). These things do and can still exist if people stay together.

The solution to lessening the damage of divorce on the kids would be not participating in a lot of the negative behaviors that lead up to and go with a lot of divorces.

 

[DeezNA]

Okay, I have been refraining from commenting since I feel my last few posts haven't really gotten through the way I intended them to... so (and take note, I may fail...) I'm going to try to clarify here.

In my opinion, once an individual has reached adulthood, they have formed and are able to continue to form and shape their individual identities consciously. Regardless of whether they were an orphan, adopted, from a divorced or abusive household or from a "Norman Rockwell" family, unless there is a physical or biological inhibition to prevent adaptation I truly believe that anyone is capable of being a "stable", "functional" individual given enough support, determination and guidance.

The perpetuation of this idea that the family that someone was born into has "doomed" them to a life of suffering and destitution (or a life that is "less" than one that someone who is born into different familial circumstances) is not only saddening but destructive. It's so much easier to sit there and say "I came from a shitty family so my life sucks" rather than take action to create the life one desires; many opt to take this route since it requires absolutely no action, but in the end... what does it accomplish?

As for substance abuse (what this topic is actually about...) - this is and always has been an individual choice. Resources are available at any time to recover from these problems (if they even ARE a problem), it's up to the individual to gauge whether their substance use is a destructive force in their life and if they need to take action on it. For safety's sake, I will post some resources for substance support at the bottom of this post.

Side-note - PLEASE do not confuse substance use and substance abuse. There's a big goddamn difference.

Now for the big one, brace yourselves. Everything that is being discussed and insinuated here is painting the interactive adult entertainment industry in a negative light. This is really upsetting me. Regardless of what background you come from, what substances you use, what state of mind you are in... that has nothing to do with the inherent "positive" or "negative" quality of the industry. The insinuation that "this person came from a 'broken' home and drinks so now they are stuck in a shitty job" immediately demands the knee-jerk reaction "well, did their upbringing cause their substance use and misfortune?" Is ANYONE here really saying that being a cam-model is a BAD thing? For fuck's sake... Every job has its ups and downs, that doesn't make it an inherently "good" or "bad" thing. I know a local who has been running a general store (read as "gas station") for 30+ years; he LOVES his job. I know people who work in the septic tank industry... did their separated parents "doom" them to working the job that is paying extremely well for their kid's college fund and their retirement?

Side-note 2.0 - Take a look at the life of William S. Burroughs sometime. For the lazy... Born into a wealthy family, Harvard grad, voluntarily became an opiate junkie, ended up living 83 years and being arguably one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.

WHO CARES? It's all wild speculation looking for trends that aren't there due to one massive determining factor: free motherfucking will. Conscious thought.

We can learn from our misfortunes and those of others or we can bow our heads as victims to something that will "inevitably" cause our downfall, the choice is ours.

That's all I'm going to say on this issue. My apologies if this came off more abrasive than intended, I have been working with people from all different backgrounds and all different levels of substance/mental health problems for 15+ years and I have an extremely strong opinion on this matter.

----------------------------------------------------
As for recovery, if you have legitimate substance abuse concerns for a friend or yourself, please consider referring them to some useful resources:
Alcohol - http://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking
Weed - http://www.reddit.com/r/leaves
Opiates - http://www.reddit.com/r/OpiatesRecovery
(I know Reddit has a mixed internet reputation but their support groups are very well moderated, have been a great asset to myself in the past and they have 24/7 IRC chat and many other resources for crisis situations available.)
----------------------------------------------------

 

[PRISM]

I don't see why so many guys are upset that some models choose to drink or smoke pot while on cam. Drinking a glass or two of wine or doing some shots for tokens every so often or smoking pot before you get on cam doesn't mean you have a substance abuse since it is just using it in a safe manner.

So many other people in other industries use drugs to increase performance and no one goes on a hero complex to save them. Lately in the media nootropics are being promoted to help increase iq. Actors are using HGH shots to look great even in their late 60's.

 

[Wade W Wilson]

Yes I know this thread is about 6 months dead and shame on me for kicking the corpse but I just had one quick swing to take at this dead horse. I'm not sure if the original poster was a troll or not, but he did get 6 days and 5 defensive pages out of everyone, even after being labeled a troll.