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Is addiction a disease?

I don't know... I could never consider any addiction a disease. To me, that's just a copout. I don't consider gambling addiction a disease, I don't consider theft a disease, a don't consider "workaholism" a disease, I don't consider people who are obesessed in sex a disease, I don't consider pedophelia a disease, nor do I consider anything one derives any form of pleasure from a disease.
Addiction is merely a weakness, but in my eyes, most definately not a disease.
To me, something like AIDS or syphillus. But, not lying, theft or addiction. Sorry.
 
snailman2102 said:
I don't have any experience with NA/AA, but I am pretty involved with the scientific/medical community, and I can tell you that most medical professionals and biologists agree that addiction is a disease. This means that there are unique and identifiable chemical changes that occur in the brains of people who are addicted to something. There are plenty of scientists and scientific journals that are entirely devoted to uncovering the chemical mechanisms of addiction.

Some people, because of their genetic makeup, are predisposed to developing addictions, which is to say some people have to try harder than others to become addicts. In many cases, a person is uniquely predisposed to a certain addiction, they will have trouble with alcohol, for example, but will be fine with cigarettes, gambling, whatever. Other people, and I think these are actually in the minority, are genetically predisposed to develop addictions in many areas.

The stuff about being an addict for life has some basis in scientific fact. It's generally accepted that once you become dependent on a substance or activity it makes a permanent impact on your brain (a chemical change), and even years later, if you start using again, you will fall quickly back into your old pattern of usage (or abuse, in this case).

Lacey your comments about the division between body and mind are interesting. There are many who would argue that the mind can be reduced to a complex array of chemical reactions, and as such is just another part of the body, like the liver or spleen or whatever, but way more complicated.

I feel like I'm rambling a little so time to stop. Hopefully there's something of interest in here.
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Major problem---the chemical changes could be BECAUSE of a thinking of lack of self control etc---ie those who "decide" (bad word i know) to be addicted DEVELOP a more easily potentiated nucleus accumbens or something
 
lacey k said:
^^No that makes sense.

Im inbetween on it like i said.

I dont like something that tries to soften the blame.....in the long run that dont help cuz think about it....

Person 1: Does heroin daily. steals from his mom, grandma, friends, whoever. steals his parents car at night to make runs to Newark for diesel. family cant leave anything of slight value unlocked cuz it WILL be gone.

He dont go to any rehab meetings. He feels like shit for being that way and wants to kick cuz he sees what hes doin to his fam and hisself. He thinks hes a piece of shit and knows he gotta quit for all those reasons and has the mentality that its his fault, up to him to get his shit together. he might try and quit 3 or 4 or 13 or 45 times. who knows how it will work out. but he knows HE gotta fix the problem.

Person 2: Does heroin daily. steals from his mom, grandma, friends, whoever. steals his parents car at night to make runs to Newark for diesel. family cant leave anything of slight value unlocked cuz it WILL be gone.

Goes to NA meetings where they tell him that it aint his fault that he is the way he is, that HE didnt steal that stash of money hidden in the wall of his parents bedroom, the DISEASE made him do it. It aint his fault. Its the addictions fault. Hes helpless, cant help what he does. His actions aint his own. Stealing was the addiction, betraying his people was the addiction. Hes sorry for what he does, but its to be expected, cuz he cant help it.


Which one do you think would lead to someone taking ahold of their life to try and change it.

If you fail on your own terms, you failed. you gotta get back up again and try again.

If you failed cuz your disease made you do it, it aint your fault that you failed, its OK, cuz what else would you expect from someone with a disease. It justifies shit in a way...they tell you you gotta quit, but that it aint your fault if you fail at quitting. thats basically settin up someone for failure.

its shifting the blame from your actions onto a disease and it aint holding you responsible for what you do.....

ive pawned and sold shit before for dope...been there done that....i was doing it cuz i neede more dope, didnt wanna get sick, craved it...but i knew what i was doing when i was selling that shit for drug money you know....i still chose to do that, and it if wasnt for addiction, i wouldnt have done that, but i still could have chose not to...
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If you look at locus of control studies---those with an external locus of control are more likely to keep going at a task---how much that is generalizable---i dont know
 
What is a locus of control? is that a term for center of control or motivation of control or somethin, i get the idea but i dont know what it is exactly
 
who posting on here is actually clean from all drugs??specifically or those that were once hooked on the harder drugs but are now clean fro everything...meth or junk fiends that now get drunk daily dont count....i wanna ask you 'do you feel any different than BEFORE you started using drug?'..if so, how???lets hear some input before i get bored and start talking about cowflop again!
 
