A lot of good responses that do make a lot of sense: there is no easy answer to these type of questions and it is good to see people with different viewpoints discussing them in a polite and meaningful manner. So often online you see people who have a difference in opinion take it personally which has not happened here.
Speed King: I agree with what you are saying on how we've decided certain substances are acceptable and others are not. I remember a college text I was reading saying "most people are addicted to something wither it is caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, opioids, etc. If you are lucky it is something legal and socially acceptable." I think a lot of the harm from drugs comes from moral judgements placed on others who don't conform to certain standards of behavior (instead of saying "so long as you aren't hurting anyone (directly; you could basically say ones actions hurt you emotionally simply because you find it disturbing- that isn't what I mean) it doesn't matter if your behavior is different than mine and I don't judge you for it" society feels everyone has to conform to a certain norm- an idea I feel may have actually been essential when we were say hunter-gatherers where we needed everyone to pitch into the group for survival; now due to advanced technology the multiplication of manpower is becoming so great I think we will have to move past the idea that everyone needs to get up everyday and go to work 40 hours a week b/c we simply won't have work for everyone). And I feel that with a less morally judgemental approach to addiction we could do a lot better job of treating addiction: in studies on HAT (heroin assisted treatment) they seem to be finding that when heroin is supplied to addicts with some safety controls and in a controlled manner these individuals seem to be healthy, happy, and functional. And I think there may be other similar treatments for other addictions (it is a little harder for me to think of what might work and what might not) but say you take alcohol: doctors most often don't want to prescribe tranquilizers to alcoholics because they just feel that, even though benzos (which do have some negatives) are far less harmful to the body/brain than alcohol, they will drink in addition to them unless it is given in a controlled environment. But what about a pill that could contain both a benzodiazepine and antabuse? Not saying that would be perfect (I don't like the idea so much of "we are giving you something that will make you violently ill if you drink" but maybe in combination with a benzo....) but it is a thought. I think if we stopped making it a moral issue the opioid problem would actually be very easy to deal with if access to bupe, methadone, and even HAT was widely and easily available for everyone. Yes, someone might still be using but they wouldn't be hurting themselves nearly as much and there are suggestions property crimes would hurt drastically.
Crzydiamond and belfort: I get exactly what you are saying- and it could be possible for someone going to go to the hospital recieve morphine and think "this is what I have been looking for." And then you have people that hate it- for example my mother is not a rec. drug user but she does like drinking (my wife has even said that she thinks she even has very low grade alcohol since my mother drinks wine (2 to probably 3 or 4 glasses a night- but she is highly functional and it isn't bothering others so I feel like we are splitting hairs over a definition in this case) yet she hates opioids- she broke her knee and just vomits her brains out when given morphine or even if she takes a single percocet (oddly, she has bad anxiety and even hated xanax when her doctor gave her a few to take for panic attacks which is odd b/c she likes alcohol). I think the differences in how people react to opioids and why some might feel like it is missing may be differences in the endorphin system (maybe people prone to opioid addiction are deficient in endorphins and maybe people prone to stimulant addiction are deficient in dopamine as said above.
Burn out- I don't know that it is one thing that causes the disease (a gene) even if there is one, that it is only genetic, nor that you can't get better. I have heard of people that at one point were alcoholics and stopped, then were able to drink socially. And as an opioid addict I actually have gotten RXs for opioids after surgery that I used as prescribed and didn't continue to use after. With a lot of diseases there are multiple causes and people do get better, maybe sometimes completely. I guess I feel like there is something underlying just because how differently we respond to substances even as addicts. I remember when I was younger and was at an AA meeting (I think there are positives and negatives- in the right group they can be good social support but some of their ideas are outdated as well) and I said to an alcoholic something about how we respond differently and I couldn't imagine drinking 24/7- he said he felt the same way about heroin, he tried it once and could not fathom (other than with the explanation we are all different) using it all the time. Maybe it is sort of like cancer which, within each type of cancer is a specific disease, but that there are different factors (genes, smoking, nutrition, environment, etc.). Even if say opioid addiction is a very specific disease that is the result of reduced levels of endorphins who is to say that would be entirely genetic? Maybe severe psychological trauma could cause it in some people. It still would be a specific illness and different than say chronic depression (but maybe chronic depression could contribute in some people). While these aren't entirely new ideas we do tend to look at hard drugs as if someone is exposed to them they have a certain risk of becoming an addict- but maybe the fact that they are seeking them out means they already are. I think this could change the way we treat it if it became known through some level of research that this is absolutely the case.
I guess my main point from the start is that there seems to be this thought, even on bluelight and I';m not saying it is wrong, that if a completely normal well person tries a certain substance there is a chance of them becoming an addict as opposed to thinking maybe they start using the substance because they are already sick. And maybe those people will NOT always be sick in the way the AA thinking goes. I have seen research saying there are cases even of heroin addicts who at one point in there life are hardcore addicts and LATER are chippers (there seems to be a drop in very addictive activity towards opioids in many users in their late 30s early 40s- which is part of why harm reduction is important, maybe as long as you keep someone alive there is actually a good chance they get better).
