- Joined
- May 1, 2013
- Messages
- 119,657
- Reaction score
- 75,605
- Location
- Outside Seattle
- Gender
- Female
- Political Leaning
- Independent
First of all, the genetic link to addiction is pretty clear. So the "good choices" lots of people make with regard to drinking, for example, is they chose good parents without the genetic predisposition to addiction, same as others without heart disease chose good parents who lived until they're 100.
Second, our little charity that takes in the homeless treats about 100 vets at any given time, and about 70-90% depending on the population have dual diagnoses of mental illness and addiction, and the addiction is properly viewed as a symptom of the untreated mental illness. PTSD is common recently, but it's not confined to that. So our first job in treating them is getting their underlying mental health illness under control - if we don't do that, the addiction will NOT be controlled, period.
There's also a group of young women who I run into sometimes in the community, and some of them are 18, 20, 22, and they've been using drugs for years, but their big "poor choice" was having family that beat and sexually abused them starting as early as age 10, regularly, and the drugs were a way to get some sanity out of a completely f'd up life not of their making.
So, sure, there are lots of addicts who effectively "chose" to be addicts, but the stereotype is at least very often if not usually wrong in any fair analysis. I don't think any of us could walk in some of their shoes and conclude their big problem is their moral weakness. We wouldn't say that about soldiers who fought 3 tours and came back suffering with severe mental illness, but they're in that "addict" category because it's how they self-treat their mental illness. And soldiers aren't the only ones who suffer from PTSD - it's also common in some of the bad inner city neighborhoods wrecked by violent crime. Abuse victims, etc.
And as to 'choosing' to get better, OK, no doubt it takes a commitment on the part of the individual, but the question is the best way to go about it. If it's your husband, calling him a pathetic, morally weak loser who just needs to be a man and quit might work, but the odds are going to be better by treating it as a disease, with treatment, to handle the depression that often follows coming off drugs, get the physical problems including the brain chemistry treated, by professionals, not nagging family members. It's a bit like saying to your diabetic cousin you can CHOOSE to get over your diabetes. No need for doctors - just do it! If it's considered a mental illness, aka a disease, the reasons why someone might not just do it are clear enough. No one responsible would tell someone suffering from severe depression to just FEEL BETTER YOU LOSER!!
Having had to deal with addicts and all that involves them for nearly 20 years, I found the new insights in this piece to be not only bracing, but badly needed in ending the old paradigms of how people consider addiction.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/...EV-0824&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=AUDDEVGate
Cancer and other diseases....cannot be cured with willpower.
Alcoholism, other addictions...can be cured with willpower.
Nobody says it's easy. It has nothing to do with 'easy.' However, there is *no other cure but personal willpower* and any cancer patient would jump at the chance, pray for the chance, to be able to cure their disease with willpower.
OK, I tried and you ignored almost every word. If you're mentally ill and that's the underlying reason for your addiction, which is common as dirt, will power won't cure you. Treatment might, of both the addiction and the underlying mental illness that's being treated with illicit drugs.
And diabetes is often caused by "lack of willpower" which is a bad diet, no exercise and the resulting obesity and often can be cured or controlled by "willpower" but it's still a disease.
And the point is the distinction is pretty irrelevant in lots of ways except IMO about how to think of the problem and how to address it. If you're a drunk and cold turkey it, the withdrawal can and DOES KILL PEOPLE, so there is no question that there is an "illness" component to it versus just a moral failing. The withdrawal can and DOES CAUSE SEVERE DEPRESSION and for lots of people no amount of willpower can make those brain chemicals rebalance before they're DEAD of suicide.
So from my seat, what good are you doing a drunk by telling him he's a moral failure and weak or he'd just quit on his own, and risk death from DTs, and suicide from the onset of severe depression that's a typical side effect of quitting? I don't know. What I do know is the "disease" model simply doesn't in the addiction community absolve someone of the responsibility to get straight, so that's not the reason to call it a moral failing - to take away that "excuse" that's not in fact used.
