Addiction - a lifelong 'disease?'

[footscrazy]

I'm sure all of us have heard this before - that addiction is a chronic, lifelong disease - incurable, it can only be put into remission.

Following on from this, various statistics, usual dismal, are thrown around regarding the rate of recovery.

The reason I bring up this question is that I recently read a book on addiction by an addict turned neurologist (memoirs of an addicted brain by Marc Lewis if anyone is interested). I found the book fairly uninspired, but it was a comment on the book itself that caught my interest, someone saying something along the lines of 'given only 2-3% of IV addicts recover in any way, shape or form, your achievements are amazing' or something to that effect.

These discouraging statistics seem very common, but at least in my experience, they seem completely misleading. Anecdotally, I would say the majority of people I know who have had periods of abuse or addiction have either stopped or moved onto more moderate use. Many people seem to move through periods of heavier or lighter use depending on cricumstance. Rather than addiction being a progressive and fatal disease, the people who follow this trajectory to their death seem to be in the minority.

The concept of 'addiction' is a fairly recent one, and one that I think probably hurts many people. How much does being told you have an incurable disease, being told you're powerless, reading the hopeless statistics - actually contribute to addiction?

What is everyone else's experience? Do you know a lot of people who have moved on from addictions, and are now sober, or any that now use moderately? Do you think the rates of recovery are really so low? Is addiction really an incurable disease, meaning that after addiction all future drug use will become progessively more damaging?

 

[Sustanon]

Whoever said 2-3% of addicts recover is bullshit IMO. I have numerous friends who managed to completely quit both IV opiates and IV meth. They are the living proof that it can be done. Whilst Ive never IV-ed before and never going to I see it with my own eyes. IV doesnt always mean its more addicting, it can be used recreationally. I know people who are a lot more addicted to a certain type of pills way more than some IV users. Of course it can be easier to fall into addiction with IV (cost less, more powerful high) but other methods of ROA can be just as addictive. Its quite hard to put a figure on it because everyone is so different. Its all in the mind, the brain is a powerful tool and if its used properly most things are possible. I suppose it also comes down to finding the right method to cure your disease.

 

[spacejunk]

i think that addiction is undoubtedly a medical problem.
a 'disease'? ok, well maybe - i don't know how to define that...but i really think that the "lifelong" thing is a myth.
the terms we use to describe these things are so tied up with how we think about them - the language is a powerful thing. if we say that addiction is a "crime" - a deliberate act of misbehaviour, then people are going to latch onto that. call it a "disease" and suddenly some of the blame is taken off the user - you can't help it, you have a disease.
in a sense this is true - when you're addicted, you cease to have a choice. but i also think that while it is (or can be) a problem, it doesn't necessarily mean there is anything wrong with you - it is your body's natural response to repeated administration of a drug, right? and the ethics of that are pretty pointless to discuss.
acknowledging that addiction is a medical problem is an important step we need to make though.

there are so many of these drug myths, like the idea of the pusher getting kids hooked or the guy taking acid and jumping out of a window on acid thinking he could fly.

to me, they are examples of the mass media treatment of drugs - sensationalist, fear-inducing and the worst possible scenario.
it's so black-and-white. you're branded a drug addict forever...or you're not. good and bad, night and day. i think it's certainly more complicated than that. the "lifelong disease" thing reminds me of a sappy american talk show or something.

yes, some people definitely battle addictions for their whole lives.
but on the other hand, it's not that unusual for people to beat their habits. some go clean and sober, some replace one drug for another, others find god or meditation or something worthwhile and fulfilling to do with their lives.

