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  • EADD Moderators: Shambles

What is addiction and what is dependence?

One important distinction between an opiate habit and a benzo or stimulant habit (and which is why I would call that physical dependence) is that suddenly discontinuing large doses of benzos or stimulants can be fatal, but suddenly discontinuing large doses of opiates won't actually kill you. (A million clucking junkies in chorus: "More's the pity!")
 
F.U.B.A.R. said:
No, I don't think that's correct either. The biggest problem with discontinuing stimulants is depression and lethargy AFAIK. But then again I may be wrong...
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I've never heard that discontinuing stimulants can be fatal - only alcohol n benzos. As you've said I've heard that stims cause depression.

In my opinion, stims are a good example of addiction. Someone also mentioned gambling which is a behavioural addiction n gambling is a VERY good illustration of the argument I was trying to get across in terms of suboxone when I implied that it was "physically dependent" n not necessarily "addicting." With gambling there is the desire, the mental obsession, the need for the buzz n continuation even though doing so is causing problems. I have never heard of anyone working as a gambler apart from betting shops but it is a good argument n one that not so many people think of. Someone working in that environment is trying to make a living, of course but may also like the buzz of it all but does not necessarily make him/her a gambling addict. Interesting.

The issue I have n why I think it's important to make the distinction is, as others have already said, the stigma of the words "addict" n "addiction". Certain drugs are forms of medication n because they are supposedly "addicting" not as they really are "physically dependent" which puts people off going onto them n by doing so can prevent the person from getting better or at least being used as an aid to get better.

Evey :) xxxx
 
Evey, dependence is the same as addiction. Both are the need, the necessity, for repetitive behaviour that, if not undertaken, produces real mental and/or physical trauma in the subject. Physical addictions are easily overcome compared to psychological dependence.

There are plenty of gambling addicts. There are some on this board. You dont work in a betting shop. You, generally, sit at home online. Most gambling addictions involve compulsive behaviour with cards or roulette wheels these days, particularly on machines we used to call one armed bandits. Think about why we called them bandits.

If you have an inability to stop reproducing any trait in behaviour associated with something outside of you, that is an addiction. Shopping for clothes you neither really want or need - that's an addiction if it's a constant that you cannot break.

Dependency is just a kinder word for addiction. See also "habitual user", the PC term for heroin addicts.
 
Dependence and addiction are not the same. Let's look at antidepressants as an example. If a person takes antidepressants daily n experience withdrawal affects, as if is often the case, the person is NOT "addicted" to the antidepressant but their body is "dependent" on the antidepressants.
 
It is I, being up far too late, drinking cheap lager to just get 2 hours sleep between rounds of vomitting and diarrhoea, while I twitch uncontrollably and stream from every other orifice and dream of it ending, or death.
2 days and 12 hours clean.
 
Dependency and addiction are abstractions from real world phenomena. The real world is not so simple that a couple of words can capture it's complexities.

Our relationships to drugs which we take repeatedly (or not) can't be summed up in neat categories. Except for specific purposes, which bias our language.
 
Eveleivibe said:
Dependence and addiction are not the same. Let's look at antidepressants as an example. If a person takes antidepressants daily n experience withdrawal affects, as if is often the case, the person is NOT "addicted" to the antidepressant but their body is "dependent" on the antidepressants.
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Yes, they are addicted to the anti-depressants. Being addicted means being dependent upon. Anything that causes withdrawal effects is an addiction.
 
knock said:
Dependency and addiction are abstractions from real world phenomena.
Click to expand...

I don't believe they are, or at least not any more than any other word (symbol) we use. Like 'tree' for example. Dependency and addiction are useful terms for human beings all of whom have traits of repetitive behaviour. When that repetitive behaviour becomes unmanageable or out of control, we call it dependency or addiction. The problems arise when we load such words with stigma or negative connotations for political means. (Drugs are bad mmkay therefore addiction is...)
 
The way I thought it generally worked was: physical addiction, mental addiction and habit forming.

Where: the three aren't mutually exclusive, and physical addiction results in a physiological dependence.
 
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