Addiction is a disease?

[attempt4]

I was having a discussion with a friend about this very issue, and the question remains:

Is addiction an illness?

It's a very broad question, I appreciate that...though one may wish to define illness first, look at the constraints of an illness, if any. Is illness controllable? Is addiction controllable? Illness would imply an ailment outwith the control of the one suffering, however one essentially chooses a life of addiction in that no drug finds it's way into your mouth/veins by itself.

I've been addicted to opiates, alcohol and cannabis. I don't think I would say it was ever an illness...I continued my usage despite being aware of the rabbithole i was descending into. It helped the mental ills I suffered from, so it was more of a cure to a pre-existing illness (depression and anxiety)....

Thoughts?

 

[Lolie]

Personally I believe that the behavioural model of addiction is more sound than the disease model - although I don't think either is totally adequate.

What I find frustrating is that while addiction is now defined as a disease - which took a very long time to happen - treatments for it are largely behaviour based. It's more than a little disingenuous to ignore the contradiction between defining addiction according to one model and treating it according to another.

 

[Gummybearkatie]

Calling it a disease is an excuse and a way to pass blame. Everything I've done for my addiction and how it's treated me is my own doing. I could blame everything on my childhood too, but really it was me and my choices that made me homeless, an IV speed/black junkie. Just like it's all on me for the beneficial choices I make. If it makes someone feel better to deny it, let them hide behind medical terminology. It doesn't help me at all to lie to myself.

 

[Bojangles69]

In terms of medical science its considered an illness, whether or not you adopt their standards for validity is up to you.
The fact is many drugs throw of specific neurotransmitters, transmitters required for maitaining a certain natural balance of life and emotion. If you are throwing off those transmitters you are essentially GIVING YOURSELF a disease.
Its treated like a disease mainly due to the ignorance behind what the avg person does and does not know prior to their drug use. Many people know on one level that drugs react with the brain, but they also don't realize the true extent that such drug will influence their life. I'd say calling it a disease is definitely an excuse of somewhat, but its not entirely different then me injecting myself with aids. Once the aids is in my body it causes a progression, similar to a way a decrease in brain functioning will lead to repeated behavoirs. There are lots of similarities from a science perspective, and in the end its almost like debating the difference between science and pseudoscience. Lots of people like to think there are clear boundaries, but relativity kind of fucks that up. So in the end what you should look at is patterns, repeatable observations, and liklihood. The liklihood being, many people who use drugs DO NOT stop on their own.
Whether they CAN is not whats being tested, whether they DO is whats tested. In order to rewrite the current rules you'd have to get populations of people addicted to drugs, then have them all get clean on their own accord.. and that still doesn't really dismiss it as a medical disease.

In all honesty I consider it one, but you have to be aware of all the finer complexities of what that means. Does that mean I now have no control over my behavoir because my brains altered? No way fuck that. When I'm horny I sometimes wanna throw a girl down and go to town but I don't. Self restraint happens to be a powerful thing, and addiction just happens to be a disease that can be fought with self restraint. Doesn't mean its still not a disease though.

 

[UpdownUP]

I look at it as an illness that we bring on ourselves...like lung cancer from smoking...
Just as some people get lung cancer without smoking, some people get addicted through genuine pain.
The thing with addiction is that you can cure it, just like the fat kid can lose weight, or if you really wanted to, you could learn to speak russian..It's just something you need to overcome in your own time at your own pace, and you can't blame anyone or anything for it...you put the ciggarette to your lips, knowing the consequences, you must deal with them.

 

[Bojangles69]

Well I think you can "cure" it when its in an early enough phase of progression.
But expecting a 20 year heroin addict to quit one day, then be able to live life afterwards w/out wanting to kill himself, just doesn't seem rational.
I think you can cure addiction but I also think it depends largely on what stage you're at. The more you tax those receptors the less likely they will ever regain normal functioning, which is another thing with methadone patients being on for life and what not.
Is it right? I dont know. But I think you need to catch it early to cure it. And I honestly think at this point in my life because I've only used opiates for 4-5 years, that if I don't make a serious behavoiral change NOW, I will likely never be able to cure it down the road. Just my own opinion.