2-3% of IV addicts recover? i find that pretty hard to believe. sure, some people never conquer the needle fixation - but those figures seem pretty unrealistic to me.
i mean - if that few people recover from IV drug habits, why is it that you meet ex-junkies? wouldn't that be practically impossible? i know plenty, and i'm sure it's a higher proportion than that of life-long addicts. i know a couple of people that have been heroin addicts since the 70s or 80s, but they are a very small proportion.

and what's the other alternative - that 97-98% of IV drug users die?
maybe the writer in question has access to some very interesting statistics on drug use, in a time and place that allowed people to access their drug of choice with little problem, but i find it very hard to believe that over 97% of IV drug addicts either never quit or die.
yes, it is very impressive that people recover from addiction and beat their habits, but it's not impossible. they just need support and self belief.
in a culture of "just say no" and all that nancy reagan bullshit, where drug users get chased around by police and locked in jail and you're a bad person (who gets what you deserve if you do sinful things like take drugs) then yes, less people will quit.
when you've had the shame and stigma of addiction drummed into you by the medical profession, media, government, law enforcement, of course you'll have a hard time kicking. when society regards you as a drug addict forever, then why the hell not? it sort of plays into that thing of "oh, don't trust him/her - they're an ex-junkie. once an addict, always an addict!"

more and more i am coming to realise that the war on drugs is not a dismal failure - it is in fact a very successful policy of keeping certain people down in society.
to me, this view of addiction seems like an extension of drug war propaganda - unfortunately the medical profession isn't immune to this kind of thing. i'm not familiar with the book you're talking about footscrazy, or the reasons the author came to those conclusions, but those stats just sound dodgy.

 

[Subtext]

I personally have gone from 10+ times a week IV heroin use to once a week/fortnight.
Although I still struggle with reducing that to once a month.
So my addictive use has definitely gotten progressively better.

 

[Beat Narrative]

i struggle to imagine a sober life, but i do aspire to it (nt that i am making great strides so far)

i have known people who have have been serious alcoholics for 20 years end up managing a pub years later without a desire to drink or with an outwardlay judgeental bone in his body

i fit the very sterotyical personal history to develop serious substance abuse and dependinding on your defifintion of serious i have fulfilled that sterotype

i believe in the individual, if a person desires a decent quality of life in australia it can be acheived (i do not mean that in a monetary aspect)

the one thing you have more conrol over anything is your own actions

 

[Beat Narrative]

excuse spelling above, i am too lazy/drunk to edit

 

[psytaco]

I think it depends on the individual. For some people, I'm sure addiction to their DOC is a life long struggle, filled with periods of sobriety, relapse etc.

I'd say for most though, they become addicted to something, it gets to the stage where it is having enough of a negative impact on their life that they quit. they may relapse a few times, but then they get to stage where they can either manage their use responsibly or they don't use it anymore.

I used to be addicted to benzos. I have used them again many times since, but have always been sure to never let it get close to the point where I would become physically addicted to them again. I don't crave them at all, and rather use them for comedowns and the like. My experience of benzo withdrawal was bad at enough that I would never want to experience it again.

 

[SpiritFolk]

I have been addicted to numerous drugs and still am.

I have gone from daily IV use to the odd shot every few months.

One thing though is that I have never gone completley sober off all drugs daily in the last 15 years, except for the four months I spent in rehab.

I have either used pot, pills, benzos, opiates, meth, or alcohol.

So yeh I would say addiction is a disease that has plagued me since age 13. U can swap addictions, go through heavy spells and weak spells, but at the end of the day I am always taking something in some way or form. Whether it's a line of K, glass of beer, bong, tab of acid, PST, CWE, or a benzo here or there, it's always been something.

So yeh addiction is disease I believe for me. It's something I don't think I will ever be completely free from. The other addicts I have known who have stopped and go to AA or NA meetings, are still just addicted as they always were, they just have substituted going to meetings everyday with taking drugs everyday. Still drugs are on their mind everyday and always will be.

I have accepted that the obsession and complysion to use will never leave me, I just mange it in different ways and swap and spread my use over many different substances.

 

[jaurk]

Addiction runs in my family, most of us don't stop addiction, just replace it with something which works better with life and society.
I was addicted to the computer for a very long time, thought about it all day and night.

Mum's got a gambling addiction and many other family members which I stayed away from have drug addiction.

