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Addiction Doesnt Always Last a Lifetime

Jabberwocky

Frumious Bandersnatch
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Nov 3, 1999
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Sharing this in SL instead of DitM for obvious reasons. Great article. I've come to expect nothing less from this author. If you ever are interested in a good read, two of her books Help at Any Cost and Unbroken Brain are absolutely phenomenal.

Addiction Doesnt Always Last a Lifetime
In fact, most people recover, often on their own. Here are some of their stories.
Maia Szalavitz | August 31st said:
Filthy hands gripping bloody needles, pregnant women shooting up, angelic toddlers in car seats with their parents slumped upfront, overdosed ? media images of the opioid crisis are relentlessly dire.

Fortunately, this is not the whole story. Around two million Americans are addicted to opioids. Yet many more have overcome their opioid problems. A large national population study found that almost all of those who once met criteria for prescription opioid-use disorder achieved remission during their lifetimes ? and half of those recovered within five years. Although heroin and street fentanyl are more dangerous, most of those who avoid fatal overdoses recover from addiction.

To improve the odds, we need to recognize and champion recovery ? and the wide variety of forms it can take.
https://nyti.ms/2N69lad

May heaven continue to bless Maia's spirit <3
 
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This doesn't just apply to opioid addicts. My father, as a young man in the US Navy, made a decision never to drink again after waking up after a blackout in the Shelby County, Tennessee jail. He did not touch alcohol for many decades. In his retirement he started making wine as a hobby and was able to resume normal drinking (a small juice glass of his own concoctions just before bedtime; he never drank anywhere close to excess). I shared this at an AA meeting and someone told me "he wasn't a real alcoholic." He would beg to differ were he alive today (he died at the ripe old age of 82).

Unbroken Brain is a great read. I own a copy.
 
^well said aihfl. I look forward to a time when the status-quo celebrates diverse roads to recovery instead of judging folks for not doing it their way <3 %)
 
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I haven't read the book but I'd have to disagree that addiction is a learning disorder not a disease. I'm open to the idea that it may be a disorder and not a disease but I also understand why it is called a brain disease. Currently the correct name is "substance use disorder"- addiction is becoming less PC. Learning disorders are very different in nature than a substance use disorder, so I personally can not see the benefit of lumping the two together.

And while I'd agree that addiction isn't necessarily for the rest of a person's life, there are major risk factor of reoccurrence in people who have gone through addiction before. While not everyone will relapse, everyone who has beaten the battle of addiction/SUD still stands at risk of relapsing. There are many reasons for abstinence and moderation management is not a novel idea. In the same way that success with abstinence only approach does not prove it to be the only way, other approaches do not prove abstinence to be ineffective. When used in conjunction with other approaches, a period of abstinence is the goal of treatment. Sure someone can drink after getting sober without going back, but it'd be deceitful to say that there is no risk involved with that type of behavior.

I completely agree that we should be more open to different approaches and that abstinence is not the only way. Some of it may be judgmental, but some of it is just logical. Learning to accept others for who they are and where they are at in life is generally a good rule.
 
Addiction is probably one the least precise terms in the English language today. It has nothing to do with political correctness, but everything to do with skillful communication. When I say substance use disorder, I know exactly what I mean. But when I say addiction, I could mean a million very different things.

On topic, you might want to read more of her work before discounting it. Sounds like you'd be quite interested in what she writes about though. You actually seem like you're in way more agreement with her already than you might realize (edgeness sells).
 
I was having an argument a couple of weeks ago with a friend about the difference between addiction and physical dependence and it showed me just how much people don't know about addiction (but think they do).. I explained to him that I am an opioid addict. I can't take opioids responsibly at all, and I use them to self medicate emotional pain. In contrast, I have a friend with fibro and she is prescribed hydrocodene 5mg 3 times a day and she takes it exactly as directed. She doesn't do this anymore, but for awhile when she didn't have a job, she would sell some of her pills for extra money and would end up running out before her next prescription, usually about a week early, and would often go through wd. Now this friend I was arguing with explained to me that because she got sick, she was just as much an addict as i am. I said "no, she's physically dependent on them, but not addicted" and he wouldn't accept that. He said "well I call that addiction.." I said "you can call it whatever you want, but that doesn't make it correct".