I don't know... I could never consider any addiction a disease. To me, that's just a copout. I don't consider gambling addiction a disease, I don't consider theft a disease, a don't consider "workaholism" a disease, I don't consider people who are obesessed in sex a disease, I don't consider pedophelia a disease, nor do I consider anything one derives any form of pleasure from a disease.
Addiction is merely a weakness, but in my eyes, most definately not a disease.
To me, something like AIDS or syphillus. But, not lying, theft or addiction. Sorry.
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Great post. I agree.


Major problem---the chemical changes could be BECAUSE of a thinking of lack of self control etc---ie those who "decide" (bad word i know) to be addicted DEVELOP a more easily potentiated nucleus accumbens or something
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There are major chemical changes when you run, laugh, and cry. I will consider addiction a disease the day running is considered a drug.

who posting on here is actually clean from all drugs
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Myself.

wanna ask you 'do you feel any different than BEFORE you started using drug?'..if so, how???lets hear some input before i get bored and start talking about cowflop again!
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No.
 
addiction is not a disease but some people are more prone to get addicted to some substances than others. For instance, heroin may feel x5 more euphoric to bob than it is to jane. Thus causing bob to want to use more heroin more intensely than jane wants to.

Some people also experience less drawbacks to certain drugs than do other people. If you do coke and experience a milder comedown than your friend, you are more likely to think more highly of the drug and use again.

Everyone is different, different people prefer different things. Some people hate stims, some hate downers. The people who hate downers are more likely to get addicted to stims because they like it better and vice versa.

I've read a book on the addictive personality, wish I still had i :(.
 
oh, and I've read the following link: http://www.medical-online.com/addict.htm

This statement is untrue, along with others in the less than reliable essay: "The rat will continue to seek it, ignoring food and water, until he dies!"

The "drug education" of the 1980's about cocaine included some really awful lies and intentional misrepresentations by "well meaning" and confused "experts". One of the often repeated myths was that cocaine was so addictive that if given a choice between food and cocaine, rats would keep pushing a lever for cocaine until they starved to death. As with most of the counter-intuitive anti-fun-drug propaganda, this isn't true.
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source: http://www.erowid.org/ask/ask.cgi?ID=2696
 
Well i was forced to go to inpatient rehab a short time ago and was stuffed NA/AA down my throat.In my experience from going to the meetings many people that were harcore addicted had absolutly nothing except alcohal/drugs and when they stopped they had nothing.Then they get into AA/NA like its there lifes calling because they traded addiction to a life long affiliated with NA/AA.

I STRONGLY disagree with alot of there teachings and the good things they teach are fucking common sense IMHO.Alot of people that go there NEED to have AA/NA in there life each and every day or they will use again and i think that in itself isnt the best way too do it.They teach that u HAVE to go to NA/AA or u WILL use and too me that is very weak minded i think that if u truly want to stop u need to have the power of mind too say i cant do this anymore i need to stop.

IMO that is very dangerous because if u dont have the power to stop mentally without the help of meeting than u will think"O no i didnt go to the meeting today im not strong enough to not use today"In conclusion i think addiction is a mental barrier that you need to overcome in the mind to stop being addicted.If u get out of the addiction cycle for a year or more then i think its OK to sit down have a beer/joint/Oxy W/E.But saying this is alot easier than doing it an im not knockin NA/AA at all its helped thousands of people but IMO its a very half baked program.SOrry for the long ass post i hope u will read it i could go on for far longer but ill stop now:)
 
it aint okay to be face down in the street having spent your last dollar on rocks; if you have an addiction keep it to yourself, we don't want to see that shit on the outside, we're embrarassed of you and you should be fuckin ashamed of yourself. that was and is deep down how addiction to pleasure is still treated by the majority of the people in power. and it affects every one of us whether we like it or not.

