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Free football tickets, for drug addicts
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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Basically drug addicts are being given tickets to Premiership football matches to help them on the road to recovery. Newcastle United has been gifting tickets from four season tickets to Drug and Alcohol Action Teams (DAAT) throughout the North East of England.
Interesting story I thought and one which is bound to get the average Daily Mail reader foaming at the mouth.
I'm going to put myself in the firing line here and say I don't think its a brilliant idea (there are other ways to offer rewards) but I dont think its a bad idea at all.
I can totally understand how those who have to work very hard to afford to buy a ticket must be feeling and for those tax payers who would love to take their children to a game but simply cant afford it. However if this is being properly run i.e.. the beneficiaries are being rewarded appropriately and aren't taking the piss, then I don't really have a problem with it.
I'm expecting most to people to be against this scheme, so come on prove me wrong. Your thoughts
Basically drug addicts are being given tickets to Premiership football matches to help them on the road to recovery. Newcastle United has been gifting tickets from four season tickets to Drug and Alcohol Action Teams (DAAT) throughout the North East of England.
Interesting story I thought and one which is bound to get the average Daily Mail reader foaming at the mouth.
I'm going to put myself in the firing line here and say I don't think its a brilliant idea (there are other ways to offer rewards) but I dont think its a bad idea at all.
I can totally understand how those who have to work very hard to afford to buy a ticket must be feeling and for those tax payers who would love to take their children to a game but simply cant afford it. However if this is being properly run i.e.. the beneficiaries are being rewarded appropriately and aren't taking the piss, then I don't really have a problem with it.
I'm expecting most to people to be against this scheme, so come on prove me wrong. Your thoughts
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Comments
I would imagine the addict has to earn these tickets by way of change and progress ...and if it is getting them into the fresh air ...always a healthy option ...and giving them chemicaly free excitement ...i think it's a good idea.
More companies could come forward and help with all manner of social problems in all manner of ways i would imagine ...so it's a pat on the back for Newcastle from me.
It's the rewarding the bad and forgetting the good. In nursery, if we have a badly behaved child we find that we set up a special rewards chart, with a toy at the end. BUT WHY? Because that results in the child getting a toy for doing what the other 25 children do on a daily basis - and what do they get for it?
At college the foundation stage students get taken out willy nilly, freebies, trips out all expenses paid. And in my two years there they are organising the first trip for us, which we have to pay for as a celebration of us finishing. Where the fuck is the fairness in that? It's the same as these high schools who are handing out Ipods to the bad kids in attempt to make them good. It's really disgraceful imo.
Also, mabye I'm missing the point but how is a football ticket going to help a drug user get back on track???
As for the addicts ...i'm sure they will be getting these tickets as rewards for effort and making changes ...what is wrong with rewarding their efforts? Going to an exciting football match surely helps them get back in touch with the world at large and how exciting an afternoon can be without the need for drugs.
Many in our society fail ...fall short ...help them ignore them ...or punish them ...thats the only choices i can see here.
An adequate reward to a criminal for good behaviour is a reduced sentence, discounted housing, help finding a job or education all of which would give considerable long term help to a recovering drug addict. A football ticket would not.
it's nobody elses fault that paul trollope is a cunt!
I'd be smoking crack if I was a City fan over the last couple of weeks
Good people don't need rewarding do they ...surely the fruits of being good are enough?
Perhaps they used to be, but now when you read stories about people who do fuck all for society, people who intentionally try to damage society and a myriad of other people who decided they want a slice of the pie, getting rewards for bad or antisocial behaviour, it kind of pisses you off.
I, like you have worked hard all my life, I pay my taxes, I contribute and I don't complain, I certainly don't give other people the level of grief some do. Where are my football tickets? Where's my reward for being a productive member of society?
Why don't Newcastle United instead give the ticket to someone who has saved a life, or the group of kids who have helped their community? Perhaps to young lad who loves Newcastle but can't see them because mum and dad don't earn enough money or live too far away? Why a drug addict, who really needs help finding a job/education and not an X-hundred pound football ticket.
Somehow I think that's unlikely.
Personal feeling is that we need to remember to reward the people who are good all the time, not just the ones who screw up first.
I'm not saying children CHOSE to behave badly and I'm not saying that the method of rewarding good behaviour isn't effective - Skinner proved that with his theory of behaviour modification. BUT I am saying that it is not fair that the people and children who are ALWAYS well behaved and ALWAYS contribute well get naff all just because all the resources and rewards are taken up on the misbehaved child. That is just twisted.