I wish people understood this shit. You won't believe how many people think that pain pills and heroin are completely different drugs that do completely different things to you.
 
I was having an argument a couple of weeks ago with a friend about the difference between addiction and physical dependence and it showed me just how much people don't know about addiction (but think they do).. I explained to him that I am an opioid addict. I can't take opioids responsibly at all, and I use them to self medicate emotional pain. In contrast, I have a friend with fibro and she is prescribed hydrocodene 5mg 3 times a day and she takes it exactly as directed. She doesn't do this anymore, but for awhile when she didn't have a job, she would sell some of her pills for extra money and would end up running out before her next prescription, usually about a week early, and would often go through wd. Now this friend I was arguing with explained to me that because she got sick, she was just as much an addict as i am. I said "no, she's physically dependent on them, but not addicted" and he wouldn't accept that. He said "well I call that addiction.." I said "you can call it whatever you want, but that doesn't make it correct".

I wish people understood this shit. You won't believe how many people think that pain pills and heroin are completely different drugs that do completely different things to you.

What you just wrote is as beautiful as the horror it describes :) <3
 
Dude herion and pills do different things them metabolis different that's why I would switch all the time u stay higher and if she was pH physically addicted then she's an addict no disrespect
 
I'm not sure I understand your point :?

You do realize there is a fundamental difference between being tolerance or dependent on opioids and having an opioid use disorder? It's called "use disorder" for a reason. Millions of people take opioids responsibly, as prescribed.

It's a big mistake assuming anyone who ever takes an opioid is just an "addict."
 
Addiction is probably one the least precise terms in the English language today. It has nothing to do with political correctness, but everything to do with skillful communication. When I say substance use disorder, I know exactly what I mean. But when I say addiction, I could mean a million very different things.

On topic, you might want to read more of her work before discounting it. Sounds like you'd be quite interested in what she writes about though. You actually seem like you're in way more agreement with her already than you might realize (edgeness sells).

Well yeah which is why "addiction" is no longer the correct term. I said PC, but was referring to professionalism more. But the description does say "arguing that addictions are learning disorders and shows how seeing the condition this way can untangle our current debates over treatment, prevention and policy" which would include politics.. so...
 
I mean, the disease model is all about politics too ya know :\

I'm not sure it's possible to remove politics from discussion of addiction. The very term addiction was politicized long ago, maybe even as far back as addiction was associated with saintly devotion (far before the term took on the almost completely negative connotation it now has).

At least "substance use disorder" gets away from the politics of addiction (a.k.a. the myth of the demonized dope fiend). The downside is that it becomes a clinical term, and SUD cannot accurately describe the totality of addiction's overwhelming harm.

But then again, I'm not sure it's possible for any term to adequately do justice to the overwhelming harm entailed in addiction other than...

Suffering.

[/mindless gibberings]
 
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I was having an argument a couple of weeks ago with a friend about the difference between addiction and physical dependence and it showed me just how much people don't know about addiction (but think they do).. I explained to him that I am an opioid addict. I can't take opioids responsibly at all, and I use them to self medicate emotional pain. In contrast, I have a friend with fibro and she is prescribed hydrocodene 5mg 3 times a day and she takes it exactly as directed. She doesn't do this anymore, but for awhile when she didn't have a job, she would sell some of her pills for extra money and would end up running out before her next prescription, usually about a week early, and would often go through wd. Now this friend I was arguing with explained to me that because she got sick, she was just as much an addict as i am. I said "no, she's physically dependent on them, but not addicted" and he wouldn't accept that. He said "well I call that addiction.." I said "you can call it whatever you want, but that doesn't make it correct".

