Drug abuse is not a disease it is bad life decisions

The MSM narrative, in an effort to undermine that george floyd was a drug addict, claiming that drug abuse is simply a disease that you "catch". That we should have sympathy for drug abusers, they are just sick. It has nothing to do with poor life decisions, or self gratification, or greed, or selfishness, or personal irresponsibility. They want us to believe that poor george was just a sick, claustrophobic, well mannered, upstanding citizen who just happened to be sick. It was not his fault that he did drugs, he was not a bad person because he took and dealt drugs or passed fake money or resisted arrest every time he had an encounter with police. Those were just because he had a sickness and nobody helped him. In fact it was our fault, societies fault that george was committing these petty crimes. We all are at fault because poor george eventually overdosed on his sickness.

That is all. Don't do drugs kids.

a reply to: panoz77

Drug abuse is not a disease it is bad life decisions

I somewhat agree with you. It starts out as a bad decision, but once you become addicted your body physically changes to where you need that substance to achieve homeostasis.

That’s a fact. That’s what withdrawal is. After a while you don’t even get high anymore, it just makes you feel normal. Brings you back to baseline. At that point, it is a disease. A self inflicted one, but still a disease.

Yes and no.

The first hit you choose to take and that if very definitely a poor decision.

That being said, there are some people who do take the drugs prescribed for them and get hooked even following the prescription directions. Personally, I think as a whole our society has gotten too pain averse, just like we've gotten too risk averse. Some pain is not necessarily a bad thing; it's your body's warning mechanism, and I think too many people think they ought not feel any pain at all and overdo and that's part of how they end up hooked on prescription meds.

However, once you get so far into an addiction process, there are real changes that take place in a person - physically especially with some drugs. At that point, a person cannot just quit without some significant medical risk to themselves, and I think at that point you can call it a sickness. Our bodies will drive us to get what they need; that's what cravings of all kinds are.

But to label it a disease does imply a degree of thought that doesn't exactly describe what's going on. For example, an addict cannot infect me with their disease. And addiction is not a disease that randomly happens. We know exactly how and why it happens and exactly how and why to not get addicted ... to any substance.

a reply to: panoz77

I tend to agree.

My current thoughts on the subject are that some people probably have a genetic predisposition to become addicted to substances. For example, I didn’t have a drop of alcohol until I was 19, and the first time I drank, I polished off in excess of a single. pack of beer, and it did almost nothing to me.

The choices I made after that over the years, continuing to drink when I knew there were major red flags, that caused my alcoholism. And at some point, like a member pointed out, your body gets addicted and has to make all kinds of changes that make it really unpleasant, even dangerous, to quit.

But the addiction and withdrawals would never have happened had I not chosen to drink myself into oblivion.

a reply to: KansasGirl

I was fortunate.

My addictive process was to develop chronic migraine. So instead of cravings, my body gave me migraines to get more opiates which is what I had been prescribed for regular migraines. This sort of thing happens to about 10 to 15% of migraine sufferers.

It made it really easy for me to stop taking the opiates. Who in their right mind wants more headaches? But it didn't stop the headaches. It took years and lots of different trial and error medications and regimens of behavior with a neurologist who specialized in migraine disease to get me broken off chronic migraine, and I live under the constant threat that they could start again.

I have to be very, very careful with any painkillers, even Tylenol, as a result.

originally posted by: underwerks
a reply to: panoz77

Drug abuse is not a disease it is bad life decisions

I somewhat agree with you. It starts out as a bad decision, but once you become addicted your body physically changes to where you need that substance to achieve homeostasis.

That’s a fact. That’s what withdrawal is. After a while you don’t even get high anymore, it just makes you feel normal. Brings you back to baseline. At that point, it is a disease. A self inflicted one, but still a disease.

It's not a disease. It is a physical addiction at that point. There are also psychological addictions as well as both (most common). Both are medical conditions, but not diseases. Just do a search for physical and psychological addiction. It is pretty well documented.

You can develop a physical addiction to video games where your body will literally crave the endorphins or whatever you get out of it and you will absolutely have physiological responses to taking it away. It is definitely not a disease. Substance abuse is just very direct at affecting those kinds of changes.

This (calling it a disease) is a propaganda technique to take any shame away from the equation. Believe it or not, some shame in society helps people avoid making the same mistake over and over. It is also the flip-side of the coin with pride on it. Without shame in failure there is no longer a differentiator letting someone feel pride in accomplishment.

It is also very demeaning to people who have actual diseases. Diseases are things where no matter what people's choices or habits are, they still suffer.

Some things are more complex. You can have liver disease with or without alcoholism, but you can certainly choose not to exacerbate things.

originally posted by: ketsuko

For example, an addict cannot infect me with their disease.

For the most part that's true, but for some who are already susceptible, then in a way, an addict can re-infect them. If it's someone who has been clean and sober for years, and then an old friend shows up offering it to them, putting it right in front of them, then it could be viewed as being that old friends fault.




Now with that being said, I've always thought it was utterly ridiculous to refer to it as a disease. I am an addict, but not because of some disease. I'm an addict because I fkn love pills. Haven't had any good pills for years, but I still love them. It's nobodies fault but my own.

a reply to: panoz77

He was claustrophobic but only to vehicles with lights and sirens on them.

a reply to: panoz77

Addiction is a disease , it can effect anyone and when contracted it eats away at its victim and can kill .. it's not a life choice but it can be contracted by life choices , drug addiction is just one of the variants of the disease.

We all are at fault because poor george eventually overdosed on his sickness.

And had a police officer kneel on his neck for 9 minutes while his hands were cuffed behind his back , or is that OK now ?

a reply to: panoz77

Starts off as a bad decision, or a crutch, ends up in a blurred decline into madness one day, then it ends up again, as a spiral of bad decisions and dependency. I believe the dis-eased aspect is the part where people have no clue, or care that the substance they are abusing is causing harm.

