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Addiction is a disease: true or false

Monkeygrrrl

Monkeygrrrl

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 29, 2014
Messages
54
Hey Bluelighters
I was reading something on an NA website that really did my head in
The passage read

"...Our disease always resurfaced or continued to progress until, in
desperation, we sought help..."

Addiction is a DISEASE? Seriously?

Agree or Disagree?

Having not only worked as an addictions counsellor, but also having a heroin addiction I have strong feelings about this particular concept

I want to know what you guys think..?

Cheers

MG
 
"I've been addicted to opiates, not anymore, the things that got me using are things I try to fix now without drugs"

No need to apologize Captin. I think you just answered it right there if the above quote
Now let's try apply that to say, cancer.
We can't right? Because using/misusing a drug is a cognitive and behavioral CHOICE, cancer is not...
Making out that addiction is a disease is like saying "I had no choice, I just got hit with it one day, and now I'm a victim, cos suffer from an addiction"
To me that's a cop-out, it dis-empowers addicts and is enabling a behaviour that can be changed given the right assistance/commitment etc.
People who have "real diseases" don't get that kind of freedom of choice.
Thanks for yr input
 
The whole issue of control is a discussion in itself. Yes, one makes the choice to use, but nobody sets off trying to become addicted.

On the topic, if one makes the choice to exchange blood with a disease ridden person (be it through needles or otherwise) does that somehow make it less of a disease?
Have you looked at the remission rates of cancers compared to addictions? Chances are you'd have better odds getting rid of cancer.
You make the point of addiction being a choice. I won't comment on the beginning, but it's not like one can just up and stop being addicted. Even if we ignore seizure risks with GABA drugs/tpaering in general, I'm sure there are plenty of addicts on BL who have stopped taking their DOC for some time and then relapsed, multiple times. Is their addiction cured when they're completely sober? No..

What about people who aren't addicted in the traditional sense but lack the willpower to stop using x drug whenever they have it? Fine with polydrug use, but one class they cannot control themselves with.. If they were to procure that drug regularly they would develop a physical addiction, but the choice to only get it every so often will still end in a binge. Now i'm getting off point..

Now, on to the point I agree with fully. Although addiction has an effect on someones behaviour (that's to say they wouldn't act like that if it weren't for the addiction) it removes none of the responsibility. Addiction doesn't excuse ones behaviour, it doesn't replace ones morals with "need" and anyone using addiction as an excuse for doing things they know are wrong is simply lying (probably to themselves as well as the people around them)
Addiction doesn't diminish ones integrity, people do that all on their own under the guise of addiction.

There have been threads about addiction being a disease in TDS if u wanna search.
 
^ good points. And yes, who goes out their way to become addicted? It was NEVER a plan of mine.

It's a (sorry I keep using this word) very broad word, when one thinks about it.

Desease.

I'm sure there's a full proper analogy of what a 'desease' means. Does being an addict fit? I would think there's underlying problems that stem further that could create an addiction.

And this is a genuine question, do people use it as thier 'light at the end of the tunnel' like religion? "Everything's okay, I just have a desease"??

But, again, just a label. It could be for some, not so for others...

I consider myself an addict, but I'm no longer dependent daily on drugs (bar coffee, weed (lol) and occasional benzo). But that's me, I find it hard to call it a desease, more of a pre-disposition, brain chemistry.

Hmmmmm brains to shit today. But I'm starting to swing the way of it being a simple label to make life easier for certain folks, I could be wrong and am open to suggestion of that opinion.

Wow, the more I think about it, the more grey shades apear.
 
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I think that nearly always, addicts become obsessive and addicted to things due to underlying mental illness, as an attempt at self medication. As we know, this doesn't work in the end. Alas, that isn't my point. I do not think that the addiction itself is the disease, but rather the mental illness. In the end, the addiction will nearly always be disguised as the disease, but truly, the disease of mental illness is what led to the addiction. It's rather convoluted.
 
^ there good examples, and sort of what I was portraying.

But there's more than the generals we know..... There's more, um, different demographics? I'm not sure on this still.

Everybody's different, I suppose its something that needs to be taken into consideration.