Oh and the smoking/lung cancer thing was smart, I liked that a lot.

 

[Blackhawktown]

Yes

YES YES and YES again. The book called the DSM IV-TR which is the most current version of this book that lists all mental illnesses. The DSM V, to be released in 2013 is going to put addiction in AS A MENTAL DISEASE. Im a psych major, I've had this argument countless times.

 

[Gummybearkatie]

YES YES and YES again. The book called the DSM IV-TR which is the most current version of this book that lists all mental illnesses. The DSM V, to be released in 2013 is going to put addiction in AS A MENTAL DISEASE. Im a psych major, I've had this argument countless times.

Homosexuality was in the DSM at one point. An addictive personality is a flaw, making bad choices is lack of willpower. Most drug addicts are victims of something, but too many try to play that card.

If that diagnosis helps people go to rehab instead of jail I'm all for it though. I know how I feel about myself, let others see me how they will. I don't need pity.

 

[calmAnimal]

hehe OD

ill put what the disease of addiction means to me: Something is tweaked in my brain. It allows me to do terrible things to people i know, love, and strangers. It allows me to rationalize the MOST outrageous nonsense to justify my using. It is the uncontrollable obsession to use drugs or anything that can make me feel better about me and take me outside of myself. The more i "feed" these thoughts the harder it is too stop.

edit: the only way i know how to arrest it is one day at a time.

 

[Lolie]

I look at it as an illness that we bring on ourselves...like lung cancer from smoking...
Just as some people get lung cancer without smoking, some people get addicted through genuine pain.
The thing with addiction is that you can cure it, just like the fat kid can lose weight, or if you really wanted to, you could learn to speak russian..It's just something you need to overcome in your own time at your own pace, and you can't blame anyone or anything for it...you put the ciggarette to your lips, knowing the consequences, you must deal with them.

The problem with the disease model of addiction as defined by the vast majority of the recovery industry is that it's based on the premise than addiction can't be cured - that it's inevitably progressive and that people who are able to stop on their own "were never true addicts".

As Bo pointed out, there's a significant number of people who don't get clean without help - and the majority of those people won't stay clean long-term any more than the majority of morbidly obese people who lose weight manage to keep it off longterm.

What we don't really understand is why our current approaches to treating addiction have such an abysmal success rate. We understand that addiction is a biopsychosocial phenomenon and that substance abuse/dependence is only one part of a complex whole, but for the most part our solutions are simplistic and primitive.

We need to better understand addiction in order to have better treatment outcomes and that should involve revisiting our most basic assumptions about its nature and checking whether they are valid or flawed.

YES YES and YES again. The book called the DSM IV-TR which is the most current version of this book that lists all mental illnesses. The DSM V, to be released in 2013 is going to put addiction in AS A MENTAL DISEASE. Im a psych major, I've had this argument countless times.

The DSM-5 is also dropping a number of disorders (amid a great deal of controversy) altogether and completely changing the way others are assessed. Not everything listed in the DSM is a "mental illness" in the accepted sense of the word - part of its original purpose was to establish a common lexicon for describing clusters of personality traits and behaviours and to provide common billing code for insurers.

Some of the substance-related disorders will simply be renamed for DSM-5. This is part of an attempt to standardise use of the terms "dependence", "abuse" and "addiction". The working group has proposed renaming the overall category from Substance-related Disorders" to Addiction and Related Disorders so that it can include non-substance disorders such as gambling disorder but the group itself is not new.

