Josh and Anna 55: Settling in at Seagoville

[Coconut Flan]

21 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Oh that’s an easy drive. I have a feeling Anna and the kids will be staying with David and Cil quite often. 

It's 48 miles, but it includes crossing Dallas.  While it could be worse, I'm not sure it's "easy."  It does beat driving from NWA all the way.

[JermajestyDuggar]

14 minutes ago, Giraffe said:

I might be too cynical at this point but I don’t see Anna being closer to Cil as a positive for her or her kids’ long term mental health. (Eta: I’m assuming David & Priscilla also think Josh has been framed)

Cil will just blindly support Anna and Josh. She won’t question any of Anna’s choices regarding Josh and the kids. She will let Anna live in denial without question.

[onekidanddone]

Is David going to be her in lieu headship while Josh is locked up? Women in the ILBP can’t be with out the umbrella of protection. 

[SamanthasMom]

I really wonder if Jim Bob and Michelle will go out there. I could see them washing their hands of the whole thing including Anna and the Ms if they move near the prison.

I am sure Anna has a very romanticized view that she is supporting her wrongly incarcerated husband. Once this gets old though I wonder if reality will hit and she’ll wonder how far they have fallen from their life in DC.

[Jackie3]

2 hours ago, SamanthasMom said:

I am sure Anna has a very romanticized view that she is supporting her wrongly incarcerated husband. Once this gets old though I wonder if reality will hit and she’ll wonder how far they have fallen from their life in DC.

Honestly, she didn't seem that happy in DC. It surprised me at the time. Maybe she was having problems with Josh that she didn't talk about.

[Four is Enough]

 

20 hours ago, Bastet said:

This is the behavior of addicts when drugs are illegal.  If it were legal you could get a higher dose if that’s what your addiction demanded, and there would be little motivation to buy or sell your methadone on the street if it and other drugs were legal and available. 

You can't just "up" your Xanax dose if you want more. You can't just up your dose of blood pressure medicine without a consultation from your physician. It goes without saying that you couldn't just up your dose of narcotics whenever you wanted more. You'd have to go elsewhere to get the dose you crave.

I believe there will always be a street market for illicit drugs.

[Mama Mia]

21 hours ago, Bastet said:

This is the behavior of addicts when drugs are illegal.  If it were legal you could get a higher dose if that’s what your addiction demanded, and there would be little motivation to buy or sell your methadone on the street if it and other drugs were legal and available. 

So you’re suggesting that the drugs are not only legal, but provided free of charge at whatever dosage people want? For every drug? How would that not just increase the number of people who die? And even if you get your drug of choice for free - you still need money for basic necessities - where does that come from if you’re so high you can’t function? Or what about the many drugs that can make people aggressive and paranoid and violent? 
 

I live in an area with extremely minimal drug enforcement, with free needle exchange and with a large variety of social supports. 
 

I worked directly in drug treatment, I worked in social service programs with a large percentage of people struggling with addiction, and I have a lot of personal life experience with the impacts of addiction on my family. Respectfully, There seems to be kind of an idealization of what social services, treatment, and decriminalization can do. 

[Coconut Flan]

Fentanyl is currently legal.  Yet we have tremendous issues with illegal use and sale of fentanyl.

Alcohol is legal and marijuana is legal in many parts of the US, yet they aren't covered by insurance and provided free at whatever dose someone wants.  I believe some cancer patients can get a form of marijuana by prescription, but that doesn't obligate insurance companies to cover it.  

Saying make drugs legal and that will solve the problems doesn't seem to be born out in the real world.  

[Anne Of Gray Gables]

14 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

It's 48 miles, but it includes crossing Dallas.  While it could be worse, I'm not sure it's "easy."  It does beat driving from NWA all the way.

Right now (around 11 am Central time) Google maps says it's a 45 minute drive from the Waller church to Joshley's prison, using Route 20 east.  I assume they live near the church.

This must be very appealing to Anna. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

42 minutes ago, Anne Of Gray Gables said:

Right now (around 11 am Central time) Google maps says it's a 45 minute drive from the Waller church to Joshley's prison, using Route 20 east.  I assume they live near the church.