It's fair to say that it's extremely hereditary.
I definitely think that it is a disease.

 

[Sustanon]

It is a disease but its curable I believe.

 

[ThHardMotherfucker]

I'm sure all of us have heard this before - that addiction is a chronic, lifelong disease - incurable, it can only be put into remission.

Following on from this, various statistics, usual dismal, are thrown around regarding the rate of recovery.

The reason I bring up this question is that I recently read a book on addiction by an addict turned neurologist (memoirs of an addicted brain by Marc Lewis if anyone is interested). I found the book fairly uninspired, but it was a comment on the book itself that caught my interest, someone saying something along the lines of 'given only 2-3% of IV addicts recover in any way, shape or form, your achievements are amazing' or something to that effect.

These discouraging statistics seem very common, but at least in my experience, they seem completely misleading. Anecdotally, I would say the majority of people I know who have had periods of abuse or addiction have either stopped or moved onto more moderate use. Many people seem to move through periods of heavier or lighter use depending on cricumstance. Rather than addiction being a progressive and fatal disease, the people who follow this trajectory to their death seem to be in the minority.

The concept of 'addiction' is a fairly recent one, and one that I think probably hurts many people. How much does being told you have an incurable disease, being told you're powerless, reading the hopeless statistics - actually contribute to addiction?

What is everyone else's experience? Do you know a lot of people who have moved on from addictions, and are now sober, or any that now use moderately? Do you think the rates of recovery are really so low? Is addiction really an incurable disease, meaning that after addiction all future drug use will become progessively more damaging?

A person can do a 180 degree circle anytime that they want.

Yes, addiction is an acute or chronic medical condition. That doesn't mean that a person can't change their lives around, do a 180.

Physical dependency isn't a disease. It's a choice. Cancer is a disease.

Addiction is a psychological condition in which the user craves and pursues his/her drug. Usually crack cocaine, stimulants, cocaine etc. you get the gist.

Addiction is way more destructive, because of two factors.

1. Addiction can be linked with physical dependency as in chronic alcoholics, chronic heroin users, chronic opiate pharmaceutical users...etc. etc.

2. Addiction fucks with everyone in your life. You lose friends, rob and steal, lose your parents trust and their respect for you as a good son/daughter, all because of some drug.

Sure, drugs such as benzodiazepines, barbiturates, alcohol, all opioids, anti-depressants produce the most fucked up and terrible withdrawal symptoms, you want to kill yourself with GABAergic drugs, it gets that fucking bad.

Now, link physical dependency with addiction and you have yourself a fucked up terrible either short term (3-4 years) or life-long (40 years old, if you want IV shared needles, or 80-something like Burroughs if you used the good old shit) medical condition.

It's a choice. As stated previously, people can do 180 on their lives, get off the shit (even if they have AIDS, HEP C, other medical conditions).

Cancer is a disease. Drug addiction/physical dependency are both medical conditions. Psychiatrists like to use the term disease when it comes to addiction to drugs in order to get props from real doctors who operate on cancer patients and remove tumors.

End of Story.

For me at least!

 

[chugs]

You can be either a W Burroughs or H S Thompson.

The first talked it up big time and then cried and whinged to be cured of their addiction.

The latter as we all know managed a successful career as a writer, journo and sports commentator all the whilst using regularly(understatment) everything, especially speed/ice.

Its a matter of context and perspective. Sometimes i find it difficult to stop having sex, eating, having showers (oooh yeah), or jumping in puddles. Equally I find it hard to sometimes not jab a needle in my arm. Sure I don't get sweats and aches from not jumping in puddles but you know i still miss it.

yet other times I can, with a bit of pain, go through long periods of sobriety. its circumstantial. If you lose it sure you need help but for the most part if you maintain moderation, discharge your responsibilities, look after your family and are a productive member of society then i welcome you to the land of addiction, whatever that it is.