Here's a link to the proposed changes for this group of disorders in DSM-5.

http://www.dsm5.org/proposedrevisions/pages/substance-relateddisorders.aspx

 

[DexysMidnightRuner]

i really have no idea. i feel the current treatment approach is not working - having gone through rehab currently.

i do agree that a lot of addiction is caused by mental/emotional problems such as depression, anxiety, past occurrences, hereditary, etc. but that might not be all of it.

it could just be a state of mind..
but im not sure on that because i know people who want to be successful in life but cant, and people who can just mess around with drugs and be fine. i dont understand. i hope it is though so i can go back to "successful" use..

it could be a mixture of both. i have this same disagreement in my head from what rehab tells me to what i personally think. but i guess ill find out who was more right - me or them - in the future.

i do believe there is something different in an addict vs a normal person..

i think we are taking great steps toward getting closer to figuring it out and its more socially acceptable to admit to having a problem, so that makes it easier to try and "treat" and to study. but i think we have a lot of work to do before we really figure it out..

 

[Bojangles69]

I mean what other treatments could there possibly be though?
Thats the question I ask myself.

We have medicine, we have a million types of behavoiral therapy, a million different opinions and philosophies about addiction.... maybe we really don't need ANY of that shit. Maybe we don't need the DSM, maybe we don't need a new model for addiction, maybe theres really nothing to figure out?
Maybe all we have to do is stop reading/thinking about shit that doesn't matter and stop putting drugs in our bodies? I think addiction models may help some people, but I think for the most part addicts are continually taught learned helplessness, and I think some of these models are just as much a disease as addiction.
I understand controversy, talking about things, but for MY OWN SAKE, recently I have just really been thinking about my own surivival. Does what some group of nerds researched years ago REALLY make a difference in my life? No.
In all honesty I think the problem is the word addiction. It means something specific, but its also the result of about a thousand and one other factors. You hate your life, your depressed, your antisocial, you have a mental disorder, your poor, you don't like your husband/wife, you hate your car, you have no sense of humor.... there are over a million different things that can ultimately make us use drugs. And all drugs do is take away your desire to wanna fix those things. They make you content for a little bit, basically putting the inevitable downslide on pause.

I think a lot of people wind up turning to drugs merely because it makes them feel ok about continuing to make terrible decisions in their life. Maybe for some people addiction is not a disease at all but a cure. I mean you can really call it w/e the hell you'd like. All I know at some point is all the rationalizations, research, models, excuses, they all need to be thrown into the fire. People keep using drugs so they don't have to deal with the flaws of being a human being. You will NEVER take away human imperfection, and thats why I also think we will NEVER get rid of addiction. Its not just drugs either its gambling, sex, food, we ALL suffer from one addiction or another.
And I think the only way to really fight it is to somehow convince yourself that you want to be the best person you can possibly be. Noone else can instill that in you. I tell myself everyday now "no matter what my problems, no matter what my excuses, doing SOMETHING important with my life, and BEING SOMEBODY IMPORTANT, means more to me than drugs ever will". And I can only hope and pray to god thats going to be enough to get me clean.
But in the end if it doesn't, I'm not blaming a disease, I'm not blaming drs, not my family, not my exgirlfriend from 10 years ago, I'm BLAMING ME. Because no matter what, I CHOSE to be an addict, and as much as I think I want to be clean, if I die at 45 years old still using drugs, the fact is I obviously didn't want to be clean as much as I wanted to be an addict. And once again thats just the way I'm trying to make myself look at it now. At some point a person needs to drop the debating, the thinking, the research, and just get clean or accept the fact that they actually enjoy being a drug addict.
Very few people admit to enjoying the life, but so many people still do it, so its gotta be evident to some degree that maybe addiction is more a cure itself than an actual disease. Who fucking knows? I sure as hell know I don't.

 

[DexysMidnightRuner]

I mean what other treatments could there possibly be though?
Thats the question I ask myself.