Speed King: I agree with what you are saying on how we've decided certain substances are acceptable and others are not. I remember a college text I was reading saying "most people are addicted to something wither it is caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, opioids, etc. If you are lucky it is something legal and socially acceptable." I think a lot of the harm from drugs comes from moral judgements placed on others who don't conform to certain standards of behavior (instead of saying "so long as you aren't hurting anyone (directly; you could basically say ones actions hurt you emotionally simply because you find it disturbing- that isn't what I mean) it doesn't matter if your behavior is different than mine and I don't judge you for it" society feels everyone has to conform to a certain norm- an idea I feel may have actually been essential when we were say hunter-gatherers where we needed everyone to pitch into the group for survival; now due to advanced technology the multiplication of manpower is becoming so great I think we will have to move past the idea that everyone needs to get up everyday and go to work 40 hours a week b/c we simply won't have work for everyone). And I feel that with a less morally judgemental approach to addiction we could do a lot better job of treating addiction: in studies on HAT (heroin assisted treatment) they seem to be finding that when heroin is supplied to addicts with some safety controls and in a controlled manner these individuals seem to be healthy, happy, and functional. And I think there may be other similar treatments for other addictions (it is a little harder for me to think of what might work and what might not) but say you take alcohol: doctors most often don't want to prescribe tranquilizers to alcoholics because they just feel that, even though benzos (which do have some negatives) are far less harmful to the body/brain than alcohol, they will drink in addition to them unless it is given in a controlled environment. But what about a pill that could contain both a benzodiazepine and antabuse? Not saying that would be perfect (I don't like the idea so much of "we are giving you something that will make you violently ill if you drink" but maybe in combination with a benzo....) but it is a thought. I think if we stopped making it a moral issue the opioid problem would actually be very easy to deal with if access to bupe, methadone, and even HAT was widely and easily available for everyone. Yes, someone might still be using but they wouldn't be hurting themselves nearly as much and there are suggestions property crimes would hurt drastically.
Crzydiamond and belfort: I get exactly what you are saying- and it could be possible for someone going to go to the hospital recieve morphine and think "this is what I have been looking for." And then you have people that hate it- for example my mother is not a rec. drug user but she does like drinking (my wife has even said that she thinks she even has very low grade alcohol since my mother drinks wine (2 to probably 3 or 4 glasses a night- but she is highly functional and it isn't bothering others so I feel like we are splitting hairs over a definition in this case) yet she hates opioids- she broke her knee and just vomits her brains out when given morphine or even if she takes a single percocet (oddly, she has bad anxiety and even hated xanax when her doctor gave her a few to take for panic attacks which is odd b/c she likes alcohol). I think the differences in how people react to opioids and why some might feel like it is missing may be differences in the endorphin system (maybe people prone to opioid addiction are deficient in endorphins and maybe people prone to stimulant addiction are deficient in dopamine as said above.
Burn out- I don't know that it is one thing that causes the disease (a gene) even if there is one, that it is only genetic, nor that you can't get better. I have heard of people that at one point were alcoholics and stopped, then were able to drink socially. And as an opioid addict I actually have gotten RXs for opioids after surgery that I used as prescribed and didn't continue to use after. With a lot of diseases there are multiple causes and people do get better, maybe sometimes completely. I guess I feel like there is something underlying just because how differently we respond to substances even as addicts. I remember when I was younger and was at an AA meeting (I think there are positives and negatives- in the right group they can be good social support but some of their ideas are outdated as well) and I said to an alcoholic something about how we respond differently and I couldn't imagine drinking 24/7- he said he felt the same way about heroin, he tried it once and could not fathom (other than with the explanation we are all different) using it all the time. Maybe it is sort of like cancer which, within each type of cancer is a specific disease, but that there are different factors (genes, smoking, nutrition, environment, etc.). Even if say opioid addiction is a very specific disease that is the result of reduced levels of endorphins who is to say that would be entirely genetic? Maybe severe psychological trauma could cause it in some people. It still would be a specific illness and different than say chronic depression (but maybe chronic depression could contribute in some people). While these aren't entirely new ideas we do tend to look at hard drugs as if someone is exposed to them they have a certain risk of becoming an addict- but maybe the fact that they are seeking them out means they already are. I think this could change the way we treat it if it became known through some level of research that this is absolutely the case.
I guess my main point from the start is that there seems to be this thought, even on bluelight and I';m not saying it is wrong, that if a completely normal well person tries a certain substance there is a chance of them becoming an addict as opposed to thinking maybe they start using the substance because they are already sick. And maybe those people will NOT always be sick in the way the AA thinking goes. I have seen research saying there are cases even of heroin addicts who at one point in there life are hardcore addicts and LATER are chippers (there seems to be a drop in very addictive activity towards opioids in many users in their late 30s early 40s- which is part of why harm reduction is important, maybe as long as you keep someone alive there is actually a good chance they get better).