The other day the SO asked me if we had gotten too deep with the smack. I said to her the day we start spending bill money, mortgage money, food money on drugs then for sure we've lost control and thus need help.

So perhaps there is a line in the sand.

 

[spacejunk]

You can be either a W Burroughs or H S Thompson.

The first talked it up big time and then cried and whinged to be cured of their addiction.

The latter as we all know managed a successful career as a writer, journo and sports commentator all the whilst using regularly(understatment) everything, especially speed/ice.

i'm not sure if i agree with that summation of burroughs - at what point do you think he 'cried and whinged' of his addiction?
yes, he wrote extensively about addiction, about all the 'cures' he tried - about quackery and quick fixes and how they all came to nothing. addiction became a big part of burroughs' politics and worldview - this idea of "control".
society is much like addiction, and addiction is almost metaphoric of human life in itself.
yes, his habit caused a lot of grief and was the focus of a lot of his work, but he spent the majority of his adult life addicted and was on methadone until his death at 82. there is this myth that he was rich so therefore he got better gear, but he lived on street smack cut with quinine as well as everybody else in nyc, as well as everywhere else he lived.

thompson, on the other hand, couldn't handle the pace...he ended his life.
i guess this is a bit of a derailment, but i kinda think burroughs saw it out to its natural conclusion - addicted to life yet living a ripe old age, whereas thompson got caught up in the macho bullshit and shot himself. i dunno...i guess i think less of him for that.

 

[Busty St Clare]

I find it strange that someone is not cured even though they choose not to take drugs anymore. Perhaps what they have discovered is the same self control or limit that every other human exercises when they wake up each day. What if we decided that every human is born addicted and some people just find it easier than others not to use daily, just as some people can eat what they want and never put on weight? Surely most humans share the same pleasure centres. A person who once sped their car still remembers the thrill of driving fast but they have decided to stop as they grow up because they realise how stupid it is. We don't label these people irresponsible because of past actions, so perhaps we should give recovered addicts more credit for not using drugs.

Defining addiction as a disease does allow some addicts to justify their predicament. Like a fat person who shrugs off the fact that they have an under active thyroid without putting in any effort to exercise. The human mind is still very much a murky medical organ, one that is difficult to map, unlike the heart or kidneys. Memories and consciousness are as easy to define as your soul, yet we want to still use the terms disease and treatment in the same vein as other medical conditions simply because doctors all train in the same schools.

When does a addict become cured? It seems if you once had a habit you are never allowed to enjoy drugs again, least you be told you have relapsed. Why should a reformed addict be shamed into thinking he still has a problem if his current use is no different that a recreational user?

 

[nobodyspecial]

Tl ; dr

 

[opi8]

Certain people are more susceptible to addiction than others, just like others a more likely to get cancer or other medical conditions due to their genetic history.

In my opinion it is a mental illness, similar to, and often goes hand in hand with, depression.

 

[Busty St Clare]

Yes but how do you differentiate "certain people" from the ones who just like getting fucked up? It's kind of like intelligent creation, the medical fraternity tries to make sense of something it has no real understanding of to fit it into a neat category like it does with heart disease or cancer. Psychology is the same, it's taking statistics as a scientific fact when it's really nothing more than correlation of data and "feelings". What's wrong with telling an addict just to stop if you don't have a proper cure for their condition? Addiction is hard but saying only 1-2% successfully quit is wrong. If the chance of getting cancer is 1% and you get it then reality is for that individual it was 100%. you should be concerned less with statistics and more with the individual themselves.

 

[Christ!]

Addiction is hard but saying only 1-2% successfully quit is wrong. If the chance of getting cancer is 1% and you get it then reality is for that individual it was 100%. you should be concerned less with statistics and more with the individual themselves.

Could be a bit of a self for-filling prophecy as well.

I choose to believe that addiction isn't some disease...it's a choice a person makes every single time they get high. Some people are more likely to give in and keep taking drugs that are obviously harming them, but I still think those people could still make the choice not to do it.

