Addiction is not a Disease

a reply to: MystikMushroom

I worked at one for two months and hated it.

They don't do anything to help solve the underlying issues. They bring them in detox them charge the insurance company 30k a month and send them on their way.

The best part is most of the treatment is bringing them to AA or NA meeting which does actually help people but still...

a reply to: MystikMushroom

I have a friend who isn't an addict but uses drugs. He has frontal lobe issues that manifest in different ways. In one way he can't keep his mouth shut, uncontrolled emotional outburst and fits of rage, he drinks all the time, not out of addiction but compulsion.

It's not a disease but the issue need to be treated properly before he can take ownership.

How can you expect someone with severe frontal lobe brain damage to control their conpulaions without help and therapy?

I was always amazed in AA and rehabs just how insanely bright and almost scary-smart those with addictions seemed to be.

No, really -- some of the brightest and smartest people I've ever met were saddled with debilitating addiction problems.

I think part of that is when you are insanely intelligent, you don't fit in well with the rest of the world. You look around, and it's like living in "Idocracy" every single day. It's depressing. It feels suffocating to be surrounded by people who can't understand you, don't or won't understand you. You feel very alone, and very powerless to change anything in your life.

When everyone around you is a moron, you feel pretty darn powerless to change your life for the better.

Well, that bottle over there is ONE thing they have control over, they can change their mood RIGHT NOW, and they can forget how dumb everyone is.... and how messed up the world is by drinking it.

If everyone else seems to have their brains turned off, tuning out by picking up a bottle or drugs doesn't seem like a terrible idea to a highly intelligent person. In a way, it gives them control over their emotional state and it helps them feel they better "fit in" to the world around them.

a reply to: onequestion

They can't.

But it's not a disease. It's a disability, and should be treated as such.

Does someone without legs suffer from "no-leg-itis" or "no-leg-isism"? No, they have a physical disability. So do does your friend, and he should be medically treated for his disability.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Trust me I understand, when I had a serious drinking problem part of the issue was I couldn't fit it normally when socializing with my peers so I had to dumb myself down by adding alcohol. A lot of here can probably relate. It's why school was so hard for me too.

Lucky for me I have a two sided nature. I call my alter ego the demon. That's the part of me that became a professional fighter. People love the demon it represents chaos and disorder. The demon is the one who picks up chicks, the one who ends fights, the one who packs his bags and moves across country with no plans whatsoever. It's chaos.

It's managing the demon in a way that's productive that's always been a problem for me and that's why I took to boxing and MMA so strongly, it gave me an outlet for rage and anger and it gave me a way to channel its destructive energy in a way that benefit for me, well for nearly ten years it did anyway.

a reply to: Boadicea

from intrptr

Among other things I smoked cigarettes for thirty-five years. Thats some physical, emotional dependency I wouldn't wish on anyone.

yours

can and usually/always do in fact cause physiological changes requiring medical treatment with long-term use.

Its funny we dont go around saying I have a disease; I've been inhaling carbon monoxide from car fumes for the last fifty years.

What I've just described shows that 1) there is causal factor 2) physiological change. Am I entitled to lay the blame and seek a lawsuit against the creator of the internal combustion engine or the driver or the Government or the Oil refiner for poisoning me?

a reply to: MystikMushroom

We agree it's not a disease but we definitely have to understand what the underlying issues are when treating addiction and alcoholism before we can do anything effectively.

That's why I say it's such a grey area it's truly hard to define in the macro cosm.

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: MystikMushroom

I worked at one for two months and hated it.

They don't do anything to help solve the underlying issues. They bring them in detox them charge the insurance company 30k a month and send them on their way.

The best part is most of the treatment is bringing them to AA or NA meeting which does actually help people but still...

Well, I have my own beef with AA *grumbling* ... But this isn't a bash AA thread. Honestly, if it works for them whatever -- it's not my life, and I'm glad they're not risking their life or others with their addiction anymore.

For ME -- I found AA to not be worth it. AA reinforced how "damaged" and "weak" one is, beating down their own self-esteem before swooping in and saving them by offering all the things they've just beaten out of you. Purpose, pride, community -- all of those things are taken away and replaced by the AA group.