We have medicine, we have a million types of behavoiral therapy, a million different opinions and philosophies about addiction.... maybe we really don't need ANY of that shit. Maybe we don't need the DSM, maybe we don't need a new model for addiction, maybe theres really nothing to figure out?

and what do you think the people in the middle ages were saying? probably the same shit. what do you think people said before we have all we have like kimo, open heart surgery, facial reconstruction..

and maybe in the future well think what we are doing now is animalistic..
there is always something more to do, and just cause we havnt discovered/thought of it yet, doesnt mean its not out there or possible..

Because no matter what, I CHOSE to be an addict, and as much as I think I want to be clean, if I die at 45 years old still using drugs, the fact is I obviously didn't want to be clean as much as I wanted to be an addict.

and imo there has to be something that makes us different to choose that life, rather then a stable successful one. there is just something so slightly off that makes us choose that, and like it so much more then sobriety..even if you really do wanna get clean, that addict behavior is still there..

 

[Bojangles69]

/\ Totally hear what you're saying. I think that "slight" thing you're talking about is the fact that most addicts don't really care to be labeled addicts.
My brother has the same exact genes and upbringing as I do. Noone in my family that I know ever suffered from any form of obvious addiction. We both used the same amount of drugs in highschool, but one thing I noticed specifically was when people even hinted to the concept of him being a drug addict, he refuted it with every ounce of his being. He didn't just say "I'm not an addict", it bothered him so much that he wound up changing his behavoir over it.

Apparently to him, what other people thought of him mattered, and I see that as saving his life.
Me on the other hand, I care what people think of me, but not like he does. When I was called a drug addict, I would say "No fucking way", but I also laughed it off like it was a joke, I merely was not self aware, and I had no value for other peoples opinions. I just can't buy into the idea that something is functionally "off" with us. I'd tend to believe its really more like a slot machine than anything. Some people randomly get addicted, others don't. But even looking at my friends in college who were using a lot like me, they STILL CARED when others refered to them in anyway as an addict.
When people call me an addict it almost feels like a release, like "wow, I knew something had to be wrong with me", but maybe, just maybe thats why I'm an addict. Maybe if I had come to think of myself as someone who was normal, I wouldn't be looking for that excuse to begin. I obviously don't know wtf I'm talking about. But I have a brother like I said who I am SO SIMILAR to in SO MANY ways. We're not twins, but our emotions, our thoughts, out philosophies towards most of life are nearly identical. However today, that label of "addict" is not ingrained in his identity, its ingrained in mine because I didn't think it meant anything when I adopted the label, and now today maybe I'm suffering because of that. I don't know, but I don't think its something you can put your finger on, I think sometimes maybe you really just need to refute the idea of you being an addict, by actually not being one.

 

[DexysMidnightRuner]

^^^ idk what that slight thing is, but i know there is one, no matter how much i wish i could just be "normal".

i just notice there is a difference between me as an addict and my friends who use responsibly. they dont care if they cant get something, or they are fine just doing it once.

where as i cant stand not having something. if i cant get what i originally wanted after many extraneous efforts, then i go for something else. and doing a good thing once is NEVER in my vocabulary. its more like do it till its dead, and then make sure by doing it some more. i just over do everything. whether i really want to or not. i just cant say no like other people can. or im not satisfied with just weed after a while. i HAVE to have that better thing, the more "bang for your buck".

i wish i could just be satisfied by smoking weed and be one of the normal people who can just smoke or just drink..but i dont think it will ever happen because something in my brain is just off..or not right. ya know what i mean? that sliiight thing.

well thats how i used to be, before i went to rehab. now im hoping things got bad enough that i can keep it manageable..but who knows, that slight off thing might kick in, and i might just end up going back.

 

[.Lucid.]

when i think about it, it certainly seems like a disease in terms of its transmission.. you usually catch it from other addicts.