This must be very appealing to Anna. 

Yes, she can leave the children with David and Cil while she visits Josh. And then she can go back and cry on Cil’s shoulder, “oh Priscilla! Who will sweep the crackers now?”

Edited July 5, 2022 by JermajestyDuggar

[Antimony]

12 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Yes, she can leave the children with David and Cil while she visits Josh. And then she can go back and cry on Cil’s shoulder, “oh Priscilla! Who will sweep the crackers now?”

Anna should think outside the box. If she simply sprinkles some pecans atop the crackers, David and Cil will be compelled to help pick it all up. 

[Giraffe]

I thought I posted this earlier but I guess not.
 

My understanding of “make drugs legal” is (in an ideal scenario where resources are no object) that people will be able to get social service help rather than jail time. Same for sex work. Is the person a sex worker because they want to be or were they trafficked or otherwise coerced into it? If they’re a willing sex worker then let them alone. But if they were forced into sex work for any reason ideally they’d be able to get help to find a new career. 
 

Imo at this point in time in the US there’s simply not the resources to incentivize legalizing things. The prison industrial complex is too powerful and has too much money to lose. 

[GracieLou Free Duggar]

1 hour ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Yes, she can leave the children with David and Cil while she visits Josh. And then she can go back and cry on Cil’s shoulder, “oh Priscilla! Who will sweep the crackers now?”

If Cil was a true sister, she'd say 'But you should just go take out the trash, because at least you have a husband.'

LOL jk

 

[Antimony]

10 minutes ago, Giraffe said:

I thought I posted this earlier but I guess not.
 

My understanding of “make drugs legal” is (in an ideal scenario where resources are no object) that people will be able to get social service help rather than jail time. Same for sex work. Is the person a sex worker because they want to be or were they trafficked or otherwise coerced into it? If they’re a willing sex worker then let them alone. But if they were forced into sex work for any reason ideally they’d be able to get help to find a new career. 
 

Imo at this point in time in the US there’s simply not the resources to incentivize legalizing things. The prison industrial complex is too powerful and has too much money to lose. 

Not to be annoying again (sorry all)...but I am currently listening to Behind the Bastards, a lovely podcast, and their episode "Syanon: The Drug Program That Built Its Own Army" and if that's not a catchy title, I don't know what is. Anyway, what was interesting is that they note that first Drug Recovery programs in the history of time were actually organized by indigenous people in the Americas, as a response to colonist introduction of alcohol, which feels like an interesting bit of history. It just...says a lot in one thing, doesn't it? 

Anyway, my take is that while I understand that some of my view points could be considered a bit Pollyanna, I agree with Giraffe here and I'd posit that we haven't really tried. The world has never seen a coordinated effort to help people in recovery that matches the size of funding or scale of effort or massive governmental coordination that the prison-industrial complex has. And that complex isn't working either. So, that's about where I land and I tend to believe Harm Reductionist organizations, partially because they tend to have a lot of input from recovered people and staff members who are recovered. 

[Antipatriarch]

3 hours ago, Anne Of Gray Gables said:

This must be very appealing to Anna. 

Ba-dump TSSSHHH.

[QuiverFullofBooks]

13 hours ago, Jackie3 said:

Honestly, she didn't seem that happy in DC. It surprised me at the time. Maybe she was having problems with Josh that she didn't talk about.

I saw them at a book signing during that time, and Anna looked really uncomfortable when Josh and I were talking about working in the same neighborhood. I’m significantly older than he is, so I was surprised. I get it now.

[Shannonsnarks]

40 minutes ago, QuiverFullofBooks said:

I saw them at a book signing during that time, and Anna looked really uncomfortable when Josh and I were talking about working in the same neighborhood. I’m significantly older than he is, so I was surprised. I get it now.

This is interesting I suspect she suspected things possibly 

[Jackie3]

6 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

Saying make drugs legal and that will solve the problems doesn't seem to be born out in the real world.  