With the talk of cancer, being undesired, I'd be certain to say some people have had trauma that was undesired too, this can lead to drug abuse. But your right, the traumas the underlying cause there. Maybe I can think of a different/better situation.
 
there is a lot to understand about the context of the way we think about addiction/dependence and the framing of it conceptually. you have to remember that AA was started in teh early 1900's when medicine was just beginning to increase its legitimacy over many conditions. ill post up a big summary later from a article i wrote in uni on the subject. but in the meantime here is a cracker article by Robin room on the subject, but there are many good authors on teh subject and many contested ideas about the location of the object of addiction per se..

The Cultural Framing of Addiction
1
Robin Room
Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs
Stockholm University
The concept of addiction is historically and culturally specific, becoming a common way of
understanding experience first in early nineteenth-century America. This paper considers
the relation to the concept of elements in current professional definitions of addiction (as
dependence). Addiction concepts have become a commonplace in storytelling, offering a
secular equivalent for possession as an explanation of how a good person can behave badly,
and as an inner demon over which a hero can triumph.
 
Is being shy a disease? Is being a dickhead behind the wheel a disease? Everyone's behaviour and brain is different, it seems to be easy to label it a disease if it's an adverse effect and just assume it is normal if it does no harm. Some people have a strong will power just as some people have a good work ethic. It doesn't make a persons addiction any less or more severe because it is labelled an organic condition or not.

AA uses the disease model to effectively shame people into abstinence, with no chance of an addict ever being able to enjoy using a substance like a normal person ever again. I believe this only makes relapse more painful, and labels such events as a failure. Reality is if you can control your urges and still enjoy your poison fron time to time with no ill effect, why does it matter?
 
sure i can see why people would take your positions one thousand words, but unfortunately the honest truth about AA or NA is that it really is the most consistent form of social support for those who identify as having an issue with alcohol or drugs. it doesn't matter what governments are in or budgets! sure there are parts of the dogma of the twelve steps i dont agree with but untill governments and people are ready to fund more treatment services it is the main support out there. i hope people who read this dont discount it based on this thread, but use their own experience.

disease legitimizes the condition in the American health care sector- without it the people in the states get nada; including no health care, no research funding, no service funding etc. the actual construct of it being a disease can be contested on the base of the DSM criteria (mostly behavioral indicators rather than physiological) but then there are real irreversible changes that can occur at genetic levels which also make it sit comfortably in the disease model.

i guess the next phase of addiction being gloablised as a concept model for ddrug use has already occurred with the new DSM effectively taking away substance abuse (crudely the old criteria for any use) and swallowed the lot as a addiction based disorders.
 
... Addiction is a health concern. It could be considered a mental health issue. It should be a health issue vs criminal. It is not however a disease in the traditional sense with a clearly defined pathological organism attacking the body and the body mediating an immune response to said organism.
 
^ this.
The "once an addict, always an addict" is a disempowering narrative.
I was a junkie, now im not.
 
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Addiction is self inflicted brain damage. Just as some people are more prone to breaking bones, some people are more likely to become addicted.
 
the social construction of addiction has been long known and studied, depending on where you are in the world (context) the dominant story (discourse changes).
im a fan of helen keane from the ANU's work on addiction personally. but many of the early writing on addiction was due to the moral roots of the construction on the issue within a deviance framework. its never as simple as biological reductionism, or even social constructionism but a mixture of biological psychological, politcal and social forces at play.

and if you want a good well rounded presentation of the several contesting arguments for and against addiction this is a good article

there are also other considerations too such as the determinants of health; those who are less well off from lower socio economic areas, unemployed, homeless, those with mental illness or with direct family members who have had a dependence, those who have had an aversive upbringing, trauma, developmental challenges, poor education, attachment disruptions, cultural, religious, environmental & social normalization of substance use are at higher risk of both developing an addiction and poorer treatment outcomes..
even going further there are great differences in gendered aspects of drug use women v men, drugs they use, how they use drugs, how they access or don't access services.

There is bi directional causality- less access to the determinants of health means more chance of addiction and addiction impacts peoples ability to access determinants of health.

i dont see these as volitional "self inflicted brain damage" but as a complex interplay of many different biopsychosocial dynamics. to reduce it down to just a disease or just a volitional issue does not do any justice to the complexity of the issues here.
 
