cj
Bluelight Crew
I'm really pissed at my parents for my circumcision. It should be Illegal. If people want to have it done when there old enough to decide for themselves that's fine. But not giving someone that decision is criminal.
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DPMC Moderators: tryptakid
Addiction is not a disease
- Thread starter S.J.B.
- Start date
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
WTF are we talking about "genital mutilation" or "circumcision" for? I seem to have noticed it cropping up in threads that have nothing to do with it, almost in trollish fashion.
endotropic
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2012
- Messages
- 1,140
Let's just ignore it and get back to the topic of this thread?
What do you guys think about the fact that addictive tendencies tend to run in families? I think the genetic component bolsters the idea of an "addictive personality" that predates any drug exposure, but at the same time I feel like the disease model infantilizes drug users and (wrongly) leads people to believe they have no control over their own behavior.
What do you guys think about the fact that addictive tendencies tend to run in families? I think the genetic component bolsters the idea of an "addictive personality" that predates any drug exposure, but at the same time I feel like the disease model infantilizes drug users and (wrongly) leads people to believe they have no control over their own behavior.
It's because the mods here allowed some guy to make 100 posts blaming genital mutilation for everything from natural disasters to police brutality. If there was a thread about the recent shark attacks he would come on here and say "Well, if these people were still hooded warriors the shark would have been the victim"
take it from the horses fucking mouth...
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
^lol
Good point!!11!
I think that believing that and internalizing the belief that one has no control over one's behavior encourages one to behave as such - same thing goes for people, at least very often, when one believes one has control (or a degree of it) over there lives, as it promotes the undeniable thing about choices and decisions, that they're important and not predetermined in the deterministic sense (well, at least outside a highly controlled, corrupt environment like prison).
I think that addiction isn't any more hereditary than anxiety "disorders" are (and I like to say anxiety is hereditary as it highlights an important point). That is to say that if children are raised by anxious or drug addicted/currently using in a harmful pattern type parents, more than not you'll see kids end up feeling or doing likewise. At that kind of age so much stuff is cemented - that is learned - in such an amazing way(S).
Good point!!11!
I think that believing that and internalizing the belief that one has no control over one's behavior encourages one to behave as such - same thing goes for people, at least very often, when one believes one has control (or a degree of it) over there lives, as it promotes the undeniable thing about choices and decisions, that they're important and not predetermined in the deterministic sense (well, at least outside a highly controlled, corrupt environment like prison).
I think that addiction isn't any more hereditary than anxiety "disorders" are (and I like to say anxiety is hereditary as it highlights an important point). That is to say that if children are raised by anxious or drug addicted/currently using in a harmful pattern type parents, more than not you'll see kids end up feeling or doing likewise. At that kind of age so much stuff is cemented - that is learned - in such an amazing way(S).
PriestTheyCalledHim
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2005
- Messages
- 14,681
Anxiety/panic disorders, and depression apparently are hereditary. As are other mental illnesses like schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.
I also know people who have addiction run in their family where everyone from their great-grandparents, parents, and siblings are all addicts and they were not always raised by an addict that was currently using, who was anxious, or who was into harmful self-destructive patterns.
when I dream
Bluelighter
- Joined
- May 3, 2013
- Messages
- 228
I think it would be hard to argue against the fact that some people's brains are just more susceptible to enjoying drugs and therefore more susceptible to addiction. That fact alone qualifies addiction (or at least susceptibility to addiction) as a disease, at least in a technical sense.
Disease - a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.
Can you isolate and observe under an electron microscope the causative virus or micro-organism responsible for the disease of cancer? No.
Is the disease of cancer contagious? No.
Is cancer a disease? Obviously.
Have I passed a years worth of AP or college biology? Yes.
Disease - a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.
Can you isolate and observe under an electron microscope the causative virus or micro-organism responsible for the disease of cancer? No.
Is the disease of cancer contagious? No.
Is cancer a disease? Obviously.
Have I passed a years worth of AP or college biology? Yes.
Last edited:
Foreigner
Bluelight Crew
I think it's useful to differentiate between the medical use of the term "disease" and the version that carries social stigma or identity crisis. When people identify with being "diseased" it can be useful or create a whole host of problems in their psychological world. Sometimes it can prevent recovery.
