To wonder if addiction is a choice

[BarbaraAnnee]

I am sorry if this sounds insensitive to some people but I just wondered what people thought of this. A relative of mine is an alcoholic and due to her being unfit, her parents have had to permanently look after her DD. I feel so bad for her and just wondered if she really loved her DD she would just stop drinking?

😂😂😂😂 no…no it’s not a choice, it’s an illness

It's not a choice, nobody would choose to be addicted to anything.

Of course it isn’t a choice. If she had a choice she wouldn’t be an addict!

It's an illness. Recognised by WHO/NHS as such.

It is not a choice, and stopping drinking suddenly can be fatal. I have a friend with a genetic condition that made him an alcoholic from his first drink as a teenager. He has stopped now, but it took many years battling, and a lot of medical support

I was initially going to write a very scathing post in response to OP. But I actually think it speaks volumes about you as a person OP. Are you someone who wants to help, save and fix people simply by loving them enough?

Of course addiction is not a choice. It is a mental illness and coping mechanism.

If that is the case then why do people judge them so harshly?

I think there’s alot of factors when it comes to addiction.

Childhood
Upbringing
Past trauma
Genetics
Where you live
Mental health

and the list goes on. People don’t wake up and say hey i think I’ll ruin my life and start taking heroin today. People make choices because of what they’ve been through, what they’ve witnessed and see as normal or because they feel or think a certain way due to many aspects and they think things like drink or drugs will take that pain away. It’s not simple.

IME It's possible for healthy, well adjusted people to get themselves physically dependant on alcohol and drugs.
Those people can sometimes beat addiction relatively easily with a detox and a change of lifestyle.

Then there's people with trauma who need something to self medicate and cope with life. Those people have a really hard time beating addiction. And often remain psychologically addicted even when the physical addiction has been treated.

The possibility (or actual reality) of losing a child is the kind of thing which will motivate the first kind of person to tackle an addiction.

If it wasn't enough for your family member, I would guess she's the second type.

Being addicted to something is not a choice. But there is an element of choice in whether or not an addict seeks recovery. Just as with any other illness, seeking treatment and therapy can be uncomfortable and unpleasant and involve a lot of effort, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a choice if treatment isn’t engaged with.

It's an illness. I am 3rd generation on my mother's side. Rehab didn't help. The first thing I did when I left rehab was get a drink. My new GP is far more understanding and I have changed what I drink. Boring, low ABV, cider with the occasional bottle of wine.
If I could change I would.
But, please, no one suddenly stop. I spent my DD's 21st Birthday in intensive care as I thought me saying I had given up would be the best present I could give her. It was the worst.
Hopefully anyone with this awful illness has a kind, caring GP.

I am so sorry you're struggling with this. How much did you drink beforehand?

I suggest you do some research on this if this is a serious question? Addiction ruins lives, people don't generally want to have unhappy lives and be unable to look after their own children, and if they do, then it's likely there's a lot of trauma to unpick.

Well taking heroin for the first time is a choice but sure from there it can be an addiction

But can heroin addiction be compared to 'I am so addicted to the gym'

People judge them so harshly because they don’t understand. Because words like ‘junkie’ and ‘alkie’ are so easy for some people to throw around. Because society always has to have an enemy, someone to look down on.

My younger brother died last year of a drug overdose.
If addiction had been merely a simple choice then he would still be here.

If it was a choice, do you really think she'd be choosing to abandon her child? Addiction is so strong it ruins people's lives. That's not any kind of choice at all. Who would make a choice to be a petty criminal, a street prostitute, to live in a bare room with no possessions, to lose your friends and family and dignity?

Taking alcohol and drugs for the first time is a choice; continuing to do so might be a choice, but addiction - by its very nature - isn't.

Can only speak from my experience, over a decade clean and sober now.

It wasn't a choice for me. I was self-medicating to mentally escape from a childhood and teen years of physical, sexual and psychological abuse. I needed to get away from the pain and noise in my head. As a child I did self harm and eating disorders, then found that drink and drugs worked better. As the years went by I was fully aware it was destroying my life but the thought of trying to do life without them was far more frightening than dying young, getting ill, getting a serious injury. Ended up in lots of dodgy and downright horrible situations.

I got clean through AA, NA, therapy and religion. I wouldn't be alive right now without that.

Different for everyone but that's my experience. Have since met lots of addicts with abuse in childhoods.

It's an illness. My ex was an alcoholic. He had a very traumatic childhood and never managed to recover. I can see that in his case he used to alcohol to self medicate and numb the pain. I think a lot of addicts (not all) are the same and trying to block out painful feelings.

I’m not sure the framing is helpful. People aren’t choosing to be addicted but if you just say it’s an illness you take away the power people have to control their actions. To overcome addiction people need to feel they have some control.
It’s unhelpful from a social point of view. Some people see addiction as a failure of community and connection. If we just view it through a biomedical lens, as a brain disease we miss the point.

Because most people are so very ignorant that they cannot (or will not) comprehend how something that is a non-issue for them can possibly exert so much influence over another person.

It is not a choice to have an addictive personality.
It is not a choice to be able to stop whatever is causing the addiction like a normal person.

However it can be a choice to start on that particular path. Most people are aware they could get addicted the first time they take heroin or cocaine etc. Same for tobacco or gambling imo. Bit harder to say they had a choice regarding alcohol unless they knew they had an addictive personality pre 16 which is unlikely.

I very rarely drink as I know I could end up an alcoholic if I drank regularly, so I choose not to. Same for drugs. However I still struggle with sugar, and it took me 40 years to stop smoking despite trying multiple times.

I just think if I knew my child was suffering from my behaviour it would be enough motivation to try and stop. Obviously I am now worried about the trauma her DD has experienced due to her drinking.

I can only speak for myself. I am an alcoholic who has now been sober for 8 years. I is not my choice to be an alcoholic, but if I drink 'just one' I simply become unable to stop. Its like the rational part of my brain stops working and the part that says "no, stop at one" , is just gone. So I drank more, got into a mess and gradually alcohol takes over. I have an addiction problem with respect to alcohol.

What IS my choice is not to take the first drink. Never. Just don't do it. I'm not saying that choice was easy in the beginning, and even after 8 years sobriety its still not always easy, but it IS a choice, and within my control.

Addiction is both an illness AND a choice

No it isn't as simple as being a choice.
There are many choices made within addictions but the overall addiction isn't a choice.

People judge harshly because people love to punch down, and as someone whose mother couldn't choose to get better to keep her children, they like to sneakily pinch the child on the way past while patronizing them.

Anyone whose addiction or MH issue leads them to poverty, poor hygiene, loss of control, is easier to disparage and judge, than offer kindness and a helping hand to.