IMO It's like a band aid. It doesn't fix anything, as you have to "keep coming back!" for it to work. People are still miserable during their "shares" about how they saw someone having a beer and it looked tasty (after 20 years of supposed sobriety) What?! I don't want to be craving a beer and complaining about it after 20 years!?

And after you've become "powerless" you eventually get some power by becoming a sponsor. You pretty much can get your sponsee do anything. One woman I knew had to call her sponsor every night after reading the same 5 pages out of the "Big Book" (sounds kinda Bible-ish to me..) ...

Anyway, she would read this prayer and then call her sponsor every night. After a few weeks she asked how much longer she'd have to do it. Her sponsor said, "I'll know when you've got it and are ready to stop." What?!

AA teaches people that they are incapable of living and managing their own lives. It's not sustainable. It's not a solution.

Fun fact: Next time you're at an airport and hear "Paging friends of Bill to gate B-13" -- that's an AA person looking for other AA people because they're looking for an impromptu meeting. Usually they're stressed from flying and thinking about having a drink. The "friends of Bill" is in reference to Bill Wilson, the guy who created AA.

However...if it works, more power to them. If those people can actually claim to never miss a meeting, never slip up, and have other people manage their lives...okay. It's not bag, not my way of how to go about it. Then again, it's not my place to tell them how to get treatment.

And that's just it -- it's not MY place to claim to be the authority on addiction. Find a way that consistently works and stick with it.

Just because something doesn't sit well or work well with me doesn't invalidate it or render it useless for SOME people.

The best path of ending addiction is the one that ends the addiction.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

It's not for me either I need a more hardcore disciplined take responsibility for yours actions approach. I don't know why but I hate being in those rooms. It does work for people though so I typically keep my mouth shut.

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: MystikMushroom

It's not for me either I need a more hardcore disciplined take responsibility for yours actions approach. I don't know why but I hate being in those rooms. It does work for people though so I typically keep my mouth shut.

Same, but sadly the rate of slip ups is pretty high.

I've given up arguing with AA people. They can do whatever the hell they want -- if they find value in it, it's not my place to tell them otherwise.

SMART Recovery is a secular, cognitive behavioral therapy approach. I found it 100 times more valuable. They have meetings like AA, but it's nothing like AA. More like getting together to share what's working and going on.

SMART Recovery (Self Management And Recovery Training) helps individuals gain independence from addiction (substances or activities). Our efforts are based on scientific knowledge and evolve as scientific knowledge evolves.

SMART

a reply to: Boadicea

I'm really not trying to nitpick. I'm trying to understand the virtue in your OP because I really don't see it.

the virtue in pl3bscheese op is evident in these words

Shame is a social tool which when wielded correctly leads to transformation of the individual for his and societies benefit as a whole. That an individual has failed to place the shame in it's proper place, at the act, and not the being itself, is not justification for doing away with the shaming process entirely

By doing away with the feel no shame/blame model we dont truly acknowledge that somewhere along the line we harmed others with our behaviours. Its like the "confession of sin" and "remorse" and "go an sin no more" of the catholic religion.
By not shaming or feeling shame we hold our heads high as if we've done no wrong to others or society.

Moral and or ethical ambiguity with no clear line of censure allows the affected individual on a life long quest down many roads to seek relief from suffering or healing. Theres a lot of money to be made in assisting such an individual to "find themselves" and "snap out of it" and reintegrate back into some semblance of (useful) member of society.

What few people even consider is why a great proportion of the public taxation allocation should be going to a "priestly Medical classs" who have shown how entrenched they are in feeding at the trough of public money.
Do we ask them why they often have so little results to show for so much money taken? What cost benefit analysis was done?

Why dont we "socialize" car mechanics; cars are a vital part of our society.

Would you keep going back to a mechanic if 10 minutes after driving out of the workshop you heard engine noises or your car broke down 10 kilometres away form his workshop.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

SMART recovery is becoming more popular. It's a good approach for people looking for alternative methods.

For me, meditation, training, discipline, determination, will, and understanding what motivations are driving me to drink are what works.

