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what is the effect of addiction on moral culpability for addiction related actions?

Confusion comes out of whether addiction is regarded as a disease, choice, or self-medicating.

It depends on the person and the situations one finds themselves in

It certainly helps the addict in many cases, especially when crimes have been committed to feed a habit, that there is a focus upon calling hard drug addiction a disease, but, in the long run, this mostly doesn't help the person get clean by telling them they have a disease permanently, in my opinion

The disease model can be misused by addicts who claim that they have absolutely no power over themselves when they are in withdrawal, but I see it as behaviour and thought patterns being "diseased", and the addict having a condition which they can get rid of if they work hard enough and focus on staying away from their DOC
 
vortech said:
The ECCO could be seen as a metaphor for the things we can change VS. the things we can not change. In any situation there are things we can control, but there are many things we either have no control over, or that we choose to have no control over. The fun stuff happens when there is a play between these two forces.
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Okay, but the metaphor of entities actually confuses the shit out of things. It's not a user-friendly metaphor, it just implies that we are not responsible for our lives. Its magical thinking IMO. It disempowers and is a dangerous trap for drug users to fall into. If you believe that a metaphorical entity is the cause of your actions, there's really no hope or help to be found for non-entities like me and you.

Coincidences are in the eye of the beholder, to my mind they do not reflect hidden truth or something operating behind the scenes. They are a part of our neural processing; in that sense, they are interesting as I think they can tell you something about how your subconcious is operating and what it's focus might be.

As I said, I think dissociatives really induce that sort of thought process, that disparate/dissociated events are actually connected and meaningful. John Lily was interesting but I think it useful to disregard all the unprovable stuff he hypothesises; or treat it with extreme scepticism. Nobody is controlling our lives; it is ALL on us. That is sort of scary but liberating also. :)
 
I hope to someday have at least better evidence for some things currently 'unseen'. Im still researching for my book about Synchronicity.

Re: 'entities' controlling, lets not think of them as aliens or gods for a moment. The metaphorical interpretatuon puts it in line with concensus reality. You may know the Serenity Prayer, it is said at the end of every AA and NA meeting.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference"

Entities may simply mean other people that are in your way, directly or indirectly, systems of control such as money, corporate entities and goverments (yeah, like we are actually going to change all of that) unpredictable patterns, or a predictable pattern that behaved unexpectedly. My point is that im only talking about God pulling string or mystical overwatchers if thats what you believe.
 
Really and truly, I think classifying moral culpability of drug related (induced) actions comes down to intention and action.

For instance, let's say I consumed, oh, 15 mg xanax and blacked out after drinking alcohol. During this black out period I raped the neighbors dog (I'm an animal lover, this is an example). Now what was the intention? To impair judgement? Yes, but I didn't set out that night to rape a neighbors dog. The action was irresponsible, so I am morally wrong to have done something this detrimental to another being, knowing the possibility of blacking out. What's say I didn't know I would black out? You still raped a dog dumbass so you are responsible for being irresponsible, not knowing what could happen beforehand.

See what I mean?

Now let's say I'm heavily addicted to heroin and murder my dealer for a fix...

That's kind of where I'm going.
 
^ when I used to drink heavily, I applied a very similar line of reasoning to actions that I regretted later. I didn't put the blame on the alcohol, because I was well aware that I would blackout from drinking like that, so I still held myself responsible for my dumb actions, even though I knew that I would never do something like that sober.
 
belligerent drunk said:
^ when I used to drink heavily, I applied a very similar line of reasoning to actions that I regretted later. I didn't put the blame on the alcohol, because I was well aware that I would blackout from drinking like that, so I still held myself responsible for my dumb actions, even though I knew that I would never do something like that sober.
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yep. I remember half-blackout thinking
even being sort of vaguely self aware when blacking out
my friends would tell me that I'd often tell them
"I am blacking out now" after which I'd not remember a thing
sometimes it would be something like this
I'm blacking out guys
another round of shots…
⋮
⋮
⋮
…I would never do this sober
wtf I won't remember anyway …
(grabs strippers ass)
(gets mildly beaten and tossed out of strip club)
***by now the lizard brain has totally taken over***
nah, fuck you, I can take you all on...
(fights, beating continues vigorously)
(wake up in drunk tank, street, or park)
wtf happened I was sooo drunk ...
people ask me why I just sit and drink at home
better that the lizard brain stay there
where it can only contemplate harm

this is an example; I've never frequented strip clubs
but it has, in fact, actually happened "just so"
and no, I don't see my responsibility as diminished at all
every bit of the ass whooping that ensued was well deserved
 
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For some reason, I never got involved in physical fights when I was drinking, and I was never arrested by the cops either. Especially when I had developed a high tolerance, I didn't get drunk in a way that involves aggression. I just felt progressively more mentally and physically numb when I drank, and then finally fell asleep just to wake up 3 hours later to the feeling of a beginning EtOH withdrawal and the need to drink more.