why are people who have had more abuse, more failings, and more pain in their lives more likely to be seen as addicts, especially in the media? i know people who have had hard, painful fucking lives and they've been junkies and had addiction problems for years and years, but i have also known people who have been in similar shoes and they either chose to not touch drugs or they did and they were fine. i have also known people who come from loving homes, who were fucking themselves up left and right.

i'm very interested in addiction in the media. because society is like an ice berg, you don't realize how much is unseen until you go under.

this is such a complex subject, i can't even begin to grasp all the angles here and i'm not going to try and work them out too much because there are so many to consider. i think not only genetic predisposition but also cultural influences and early experiences when we're young should be questioned. the experiences we have (and the emotions in response) forge pathways in the brain, right? if that is true, enough abuse of whatever kind when the brain is still forming will forge some kind of pathway. when you are older it takes more abuse to do the damage because the brain is already formed and you are supposedly self aware enough to be able to take care of it because of the hard wire of the survival instincts. what if those warning signs don't kick in though? why don't they? which brings me back to the point i was trying to make earlier...


do certain emotional responses to early abuse cause weakness in the mind that can lead to addiction to outside pleasure later on? why are some people more able to be strong and transcend addiction once they realize they've been taken in by it? is it as simple as some people have the empowerment, the energy, the will to get through it and others don't? maybe it is and AA are just exploiting people.

'if it is not in here it must be somewhere outside of me.' that right there is a thought pattern i see in every addict i have known and the pattern i have seen in myself and the society i have grown up in. whether you shootin up in the bathroom at wendy's or you trying to fill the emptiness with money, women, and cars. addiction seems like a natural behavior to healing a wound, filling that void; that failed aspect of one's self that you are too afraid to look at because it spoils it for everyone else. who is taught that it is okay to fail, so seek and blunder?

i hope that adds a little to this discussion. everyone has given a lot to think about so far. thank you. great topic lacey.
 
Follow the Money

CreativeRandom said:
I think I am leaning in favor the disorder theory.
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Yeah when i was in detox they drill that word into you day and night. All the junkies and alchoholics and crackheads were walking around parroting it back and forth. "Disease Disease Disease - you have a Disease" when really it matches a genetic disorder more accurately. I've always said it is a disorder and still maintain that. If the doctors can convince us all that it's a disease then they can make more cash using scare tactics.

Addiction has also been sold out and classified as a disease for political gain. I'd like to explain it but we can't get into politics here.
 
Anything can be played for political gain lee harvey, competition exists in politics as well. A good example of what I'm talking about is those people who say it is profitable to keep marijuana illegal - when many more people would profit if it were legalized.

However, perhaps addiction may be more profitable than the other options. Please go in detail, it is related to the subject at hand.

Do you think that the NA/AA people intentionally mislead people and call it a disease so people will quit? Perhaps by calling it a disease it helps with detox therapy.
 
^^if anything, i think labeling it a 'disease' that cannot be cured, it actually hampers dtox efforts...i mean, if they hammer it into my head that this is an affliction that will be with me forever and that i will have to struggle every minute of every day, with no cure in sight, and that i will have to be chained to meetings forever and not have even a sip of booze, i am MUCH MORE LIKELY to relapse...
 
i mean, if they hammer it into my head that this is an affliction that will be with me forever and that i will have to struggle every minute of every day, with no cure in sight, and that i will have to be chained to meetings forever and not have even a sip of booze, i am MUCH MORE LIKELY to relapse...
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Does anyone else agree? I think if that was the case for myself, it would make me more determined - but it would also make me say fuck you NA/AA and make me want to do it on my own.

With that said, I would probably rather want to get clean on my own. Wouldn't being sober/clean be much more satisfying if you did it all by yourself?
 
^^^i thouht u said u WERE clean from all drugs??how did you do it, with NA OR AA or by yourself..like i said earlier i have been clean for well over a year and i did it by myself...exercise is my NA...
 
I am clean of all drugs.

I have never been addicted in the first place, though I've used IV heroin for over a year now. Haven't too recently though.
 
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