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^ Thank you madmick19. Eloquently phrased. Great use of in text reference sources and pretty much 100% spot on. Addiction is not a "disease" but a myriad of socioeconomic/environmental/genetic/etc elements that make up a complex whole. Failing to treat the various elements that comprise the addiction an addict may never get clean, mind it helps if the addict want's to clean up their life.

BTW... I wonder how addicted 1000 words may be? I'd say pretty bad to make such a statement? Does that not imply, by his own words (less than 1000 in this and most other cases), he is in fact suffering catastrophic brain damage? IDK but that seems to be what he's telling us.
 
Believe it or not Imo I believe it's a matter of quite a few things. It is definitely a disease. But I am am addict. Currently on day 4. My mother before she died was an addict and my brother is an addict. Also my father was an addict and so was my brother father and addict. I also believe that my emotions would leave when I would take the pill. It would trap my past experiences (don't have enough time for a life story), but it seemed to make me feel normal and be able to fit in without any judgement. it's hard dealing with life sometimes and to make matters worse I have panic disorder and manic depressant due to all the wrongs done to me in life (not fun). So yes I took it to be social as well. I didn't know how to cope anymore. But taken those drugs only numbed me, that's why I am getting clean and facing my demons. I know this isn't my own thread and to be honest idk how to make one. But hopefully this helps:)
 
If you had never taken a pill or pick up a substance of abuse, are you still an addict?

lovepsychadelics said:
BTW... I wonder how addicted 1000 words may be? I'd say pretty bad to make such a statement? Does that not imply, by his own words (less than 1000 in this and most other cases), he is in fact suffering catastrophic brain damage? IDK but that seems to be what he's telling us.
Click to expand...

My brain damage is from too many swinging arms to the face. I also have no feeling in my left little finger from a spear tackle but I wouldn't call that a disease either.
 
i_want_me_back said:
Believe it or not Imo I believe it's a matter of quite a few things. It is definitely a disease. But I am am addict. Currently on day 4. My mother before she died was an addict and my brother is an addict. Also my father was an addict and so was my brother father and addict. I also believe that my emotions would leave when I would take the pill. It would trap my past experiences (don't have enough time for a life story), but it seemed to make me feel normal and be able to fit in without any judgement. it's hard dealing with life sometimes and to make matters worse I have panic disorder and manic depressant due to all the wrongs done to me in life (not fun). So yes I took it to be social as well. I didn't know how to cope anymore. But taken those drugs only numbed me, that's why I am getting clean and facing my demons. I know this isn't my own thread and to be honest idk how to make one. But hopefully this helps:)
Click to expand...

if you identify as being a addict/junkie/drug user that is fine as long as you find it is helpful for you! if you want to use addiction to describe complex set of interpersonal and social issues for you that is fine!
one of the most jarring but also equally effective parts of AA/NA model is the forceful way it reflects the nature of addction back onto the preson to own as their own entity- puts it first and foremost in your mind breaking down some of those psychological defences that keep people in denial about the extent of their problems. it kind of makes what seems like a chaotic topsyturvey life into a tangible and then manageable/adjustable experience. from what feels like no control to having a way to describe then communicate about a set of shared experiences.

Im sure there is a sociological/anthropological explanation for it is that bluelight was formed in much the same way- a kind oif tribal identity that was trying to breakdown the stigma of drug use and drug users- bonding through common shared experience.... which is what AA/NA/smart recovery/ religions/ music genres do as well. the big problem is when one perspective dominates the others, unfairly atributes, excludes or further marginalises the very pwople who need support. if you want a really good comprehensive article on the stigma produced from addiction as a concept/disease try here. i think it provides a really good political critique of addiction and this is what my perspective is probably most alinged to, although i also find the public health way of categorising and researching addictions useful too. personally ive witnessed mauch as a ATOD counsellor for over a decade now, and feel greatful that each person has shared a their own unique account of addiction with me. What strikes me most of all is that it is best described as a contextual relationship with a substance, at a specific time in a persons life.

if you want more good articles Drug text have a few great ones in their addiction section or their book sections has lots of socilogical readings in it.



im not sure dissing each others perspectives/beliefs is useful either
 
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I believe it's a cognitive disorder that make some people vulnerable to drug abuse and addiction. It's not a disease. That term helps people to realize they're vulnerable. IMO.
 
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