EDIT: Well, maybe when I was like 18 and had just gotten the right to buy beer, I sometimes lost control when drunk and did things like piss in someone's mailbox or break windows, but that didn't happen many times.
 
I feel like this conversation needs mention of Carl Jung's shadow concept to better understand this. The shadow is the unconscious in essence, an expansion of Frued's id, the reptile brain as mentioned, and all of the aspects of a person that may be defined as morally depraved such as sexual lusting, hedonism (at any cost if the conscious aspect of the self does not have control). Traditionally and broadly speaking it is the archetype of evil that everyone has the potential to embody, but it is a bit more nuanced than calling the shadow the evil part of a person. When we do certain drugs and are under the influence it decreases our level of consciousness, allowing the shadow to come out to play to do thinga we wouldnt ever consider in a sober state.

Anyone else have a better explanation of the shadow?
 
^ And you don't even need drugs to get the evil side of man/woman come out. How were the guards in Nazi concentration camps able to do their atrocities without any feeling of guilt? If addiction makes a person less responsible for their doings, what about the situation where someone of higher status orders you to do evil things?
 
polymath said:
^ And you don't even need drugs to get the evil side of man/woman come out. How were the guards in Nazi concentration camps able to do their atrocities without any feeling of guilt? If addiction makes a person less responsible for their doings, what about the situation where someone of higher status orders you to do evil things?
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People throughout history have been notorious for being able to do atrocities to each other. I think the phenomenon involves believing that the person violence is done against is not a part of the same group, and thus sub-par/sub-human, and that psychologically rationalizes the violence to the person doing it. The farther somebody is from a person's "own group of people", the easier for the person is to use (in some cases unnecessarily rough) violence against that somebody. Just like, generally speaking, it's harder for us to use violence against fellow humans, whereas it's not such a big deal when it comes to other mammals, and easier still when it's something we can't identify with at all - like insects, spiders, and so on. Bacteria and viruses don't even make it on the list.
 
^ That's true. And totalitarian governments often utilize this by demonizing some minority group (Jews in Nazi Germany, counter-revolutionaries in communist nations) so that they can channel the people's dissatisfaction about the system into aggression directed at some easy enemy.
 
I hope I don't even need to mention the parallels between Nazi Germany and what is happening in America right now with the seemingly engineered division caused by the presidential campaigns most specifically Trump. It is as if somr people at the top pulling billions of dollars of strings have an agenda to increase the sense that ypu are one type or another, and that anyone who isnt your type, whether by religion, heritage, financial class or differences in political or ideological belief, is OK to treat them like enemies out to threaten your freedom and way of life. Even in the UK the powers that be have done an excellent job at dividing the people nearly 50/50 whether to see the EU as part of them or part of something that threatens them.

The job of the people who see through this veil is to stand United. It is the only way to banish the illusion of separation. On the day of the shootings in France I realized the symbolism in their flag. On the left and right, the blue and red, are two sides divided. In the center is white, representing unity. It is critical to maintain that unity as we watch the two opposing sides/colors tear each other apart until there is nothing left other than the inclusion of the full-spectrum inclusiveness of the unrefracted light, white.
 
Even were I to be absolutely believe there is an objective morality and a universal imperative for humans to be moral, I don't know that I'd be able to determine another persons moral culpability, addict or non-addict.

Most moral systems acknowledge that sins are knowing, deliberate acts or omissions. Most of the time I can discern if my acts and omissions were knowing and deliberate. Even with a lot of knowledge about another person I don't know with certainty their ability to know right and wrong and their ability to will themselves into compliance.

For myself, being high or drunk doesn't exculpate anything. At best its a situation that is a part of of the wide explanation for what happened, not an excuse.

Even though I don't know how much other people are really responsible, I do believe in society, organizations, and people protecting themselves and handing out consequences. I don't care about your moral culpability for stealing from me, your not getting keys to my house and I'm likely to press charges and seek restitution.
 
amzam said:
I don't care about your moral culpability for stealing from me, your not getting keys to my house and I'm likely to press charges and seek restitution.
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I'm sure that I would do the same but there is an added possibility: compassion for the person concurrent with your own and the larger society's need for protection from further harm. As a person that see prison, as it exists in america and most other countries, as more heinous and criminal than most of the crimes committed by the people in them, this is a very hard place for me to reconcile. I feel like the fight for prison reform is every bit as urgent as the fight to end the War on Drugs. They are one and the same in many ways.
 
True dat. What we are up against is the money interests who are making the big bucks off of prisons. I know towns that might go under if they moved the prisons out. Those folk could care less about justice if they are going to lose their job. Lots of them at least. So it's going to be very hard to get justice here. It's getting to be a large player in the US economy.
 
I wonder if our idea of justice needs to be revised....:\
 
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