 

[Bojangles69]

And our we catching it right now? Am I catching it just by believing what Dexy wrote?
Because I'll be honest what he wrote is me to a t, but I fear I'm like that because years and years
ago someone like dexy had came along, said the same thing he did now, and I initially chose to believe back then.. which is why I can relate to it now.
It sounds crazy I know but I just hate thinking thats the truth. I'm never happy just doing a little bit of anything, maybe my reptilian brain is just bigger than my newly evolved intellectual brain, but I'm a smart person I mean I don't go around raping women. Why can't I control my temptations towards drugs? Why CAN I control my gambling? And my eating? Why don't I jerk off 50 times a day? That feels good right?
I just don't understand why its so selective towards drugs. I mean I understand addiction has many facets, I just don't understand why my facet is drugs. I can't have a brain imbalance because I'll do and enjoy anything, benzos, opiates, stims, weed, do I have a THC imbalance? lol

God sometimes I honestly just feel like I've brainwashed myself so severely, that I have literally become what I never wanted to be. I have no idea how beliefs work, or why I believe I'm an addict. Sometimes I really wonder if I tried to brainwash myself for years and years not to be an addict, that maybe I'd stop using drugs. Or maybe the brainwashing has to be done at a young age? Because I initially didn't start viewing myself as an addict till I was like 19, now I'm 28 and the belief seems to rooted. But I just wanna pour a bottle of weedkiller all over it. There has to be a way to uproot those beliefs and change the behavoir. Or maybe I really just was born like this. I guess I'm really arguing "nature vs nurture" here, thats was pisses me off, is it doesn't seem like in this lifetime I will ever really know.

 

[sarcophagus.heels]

Despite what it is now being defined as, I would not call addiction a disease. Some people are more prone to addiction, and I would more readily liken addiction to other personality disorders than to an actual illness. I know my propensity for addiction is due to other aspects of my personality. I tend to self-medicate other pre-existing problems (depression, anxiety, etc), and just have an addictive personality. I would never call what I have an illness.

 

[.Lucid.]

I just don't understand why its so selective towards drugs. I mean I understand addiction has many facets, I just don't understand why my facet is drugs. I can't have a brain imbalance because I'll do and enjoy anything, benzos, opiates, stims, weed, do I have a THC imbalance? lol

i think addiction is highly inclined toward drug use, and in fact the term addiction is most often associated with drugs, because of the extremes they offer. extreme highs and extreme lows. thats like how our whole brains are wired, you know? seek pleasure and avoid pain.

believe it or not, the lows were a huge part of the addiction for me.. i know it sounds crazy but a HUGE part of me was unconsciously addicted to feeling like shit without my drugs.

 

[ThaiDie4]

Yes, I think it's a disease. I think some people are pre-dispositioned to have problems with addiction to the point where it's almost inevitable that it will happen.

This is just my theory. I don't believe that everyone is born with complete free-will. I think a certain genetic makeup coupled with an unfavorable environment is pretty much a recipe for addiction.

I liken it to how you can put two people in the same situation, and they react differently. Some people thrive on challenges, you face them with adversity and they rise above it as if that's the only logic way to deal with it. Others crumble, accept failure and look for ways to numb the pain (drugs, for instance). I don't think it's just a simple matter of choice, otherwise we would all always do what is best for us. You can argue that those who turn to drugs are just "lazy", "copping-out", whatever you want to say, but WHAT makes some people take that direction, and others don't?? I think it's because of things that are not always in our control.

That's the main reason why I think addiction is a disease. I know it's probably not a popular theory, going against the idea of free-will, and I understand that a lot of people don't agree with it. But it's what I think. That's why I'm a big believer in things like interventions, because sometimes I think it takes other people making that initial decision to place an addict in a situation (like rehab). Changing an addict's environment (getting them away from other users) and mind (therapy) CAN change how they choose to live their lives (getting off drugs), but I think it's rare that an addict can just wake up one day and decide "Oh, I'm going to get off drugs today!"- that said, I know it is POSSIBLE to beat addiction on your own, I'm sure many people on BL are witnesses to this. I just think it doesn't usually happen that way, it takes major, major changes to overcome the kind of mental processes that lead to addiction, and that's why I believe it's a disease.