On the other hand I totally agree with treating addiction as a medical problem in many cases. Mainly because that's what seems to work best. Telling people just to stop doesn't really work does it? I guess the goal is to prevent addiction, and to help people be free of their addictions. We've got some good ways of doing that with opiates (maintenance isn't perfect, but at least that allows people to get in the position where they're more likely to quit)

Definitely needs to be focus on the individual. Everyone is different. Telling people they have a disease that'll only be 'cured' by medical intervention and/or god could make it worse.

It's a complicated issue.

I read some statistic the other day (from memory) - Out of 200 buprenorphine maintenance patients who were on buprenorphine for longer than 18 months, tapered their dose and tried to remain opiate free, only 3 managed to stay that way for longer than 6 months. - couldn't find the stats again and that's from memory so it won't be exact...but reading that didn't exactly fill me with confidence about staying off opiates. I got off bupe at the start of the year and so far I'm doing well.

As we learn more about genes, and how things like intelligence, addiction, criminality, obesity are -claimed- to be strongly influenced by genetics...it's very easy for people to go for 'the genes made me do it' type of thinking. It's something we can blame things on that takes away the guilt or responsibility from ourselves and puts it on something uncontrollable (so far). I think this kind of thinking will keep increasing as we learn more and more, and could be pretty dangerous IMO.

Psychology is the same, it's taking statistics as a scientific fact when it's really nothing more than correlation of data and "feelings

Yeah good point busty. I think people need to keep this in mind when reviewing statistics on all things based on 'feelings' Self-rating scales and that kind of thing aren't nearly as helpful as some doctors think...

 

[shoo-bop]

I read some statistic the other day (from memory) - Out of 200 buprenorphine maintenance patients who were on buprenorphine for longer than 18 months, tapered their dose and tried to remain opiate free, only 3 managed to stay that way for longer than 6 months. - couldn't find the stats again and that's from memory so it won't be exact...but reading that didn't exactly fill me with confidence about staying off opiates. I got off bupe at the start of the year and so far I'm doing well.

If "remain[ing] opiate free ... for longer than 6 months" meant they couldn't have a single taste over that entire time, I think that's an unfair way to measure the efficacy of their treatment and thus underestimates the lkelihood of successful recovery. I think in a study like that, it's more meaningful to index "failure" (I'm not trying to use that term in a judgemental way, but it's the best term I could think of for what I'm trying to say) with something more like returning to regular use (e.g. some cut-off of number of times per month) or relapsing to meeting criteria (e.g. DSM-IV) for substance abuse or dependence. Like Busty said "Why should a reformed addict be shamed into thinking he still has a problem if his current use is no different that a recreational user?" For some people, complete abstinence is realistic and the only way for them to go, but its not going to happen with everyone, and that doesn't imply they're still a "hopeless junkie".

 

[Christ!]

If "remain[ing] opiate free ... for longer than 6 months" meant they couldn't have a single taste over that entire time, I think that's an unfair way to measure the efficacy of their treatment and thus underestimates the lkelihood of successful recovery. I think in a study like that, it's more meaningful to index "failure" (I'm not trying to use that term in a judgemental way, but it's the best term I could think of for what I'm trying to say) with something more like returning to regular use (e.g. some cut-off of number of times per month) or relapsing to meeting criteria (e.g. DSM-IV) for substance abuse or dependence. Like Busty said "Why should a reformed addict be shamed into thinking he still has a problem if his current use is no different that a recreational user?" For some people, complete abstinence is realistic and the only way for them to go, but its not going to happen with everyone, and that doesn't imply they're still a "hopeless junkie".

Yeah right on shoo-bop. My goal is to stay away from opiates completely for at least a year. Would probably be better for me to stay away from them forever just because I know I'm prone to getting addicted to them. It doesn't imply they're a hopeless junky at all, at the time I read it didn't exactly make me feel confident until I thought about it a bit. It may have been that the stats were for returning to 'regular' use, I can't remember off hand but I'll update my post if I find it again.