I have before now heard children say If I'm naughty like X then be good will I get a toy too? And in secondary school, oh well if the bad kids are getting ipods and trips If I start behaving badly then improve will I get an ipod and a trip out? They aren't stupid - they damn well know what's going on and they point out again and again how unfair it is.
Before long, if we don't curb it and pay more attention to the well behaved kids and less public attention to the badly behaved kids then we are going to have good kids behaving badly, deliberatly, just so soak up the rewards of being naughty.
And YES good people do need rewarding. Why should they not? You think there is some instant reward when people do something "right"? Basically NO the fruits of being good are NOT good enough and people need to realise this and respond to the good fruit of society.
Bit like christianity of old ...repent and all that stuff ...and you will be rewarded. Again old xtrianity stuff being the tale of the prodigal son ...the son goes off and spends all his money on partying while his brother stays at home and works hard for his dad ...when young prodigal returns skint and broke but repentant ...the dad rejoices and throws a big party. Of course the other son then starts moaning that he has woked hard and no party was ever thrown for him ...seems like times and attitudes haven't changed much this last few thousand years then ...:p
Exactly.
Whilst I understand the reasons behind it, I don't think it's right. Why, as a law abiding citizen pay for a football ticket if I want one, yet if I'm a druga ddict, I don't have to?
This is about a football club wanting to encourage people who have messed up their lives ...mostly young people ...WHO HAVE STARTED TO DO THE RIGHT THING! If a private company decide they want to help with what is a big social problem in many areas surely thats a good thing and should be encouraged? But no ...all the nice people start fucking moaning.
This is all so biblical that it's disturbing.
I read a lot of the bible many years ago whilst in prison and this sort of stuff brings it all back again.
No i am not a religous man before anyone asks.
Christ's teachings were seen as revolutionary at the time and it would appear that they still are! When he was challenged by the religous people ...the nice people ...about why he spent so much of his time with thieves beggars prostitutes and the general wasters and losers in life ...his reply was ...that those were the people who needed him.
No doubt the nice hard working people kicked up a fuss ...oh yeah ...they shot him.
Not let them do the above and ruin our towns and our societys THEN praise them for stopping AFTER they have hurt other people and themselves.
It's just all so messed up.
Does this thread show that the idea that this country has ever been a christian one is a pile of bollox?
It relates very loosely to the theory that this country was a "christian" one and I don't honestly think that has very many ties with the issue in hand.
I think it has does as regards attitudes to the less fortunate in life. They are not highlighting the bad ...the good is working fine ...whats not good needs repairing ...or ignoring ...or punishing.
That does not make sense. If you are highlighting the link between the attitudes in this thread and the less fortunate in life then just :banghead:
These people aren't the LESS FORTUNATE. They have had every single opportunity to inclusion, education and equal rights as every other person in this county. They have hard done themselves; we are not in America where money controls what we have access to. Everyone in this country has access to what they need to do well by themselves. Saying that these people are not drug users or badly behaved BUT calling them the less fortunate surely has to be a mix up of words.
Whats not good needs reparing, or ignoring or punishing?? What do you mean by that? Whats not working well for people needs repairing. Ignoring does nothing. Punishment would go far at the beginning but down the line it also does very little. Repairing does not coincide with handing out football tickets. Repairing means rehilitation programmes and support. Not football tickets.
going from addict to clean, has no comparison to an allready clean person
what does someone whos never been on drugs do, train to be a priest?
I'm not just talking about the addicts, I'm talking about life in general. It seems now that all you have to do to get something for nothing is be bad, and then improve. I resent it, I resent my hard earned cash going on the people who really don't deserve it. I know this doesn't strictly apply in this case, I was never going to get a ticket, although I resent the implication that a recovering drug addict somehow deserves the ticket more than a kid/adult who does loads of voluntary work. I'd love to see the tickets go to people who are carers, or people in similar lines of work, people who need the time off more than someone who has simply stopped doing something they shouldn't have been doing in the first place.
I'd argue that a recovering drug addict needs help getting stable employment/education and somewhere to live. I'd argue that a full time care giver or similar needs time off to indulge in something, like a football match.
I know this might sound callous, and it's not meant to. I'm ALL FOR recovering addicts or people addicted to drugs being given support, and I'm happy that my tax money goes to making that happen. But it makes me unhappy when people who work a lot harder to improve the lives of others go without, when they clearly deserve the rewards.
My objection isn't that such rewards are in place, it's mainly that such rewards don't also exist for people who manage to keep themselves on the straight and narrow.