Addiction as a disease, as a medical/scientific term, is useful. Disease, as an identity, is problematic, especially if a doctor tells them that they're going to have X Y and Z conditions for the rest of their lives, with proscribed timelines. Some people take that on and it never leaves them.
Addiction as a disease, as a medical/scientific term, is useful. Disease, as an identity, is problematic, especially if a doctor tells them that they're going to have X Y and Z conditions for the rest of their lives, with proscribed timelines. Some people take that on and it never leaves them.
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
Interesting fact time!
Do you know why we commonly consider addiction (in medicine and psychiatry) as a disease today?
Because ever since the beginnings of psychiatry, which was around the time antibiotics and medicinal tools to address "venereal" diseases were becoming more common place, there was this huge search for something akin to the new biological treatments for other diseases that caused mental illness, such as syphilis, which did not have an actual cure for prior (like other types of mental illness), the psychiatric establishment, with the support of the AMA and other important medical bodies that had also recently come into existence, desperately tried to discover something that would do the same thing for addiction.
Like syphilis, something no one is going to debate about whether it is a disease or not, the idea that something like penicillin that cured said disease would also exist for other conditions, such as addiction in specific (think: this is around the time it was becoming clear shit like the Harrison Act wasn't working; doctors, but especially psychiatric doctors, began seeing more and more people thrown in jail for addiction as opposed to more evidence based treatments that, even at the time, were well known to be much more successful).
At least that's what the doctors and the public hoped, as it did make perfect sense at the time, considering how relatively little we knew about neurobiology.
A significant part of the reason we call addiction a disease today has to do with the originals of this drive to find such a treatment modality, drug or therapy based, that would address and cure addiction in a regular way throughout all patient populations - like how antibiotics work on syphilis - and the strong desire to, mind you not with it's usefulness in terms of compassionate care as well, to understand addiction. The other part of the puzzle is more political, in that treating addiction as a disease does way more to help addicts than merely treating them as criminals, a distinction well aware to eminent sociologists, GPs, psychiatrists and others back then as it is today.
Alas addiction doesn't work at all much like syphilis, where one may do something physically tangible to the scientist or the researcher like:
Fun facts, right kids? Boy what fun history can be
8) %)
Do you know why we commonly consider addiction (in medicine and psychiatry) as a disease today?
Because ever since the beginnings of psychiatry, which was around the time antibiotics and medicinal tools to address "venereal" diseases were becoming more common place, there was this huge search for something akin to the new biological treatments for other diseases that caused mental illness, such as syphilis, which did not have an actual cure for prior (like other types of mental illness), the psychiatric establishment, with the support of the AMA and other important medical bodies that had also recently come into existence, desperately tried to discover something that would do the same thing for addiction.
Like syphilis, something no one is going to debate about whether it is a disease or not, the idea that something like penicillin that cured said disease would also exist for other conditions, such as addiction in specific (think: this is around the time it was becoming clear shit like the Harrison Act wasn't working; doctors, but especially psychiatric doctors, began seeing more and more people thrown in jail for addiction as opposed to more evidence based treatments that, even at the time, were well known to be much more successful).
At least that's what the doctors and the public hoped, as it did make perfect sense at the time, considering how relatively little we knew about neurobiology.
A significant part of the reason we call addiction a disease today has to do with the originals of this drive to find such a treatment modality, drug or therapy based, that would address and cure addiction in a regular way throughout all patient populations - like how antibiotics work on syphilis - and the strong desire to, mind you not with it's usefulness in terms of compassionate care as well, to understand addiction. The other part of the puzzle is more political, in that treating addiction as a disease does way more to help addicts than merely treating them as criminals, a distinction well aware to eminent sociologists, GPs, psychiatrists and others back then as it is today.
Alas addiction doesn't work at all much like syphilis, where one may do something physically tangible to the scientist or the researcher like:
Fun facts, right kids? Boy what fun history can be
8) %)
slimvictor
Bluelight Crew
^ +1 bonus for a social-historical explanation for the use of the metaphor ADDICTION IS A DISEASE (as Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999) would say it). %)
Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
Alas, if only I was as concise on BL as such folk irl but, je vous remercie de tout cœur.