That's because it's far more complex than that. Addictive behavior is a mental health issue, and that issue needs to be treated. 

[patsymae]

27 minutes ago, Shannonsnarks said:

This is interesting I suspect she suspected things possibly 

Now that you mentiion it, that's so true. I thought Anna was having a good time in DC, wearing nice clothes and going to nice restaurants and rubbing shoulders--although maybe not, maybe that was just Josh--with important people. But looking back, yes, she may have had her suspicions but even if not he was probably being way more of a dick than even usual because he was getting to be a big shot in a much bigger pool.
But now that I think about it, she still had to film segments like pretending to burn a turkey for her gazillion Duggar Thanksgiving guests. And taking her kids to a public library (she said she never had a library card), making "friends" with a woman soldier, navigating DC public transit with a couple of kids in tow, etc. All things that now that you mentioned it I guess weren't exciting for her but that made her feel very uncomfortable and anxious.

I can't believe at that time I was championing that bitch. She just really wants to be Meech 2.0, to lick up whatever crumbs Josh-U-a is willing to throw her and to be admired for that, and to keep herself in her little bubble where reality won't intrude.

I got creamed for saying I could see her moving near Josh and leaving the kids with JB and Meech. I still see her moving to be near her beloved, but I didn't realize the Wallbangers live so close. So next possible scenario in my mind is her uprooting the kids and settling with or near Pris and TBDW, and her in-laws not that unhappy to see them go. Kids are interchangeable to JB and Meech, and they now have plenty of grandchildren in their quiver, so they don't need the Ms.

1 minute ago, Jackie3 said:

That's because it's far more complex than that. Addictive behavior is a mental health issue, and that issue needs to be treated. 

Not to speak for anyone else, but IMO, and I think a lot of people are saying, addiction needs to be seen as a social and mental health issue, not a law enforcement issue. 

[Giraffe]

My intro to harm reduction theories started with the book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Maté from 2010. I read an article on harm reduction and was intrigued and went searching. I’m sure there’s also a lot more info out now than 12 years ago.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Giraffe
Correcting the year

[Jana814]

I have a feeling that Anna was uncomfortable in DC.  She knew that couldn’t say no when Josh was offered the job. 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Jana814

[ToriAmos]

I think maybe we underestimate the extent to which Josh manipulates Anna. If we agree he's a child predator and went to great lengths (or so he thought) to hide it, then it's likely he is manipulative, narcissistic, even bordering on sociopathic (sorry - hesitate to throw around words with clinical significance since I'm not a psychologist). He would have pulled out all the stops convincing Anna he's the God-fearing, repentant, 'stumbling' Christian man she wants to believe he is. 

She was chosen by God for him, and I'm sure that the effort he puts into maintaining his front is directed more forcefully at her than anyone else. I mean, there are people still supporting Keith Raniere (NXVIM cult leader), Warren Jeffs etc

Why don't abused wives leave? Fear and lack of options, yes, but the emotional component of being groomed and manipulated by someone close to you is huge. She grew up in a cult, still lives in that cult, and in a sense is married to the cult leader (ie someone who is completely invested in maintaining her subjection to him).  

[socalrules]

I think Anna loved the idea of being the wife of someone who worked at the hate group but was also probably intimidated by the people working there. You had well-dressed, educated women, single and married, working with her husband and on the same level or higher. They probably looked right through her. Anna was used to being the smug one who thought she was better than everyone else because she married a TV star and was now on TV herself. It was likely unnerving to go to DC and find out no one cared. 

[Giraffe]

On 7/4/2022 at 6:12 PM, Coconut Flan said:

It's 48 miles, but it includes crossing Dallas.  While it could be worse, I'm not sure it's "easy."  It does beat driving from NWA all the way.

I think she can only visit him twice a month anyway so I doubt she'd find the drive a hardship. 

[Dominionatrix]

We know that at least one Duggar living at the TTH acknowledges Josh’s guilt (Jason), and other married Duggars in the area have acknowledged it. I wonder if Anna is trying to get her kids away from people who are telling the truth about him.