The word disease is properly used when addiction has set in, the body is not at ease anymore, it's not functioning smoothly at all. Ask any alcoholic who snapped out of the 'blurred' part, and struggles with quitting on their own.

Addiction is considered the disease..

Addiction is not always a choice.

My wife (late) became addicted to opiates during a multi-month stay in the hospital. If she reported she was in pain, they gave her meds. They knew she was addicted yet admittedly would do nothing about it, only saying "we'll deal with that after she's recovered and discharged". I pleaded with them to at least sneak in some placebos but they would not.

Her death wasn't caused by this addiction but I'm certain it contributed in many ways


F healthcare, F doctors and F the hospital complex

Drugs are fine- do drugs if you want.
Don't blame the rest of us for the consequences of your actions.

This is called "freedom" - it's been a long, long time since the land of the free has had any.
Feel free to drug yourself to death- just don't make it my problem.

a reply to: BrokenCircles

Kudos for you. The moment you realise you're not a casual user, who can do it and step away without struggle.
I would also say that applies to all drugs. Alcohol too.
Can you do it one glorious weekend all two or three months and go on and be balanced?
If you can't say no you can't say yes.

a reply to: panoz77

I don't think he was without flaws or bad choices. That seems evident. I'd even say it seems pretty clear he was breaking the law, and his drug intake may have played a (possibly large) part in his death.

But there is still the question of if the police acted properly. I don't think pinning someone's neck is kosher if they're unarmed and detained.

And if you're taking a position of personal accountability for Floyd's actions, you have to do so for the officer too. The officer made choices to put himself in the position he's in. Just because someone broke the law and is on drugs doesn't completely absolve someone else of their actions unless it's self defense.

There's still a constitutional right against excessive punishment. And while there's a debate on what really killed him, again, the officer put himself in the situation to be investigated and tried. I see two people who made mistakes in this scenario, but I won't claim to be able to speak in absolutes on what really did happen, or where the lions share of blame should reside. It became a political football, so truth is hard to find.

a reply to: Halfswede

You can develop a physical addiction to video games where your body will literally crave the endorphins or whatever you get out of it and you will absolutely have physiological responses to taking it away. It is definitely not a disease. Substance abuse is just very direct at affecting those kinds of changes.

A physical addiction to something like video games isn’t in the same ballpark as something like opiate addiction, where the body physically changes by up regulating the opiate receptors. So now without an outside source of opiates a person becomes sick. It may not be a disease in the traditional way that people think about disease, but it affects the body the same.

This (calling it a disease) is a propaganda technique to take any shame away from the equation. Believe it or not, some shame in society helps people avoid making the same mistake over and over. It is also the flip-side of the coin with pride on it. Without shame in failure there is no longer a differentiator letting someone feel pride in accomplishment.

I don’t believe people should feel shame for wanting to change the way they feel for a while. Drugs and drug use shouldn’t be viewed through a moral lens. It should be viewed through a medical one. In relation to its effects on the individual and society as a whole. Drugs like heroin and other opiates become dangerous precisely because they exist in an environment of illegality.

Believing that a person is destined to end up a street walking junkie because they use drugs is called Pharmacological Determinism, and it’s a fallacy. We need to get rid of the shame and the ostracism that surrounds drug use before we can actually fix the problems it causes in society.

a reply to: panoz77

It is a pretty complex package to unwrap. First, is "drug abuse" a general statement for what someone is doing, or are they addicted to a specific drug. Someone who will get high on literally anything has a whole different set of issues than someone looking for that particular flavor.

Then you have to consider what you are calling "mental illness". Lets be honest: psychology is not science. its a liberal art. It pretends to be science by using sciency terms, and making badly formulated experiments to prove out their theories.

originally posted by: KansasGirl
a reply to: panoz77

I tend to agree.

My current thoughts on the subject are that some people probably have a genetic predisposition to become addicted to substances. For example, I didn’t have a drop of alcohol until I was 19, and the first time I drank, I polished off in excess of a single. pack of beer, and it did almost nothing to me.

The choices I made after that over the years, continuing to drink when I knew there were major red flags, that caused my alcoholism. And at some point, like a member pointed out, your body gets addicted and has to make all kinds of changes that make it really unpleasant, even dangerous, to quit.

But the addiction and withdrawals would never have happened had I not chosen to drink myself into oblivion.

I agree. Iam 11 days sober...counting detox. In the hospital, I was strapped to the bed for 36 hours bc of what I was seeing going through the DT's.

It was my choice to pick up the bottle at 21. 26 years later, I am fighting to stay sober. 10 days in, and I still can't sleep. It will be worth it, though.

a reply to: underwerks

I actually think some shame is important, it's in most cases the motor of your decision to change.
And it's such an important part of development, you need to feel it.
But change is a long process so we should give people space, while ensuring they make it back. It's not a thing you'll get a lot of greatfulness for if you use heavily it alters your personality. That's not meant as excuse, because the addict made that decision.
Still I often find the clue is the self-destruvtiveness of the behaviour.
Most addicts secretly want to die. They might not be aware of it and experience it as a getaway from one or the other great pressure, like pain, emotional or psychological trauma...
That's a bold statement I'm aware, but it's how I currently think.

I still think what point is there to living in society if not that when I'm my weakest someone will clothes, bathe, feed me and give me a nice environment to develop a wish to live again?

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan


...

Then you have to consider what you are calling "mental illness". Lets be honest: psychology is not science. its a liberal art. It pretends to be science by using sciency terms, and making badly formulated experiments to prove out their theories.

Hear hear