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?

I suppose what I dont understand is, yes I like a drink, would I drink to the point it harms my wellbeing, no, Yes, I do take painkillers but feel it would be a choice to take them all day everyday, sometimes it is hard to say no to these things but I dont do it because I want to be a good parent and a good person.

I could easily choose to do it as I do enjoy the feeling, but I dont do it, does that make sense? this is what makes me think it is a choice.

@Janiie how many years experience do you have working in mental health or addiction? You are creating services that don't exist. There is very little in the way of support, especially for those with dual diagnosis (so for addiction and mental health). For many this is a symptom not a cause and the environmental factors are huge and often unable to be changed.
For someone living in a bedsit, unable to work, chronic pain, unresolved trauma, living on benefits, there is little to do. It's all very well celebrities turning to yoga or travel to fill the void but what is Edna, 74, on pension credits, living in a council estate, actually going to do to fill her day if she's not drinking two litres of cider?

@Janiie but what your not seeing is the level of support offered and if said person can get through the triaging.

That's right. You can immediately access top rate counselling and support, realise what a silly old weak willed person you have been and start all over again. I mean there is so much instant help and understanding out there. It's just that addicts have chosen to ruin their and everyone else's lives on purpose! We must all be nothing but selfish psychopaths. We need more Janiess in compassionate roles.

Yes, I wanted to change for years and years and years, but the terror of having to face up to WHY I became an alcoholic was actually more frightening.
When I finally did, 12 years ago, it was really not pleasant. I was extremely lucky that I had an amazing family and friends around me and have had extensive therapy since then to confront the demons that made me drink.

Those who don't have that and have to wait for months for half hour appointments or are forced into group sessions, which can be scary and difficult and not for everyone by any means, because of lack of funding, find it much more difficult. The easiest way is to carry on.
You have no idea at all

They don't give up for their kids because they think their kids are better off without them.

@Fritatayay have you read the posts on here from children of addicts who thought no such thing? Or if they did think this way, they didn’t do anything about it?

It’s not black and white so please don’t paint addicts as innocent victims. It’s offensive to those of us who actually are victims of their behaviour.

As I said upthread, they might not feel able to stop drinking/drugs whatever, but they can choose, for example, to relinquish custody of their children, leave the family home etc yet many, many addicts do not do this.

Yes I understand that but everybody knows that drinking yourself into an oblivion is not good for you o anybody around you

Essentially what you have is a broken system.
People with unresolved trauma become addicts. The drinking dulls the impact of the trauma, the drinking stops. The trauma comes back up to the service and the NHS can offer nothing. If you are not at risk to yourself and others you are not getting through to mental health services. You will be offered Vitaminds so 14 sessions of CBT. It achieves nothing. So you drink again.
Do you see what I'm saying? It's not stopping the drinking which is necessarily the problem. It's helping all aspects of the person. Helping with housing, employment, benefits, proper mental health support, help with establishing friendships outside of addiction, these are the things that matter.
Without that, the addiction will reoccur.

This. We all probably enjoy the feeling after having a drink or, as I said earlier if you take codeine yes it will stop the pain but give you a buzz too.

What you don't do is do it all day every day regardless of what trauma or hardship you've experienced.

I would suggest many if not most have experienced challenges whether moderate of extreme, it's all relative, but we all know the eftects of excessive booze and drugs consumption, it isn't new news. So yes choose to get pissed or high, adults can do as they like but stop the enabling and accept total responsibility.

I have had trauma in my life but sought counselling? everybody has?

@NoseNothing I also have a parent who is an addict. That doesn't prevent me from seeing him as a essentially deeply unhappy person searching for connection but terrified of actually connecting, because they feel things will go wrong.

This is my take on it 100%, Yes I enjoy it, and it is a choice if I want to destroy my life with it.

I'm leaving now. The few of us on here who have been through it and understand the realities, kudos to you. Its shit - well done! The others who re all wide eyed and 'Just get help'; I hope you never have to actually experience the reality. Carry on in your bubbles.

@LameyJoliver well done on making it through, the world is a better place with you in it x

I have lived around addiction at various points of my life. Both my father and my ex husband were alcoholics (my dad high functioning, my ex less so). My best friend at school became a heroin addict, is now presumed dead. I have known numerous other people with substance abuse problems, most of them drinkers.

The one constant I have observed with all these people is a desperate failure to achieve the self worth they need when sober. A lot of these have childhood trauma. My dad was a brilliant, highly intelligent and successful man who was very socially gifted but he felt a constant need to perform and seek approval which he couldn’t achieve without alcohol. My ex husband was less brilliant but I also observed the same need for alcohol in order to “be himself”. When not drinking these people are often noticeably shy, anxious and irritable.

A lot of alcoholics present as quite charismatic and extrovert when they are on form and are seductive and convincing to people before they realise there’s a problem.

I have a theory with alcohol in particular that it becomes hard wired into people’s social persona that the version of themselves when drinking is the “real” them and they struggle to recreate a sober version of themselves which isn’t wracked with self hatred. It just becomes easier to go with the quick fix which allows them to be “themselves” than do the hard work of recreating themselves sober. It also takes self-awareness that many people don’t have.

I’m not sure if this applies to opioid addiction: I think that follows quite a different path. But I have seen this phenomenon in masses of alcoholics.

I do feel for you that you have struggled, but you cannot deny that it was a choice to cay on. I think addicts also lack the ability to admit they were wrong and use the illness part as an excuse to carry on, you have to accept some responsibility.

I’m not sure how that addresses my point.

'Essentially what you have is a broken system. People with unresolved trauma become addicts.'

'A broken sytem'. Oh please. As I've just said Google 'drug and alcohol services in your area' and a great long list comes up.

Every single person has unresolved trauma to some degree, find me one person who hasn't had trials and tribulations. It's a cop out to blame life choices on challenges and bad experiences. There are far better ways of dealing with things. Not as much fun as a bottle of vodka though.

@Fritatayay I can see how unhappy my mother is, but she still insisted on raising me and my sister because she was adamant she should, despite knowing she wasn’t fit to. So none of this “they think their children are better off without them” bollocks you’re spouting.

Did you see the post upthread about the abuse one poster received because both her parents were heroin addicts?

Yes because we have no experience of it? Riiiiiight.

No-one is wide eyed. The truth is inconvenient, help and support is there. Systems aren't broken.

Exactly. I have a tonne of trauma from being raised by an alcoholic. Am I an addict? No. I seek help to process my trauma.

My mother has been offered help countless time, NHS and private. Makes no difference. She’s a selfish addict.

I really wish people would stop painting all addicts as innocent victims. Huge numbers of them are not interested in getting help and are quite content to continue damaging those around them.

@Thepeopleversuswork that's certainly true of the people I've known too. I think undiagnosed neurodiversity is a big reason why many people in previous generations drank. Undiagnosed autism in a world that didn't understand, masking with alcohol, pressure to socialise, pressure to confirm to a societal norm of what a man is/ does etc etc.
There's also the endorphins side.
This is what people fail to grasp. In rats they've done experiments where rats learn they can get an instant reward or wait and a get a bigger reward. Some rats learn whilst some just get the instant reward over and over. Yet some feel this is about self control. It's biologically harder for some people to resist impulses.
And if anyone who is commenting about self control is overweight then you must understand this.

This with bells on .

@NoseNothing you think you would have been better in the care system? You know that do you?

Yes I agree. I am sure 90% of people would love the feeling opioids give (I am aware some people cannot tolerate them). I would happily live in an opiate bubble if I thought it was the right thing to do, but I know it isnt so I use my strength to not do it.