Understanding the reward mechanisms is huge for me. I need to know what problem in "solving".

I never had an addiction I was a binge user. Enough to mess things up. It's how I ended up in jail, making a choice I would have never made sober.

And another thing -- people that go through addiction are said by trained medical professionals to be "in recovery" for the rest of the lives.

What?

"Yeah, you show no signs of bronchitis anymore. Oh, you still HAVE bronchitis, you're just in recovery from it forever. The bronchitis could come back at any time spontaneously!"

Okay, I get it that a virus like herpes can be suppressed with drugs. You still have herpes, but no symptoms. That's different because it's an actual disease. There's a medication that forces the virus from manifesting physical symptoms.

AA isn't a medication that suppresses some biological process, keeping addictive actions from manifesting.

If addition is a disease, yet you can walk away from your DOC (drug of choice) forever -- then it's like having herpes? I guess?

Anyone with a semblance of logic can see how ludicrous this. It's a disease you're apparently born with, that may or may not manifest depending on life choices. You can quit, but you'll always have this disease despite no medication or biological intervention.

SMH. Treating addiction like a disease makes a lot of medical professionals very wealthy.

a reply to: onequestion

More power to you! Doing "self-work" is what will make something stick. The more you understand yourself, the better armed you are do deal with whatever in life is thrown at you.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

The mental healthcare in this country is atrocious. It's safe to say they know NOTHING about the mind. They have assumptions and that's about it.

a reply to: the owlbear

"well, Jimmy's dad shot up, therefore this marker on this gene makes him more likely than Bobby down the street to shoot up."

What is ironic is that Insurance companies are fighting for the right to minutely examine all your private medical history so they can refuse to even insure you or reduce liability in the future.

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

Oh man, if you saw the documentation that goes into providing medical care.... It's insane.

The insurance industry is micro managing the entire medical industry. It's very wrong.

a reply to: jtma508

you:

Can a person 'catch' Lupus, RA, non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, MS, MD, etc? So they're not diseases either?

in response to: the owlbear

A person can catch tuberculosis, cancer, the AIDS, etc...one does not catch heroin addiction or alcoholism no matter what genetic marker

I caught alcoholism through being around people who drank. it was a normal behaviour of society, socially acceptable. No different than immersing myself in a rat infested grotto. Surely I would get a disease from the rats. Of course you can catch alcoholism.

Over here in Western Australia being very sunny we have a high incidence of skin cancer. Public health are running an ad saying "catch cancer before it catches you" (www.catchcancer.org.au/)

"Catch Cancer..." hmmm

Subliminal programming that is supposed to bring awareness to identifying changes in skin lesions; but possibly in my opinion programming you to create the disease in your mind and to manifest in your body.
We will never find a cure for cancer. Too much money involved

hmmm
www.theguardian.com...

Can you really catch cancer? And if cervical cancer is caused by an infection, is it remotely possible that we might also catch breast cancer, or prostate cancer, or bowel cancer? The answer is yes and no. Certainly, catching cancers is not the same as catching a cold. Human papilloma virus may trigger cervical cancer, but many women infected with it will never develop the disease. There must also be other factor

a reply to: pl3bscheese

I will simply have to agree with most of the OP here. The doctor who first advanced the theory of addiction as a disease actually changed his mind, retracted it later. The disease model is just that: a model. I think it might help certain people at certain times, but it's now being applied across the board and accepted as fact, when it's never been proven. In fact, people know so little about the brain, the personality, the psyche, they would not even know how to prove it.

And yes, I do think that a lot of people who insist they have a disease tend to relapse more because "It's okay, it's not my fault. I have a disease."

I'm not without sympathy. I was a horrifically bad drinker, tried AA, tried a few things, so I feel I've been around the block on it a bit. And I can definitely say that one of the things that helped me stop, was yes, experiencing shame for how stupid I'd behaved and for how many people I'd pissed off.

originally posted by: pl3bscheese
a reply to: dollukka

I fully acknowledge there is genetic predisposition towards the behavior surrounding drug addiction.

There is a genetic predisposition for almost everything. It's one element only, not the entire story.