You work in an industry that wrecks your body -- construction, mining, transportation. If you're not in a union job, your healthcare is crap; if you are covered by a collective bargaining agreement, chances are you still aren't paid for sick days. Your body hurts, you self-medicate with alcohol for awhile. But it keeps hurting worse over the years, so you go to a doctor who says you should probably quit your job if you want to stop hurting. You of course can't do that, so the doctor gives you some pills and tells you to take a week off. You take the pills and keep working, because you can't afford to take time off. You feel OK -- those pills work great at first -- but soon enough you start hurting again. You damage your body so you need surgery (more pills!) or you just keep hurting (more pills!). The system is not set up to help people in these jobs with these problems, and it leads to a sense of alienation and despair. I've seen it happen again and again.

I see it every day with the guys I work with in our factory.

You eat crap food your entire life, you become obese by the time you're 30, your heart is clogged with plaque, your joints hurt from the extra weight you carry around, and you're one Snickers bar away from losing a foot to diabetes.

go through. I've had four cervical vertebre surgeries, one L-5/S-1 surgery, 2 left shoulder decompressions & 1 right shoulder decompression. Last surgery I had was my lower back, which helped with sciatic pain but not with the constant aching in my lower back. I can't sit for anymore than 10 minutes, then I have to get up and move around. When we drive, I say we, it's my wife who does the driving, to her fathers place in North Carolina it's pure torture, it's a 12 hour drive. I'm on SSDI & pain meds. I'm getting a headache now from my neck just from typing this out. This is no fun!!😫😩

your pain......literally. Gastro doctor is 50 miles one way. I have doctor appointments every other week. Some to the family doctor, some to the oncologist (lymphoma doctor) for my meds (Kentucky requires you see the doctor once a month in person to get your pain meds) where they surprise me once or twice a year for other meds in my system, like pot. Gastro Doctor every two months and on and on......
Nearly broke my back in '06 (separated the L and S in my lower back) working weekends to pay off my student loans. Fell about 15' and landed with my left ankle laying beside my left ear. Used a walker for months then a cane (which I still use). Without pain meds I couldn't walk more than 50'.
Thanks to the old dog walking me every morning I am staying in relatively good health......if I could just get rid of this chronic pain and lymphoma (which I never will of course, I use chronic rather than terminal, it gives a person hope).
Take care GWC58.

It doesn't take a Harvard economist to figure that out!

Working as a mechanic. I worked at a very busy shop back in 2000, for instance, with 5 other guys. One took early retirement, losing feeling in his hands that made it almost impossible to work. One finally went in for shoulder pain and the doctor told him there wasn't anything left in his rotator cuffs to work with - put him on permanent disability. Another was fired after he took time off for knee surgery; the boss asked him if he'd be able to work at the same pace when he came back and he said probably not. Another had a variety of problems, but was bumped to a desk job. That's just one shop.

I've been pretty healthy and fortunate myself. In those examples, the job was hard, but not shitty, the pay was decent and there were benefits. In most cases, I think, pay and benefits have less to do with it than physical problems. All the guys I know would have kept doing the job if they were able to.

From my own personal experience, I know, and believe strongly, that most people are basically good, honest and hardworking. Some people would read the OP and assume that people are basically pill-poppers who'd rather not work.

Hands. Thought was carpal tunnel but now, after two operations that made things worse, it is something like nerve damage. I'll never work again. I'll be living in my van, in severe pain, for the rest of my days. I am 61 now, and the thought of no money, no pleasure, and a world no larger than five miles from where I wake up is harrowing.

and I had a job one time that brought me in touch with a lot of these guys. The operative problem wasn't pain killers, it was pain. They generally had blue collar jobs that they could not do because they were either injured by an accident on the job or had some kind of repetitive use injury based on the job. They wanted to work, but couldn't do the one thing they could do. No one would retrain them. Many had trouble getting Disability because they were technically employable, just not at anything they could get hired at.

started when I was, while on my way to work, rear ended. Prepping to make a right on red then, BOOM!! My left shoulder got messed up because my left hand was on the wheel, while the right was spared due to my having a stick shift. He must've been going 40 when he struck me. I haven't been the same since. Luckily I did get to retire in 01 as a correctional officer. Tried working 3 years doing night stock at Weis Market, then Food Lion. Big mistake! My disability lawyer said to me, had he known me then, to not do that stuff. He did respect me, said I "fought the good fight." If this ever happens again this time I'll call the police. I didn't in 1994 when rear collision happened. Another story for another time.