What it does is explain the physiology of the addiction, why addicts crave the hit of alcohol or a drug and it's not because they want to get high cause it's fun or because they're weak-willed moral failures, but because their body is screaming for a chemical to fix brain chemistry imbalances, and if they don't get a fix, they get shakes, sweats, DTs with alcohol, blood pressure spiking to dangerous levels, and no amount of willpower fixes that brain chemistry. Time does, lots of it for many addicts, months at least, maybe years, and drugs or diet and other means can help in the interim, but at the very least addicts need to understand that those cravings for the ensuing months aren't a function of moral weakness, but chemical, physiological, like you needing a drink of water.
Agreed. I read little of the post I responded to.
But I wrote facts. And nothing you've written here or then, changes those facts.
I wasnt judging. I cant comprehend the willpower needed.
But what I wrote is still true and no matter what else people try, and spend money on, etc etc etc that's really what it comes down to.
And nobody can initiate it but the addicted.
OK, if you're not going to read my posts, no point in arguing the point much further so I'll make it short.
The only reason I care is the attitude that willpower is all an addict needs kills some of them, like my good friend whose "willpower" somehow didn't allow him to overcome the severe clinical depression that he sank into when he quit drinking, and he shot himself. Probably 2 weeks of medical supervision, and he's at home with his wife and daughters today, but he believed like you did and he's dead.
There are also the alcoholics who die during withdrawal from DTs. Willpower can't prevent those deaths, but medical supervision can.
I never said addicts shouldnt be supported, medically, emotionally, therapeutically (mental), etc. No one denies there are physical symptoms.
Once they commit to getting better, I wish them all the support and success in the world.
That's the whole point of considering it from a 'disease' standpoint versus a problem of merely 'willpower' which implies that addicts don't need medical or therapeutic support because it's a problem of the WILL and not of the body, brain chemistry, physiology.
Of course I covered that in posts you didn't read, so..... :roll:
And just to be transparent, I know the physiology, the 'disease' component, is important because before I got sober 13 years ago I twice had withdrawal seizures (complete blackouts of a half hour or more) that put me in the ER. I'm lucky not to have died. Many who cold turkey it at home, thinking they can beat it on their own, don't come out so lucky.
Again, it's 2 distinct things. No one implied ignoring the physical realities.
Willpower wont cure cancer. Millions pray it will.
And willpower doesn't cure DTs or clinical depression or fix the brain chemistry that's altered, normal function destroyed, over years of substance abuse. Those are the signs of disease, not lack of willpower. And normal function takes months or years to return - willpower doesn't do it, the body healing does it, drugs can help speed the process or ameliorate the bad effects while the body heals itself....like drugs do in treating...DISEASE!
What I love is the asset forfeiture laws - just find a little weed/coke on someone, seize their car! Helluva deal for the state. There was a guy locally who went (he said) on a buying trip for used construction equipment, and the sellers like cash, so he had as I recall $30k in cash on him. Got stopped and no kidding the cash had traces of cocaine, which was enough for the local cops nearby to seize the $30k with no trial, no nothing, no proof at all he was a dealer or had anything at all to do with drugs.
In the end, after 2 years of legal battles, he got his cash back, but it cost him most of that in legal fees, and it ruined his little business.
Thanks War on Some Drugs!
That's the truly sad thing about addiction...it goes on and on and on...torturing family along the way...*until* that addict is willing to commit to treatment. If that will came sooner, much of what you describe could be avoided. You've denied in the past that it's not true that addicts/alcoholics need to hit rock bottom, sometimes more than once, before they finally commit to treating their addiction. Well, that long rocky road is very real for many, if not all.
The double negative there is a bit confusing, so I hope I'm not contradicting myself, but the problem is "rock bottom" is not a very meaningful concept in a given situation. Take a room full of 30 recovering addicts and you'll have 30 different stories, different 'bottoms.'