I wish people understood this shit. You won't believe how many people think that pain pills and heroin are completely different drugs that do completely different things to you.

yeah physical dependence is a part of any substance use disorder but it is not the disorder itself. It's one of the criteria for diagnosing SUDs not the disorder itself. then again, a prescription doesn't mean a person can't also have a substance use disorder. There are many people who are taking opioids exactly as prescribed and have a substance use disorder for the substance prescribed as well. It's not black and white, it is a disorder that falls somewhere in the spectrum between mild and severe.
 
Sounds like ladyhlove was describing two people at different parts of the same spectrum.
 
I understand people can totally have a prescription and be addicted. I wasn't implying that. I also noted that she doesn't abuse them (generally a sign of addiction) and is in a very good place emotionally. She hates the pills and goes without them when she can, but she has a significant amount of physical pain. I think if she were a true addict, after being prescribed opiates for almost two decades, she would prob be a bit higher than 5mg of hydrocodeine. Juss sayin.

And pills and heroin doing different things to you? Not really. There's a difference for sure in the way morphine based drugs (like heroin, dilaudid, opana, etc) feel vs codeine based drugs (oxy, hydros, etc) feel, at least to me, but not a difference in heroin and. say, diuladid. If they were totally different, why would cross tolerance be a thing? Why, after I started heroin, could I not get high off of pills unless I took like a lot more them than ever before? If they were compeltely different and what your'e saying is correct, I would be able to get high off 10mg of oxy even if i had a h tolerance, which def wasn't the case.
 
I for one am sick and tired of destroying myself. It also happens one's family suffers too.

This shit needs to stop. Been clean for 3 weeks now. Long road ahead, but the option of using just is not appealing right now at least.

Sometimes it doesn't last that long as it kills ya first.
 
That's a very nice concept to read about toothpastedog. Thanks for posting it.
 
I understand people can totally have a prescription and be addicted. I wasn't implying that. I also noted that she doesn't abuse them (generally a sign of addiction) and is in a very good place emotionally. She hates the pills and goes without them when she can, but she has a significant amount of physical pain. I think if she were a true addict, after being prescribed opiates for almost two decades, she would prob be a bit higher than 5mg of hydrocodeine. Juss sayin.

And pills and heroin doing different things to you? Not really. There's a difference for sure in the way morphine based drugs (like heroin, dilaudid, opana, etc) feel vs codeine based drugs (oxy, hydros, etc) feel, at least to me, but not a difference in heroin and. say, diuladid. If they were totally different, why would cross tolerance be a thing? Why, after I started heroin, could I not get high off of pills unless I took like a lot more them than ever before? If they were compeltely different and what your'e saying is correct, I would be able to get high off 10mg of oxy even if i had a h tolerance, which def wasn't the case.

Well selling your prescription would be, by definition, abuse or at the very least misuse. Taking them every 3 hours instead of every 4 hours would also be abuse by definition. Anything other than exactly what is written on the bottle or otherwise stated by the doctor.

I wasn't disagreeing with you, just stating that physical pain does not protect or prevent you from becoming addicted. That's actually a myth created by the people who sell the pills. A person with a legitimate reason to take pills is still at risk of developing dependency and addiction. Chronic pain actually adds to the risk in my opinion. A lot of people curse the drugs as they are using them as well. There are also doctors and other professionals who believe opioids can actually make chronic pain worse. I haven't seen the information myself so I can not say there is evidence, but people, like Dr. Drew, who have a much deeper understanding of pain and it's process. I'm pretty sure chronic use of opioids is associated with a lower pain threshold. Of course, this is rarely a popular topic.

Again, I'm not disagreeing with your main point just trying to clarify. I get what you are saying, but I also understand why some people look at opioids as being risky for anyone.
 
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