So in some sense, maybe there does need to be a 'bottom' or some event, some moment of clarity for lots of us, but from where anyone else is sitting, that point is an unknown. Lots of friends came in before any "bottom" the outside world could see, others after YEARS on the street. One guy at the charity had been homeless for about 7 years, banned from the Salvation Army 'until Jesus returned' for fighting and stealing. Then he found a yellow pages by chance in another city, looked us up, scrounged up the bus fare, walked about 6 miles from the bus stop, and never looked back. There just aren't any rules or logic to it in a lot of cases.
Point is if a loved one has a problem, waiting for them to hit "rock bottom" isn't a good idea. No one can know what that is, and if loved ones wait until what they THINK is the 'bottom' the person might be dead, literally. So the right time to try and get someone help is always right f'ing now.
Lots of times it fails, but we learn from failure, so it's often a useful exercise even with relapse. Took me two times. During/after the first I learned 0 drinks is the right number that I can safely handle... Wasn't sure about that till then, then I was!
Maybe as long as 20 years ago there was a drug trial based upon what you mention--US currency with traces of cocaine on it.
The defense attorneys went to the nearest Federal Reserve Bank and managed to get a sample of shredded US currency from that bank. When analyzed, it turned out that about 90% of the samples of US currency contained traces of cocaine.
The jury acquitted.
By the way, quitting an addiction without rehab is like getting over a broken bone or damaged joint without physical therapy.
Alcoholics who quit without rehab are often known as "dry drunks" because despite quitting the excessive alcohol use that got them into trouble, they often continue to live as drunks, think like drunks and make the kinds of decisions a drunk would make.
This also applies to drug addicts as well.
Once the physical symptoms and the damage from drug addiction is healed, one must continue to make a consistent effort to heal the mind as well.
I'm speaking as a recovering drug addict with twenty-five years sobriety. My poison was cocaine, powder and then later, crack.
Kicked an IV meth habit, 5 years ago. I make sound choices these days. About 3 years ago, I found about a 40 piece of meth in a bag, while cleaning up a property, I was tempted for about 3 seconds, then I remembered the misery it brought into my life. I gladly ground it into the parking lot, under my heel.
Sat thru plenty of AA and NA meetings before I made the idiotic choice to do meth. Seemed a harmless choice, at the time.
Turned out to be quite the huckleberry, was strung out for a good two years.
Interesting that you mentioned NA, because early on in my effort to get sober, I tried out the Cocaine Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and they actually made me want to call my dealer, because it seemed like people were there to tell "fishing stories"...the grams turned into ounces, the party marathons, etc. It was B.S. so I wound up with a bunch of drunks at AA meetings.
I told them straight out that I wasn't ever a big drinker, and that I had no problem plugging in the word "coke" when they talked about booze.
They just seemed like they knew what they were doing, plus a lot of them were also druggies, too anyway.
So, for the most part, they accepted me, and I went to meetings for about five or six years. It's now twenty-five years since I put down the crack pipe for good. I can't even imagine smoking a rock now. Besides, I'm fairly certain if I did, it would probably kill me straight up the moment I did.
The misery? Yeah sure...I remember all of it but the bigger thing is, I'm scared to death of even letting anything like that in my body, I am sure my ticker would just stop dead in a hot second. I'd take a big blast on the pipe and I'd keel over dead. This old 60-something body isn't completely fragile but I suspect that coke would be the one thing I couldn't handle.
This is L.A. so crack is everywhere, I see the signs of it...the convenience stores with the Chore Boy and the "Love Rose" glass crack pipes.
You see that crap in a gas station or a bodega, you know the crackheads and the crack dealers are around.
No interest in it, in fact it's a bit creepy, because you also know that store will probably get robbed by the very boneheads they're selling to.
Had my run with coke but never took a shine to it, too much.
Likewise, I was introduced to smoking meth, or snorting it, or shooting it.
I tried smoking and snorting it and it didn't float my boat so I stayed with the crack.
I'm a total lightweight when it comes to ANYTHING else, alcohol, weed, anything else at all.
For me, the coke was the whole magilla, it was THE DRUG that I loved, and I did enormous amounts of it.
It was like Mother's Milk.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?