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?

It is how it starts. Drinking as it feels nice it numbs the pain, then to get through the day etc etc. The op is about is it a choice. Yes it is.

The thing is a lot of the times it creeps up on people - it's the boiling frog analogy.

It may start with just a couple of drinks a day to wind down in the evening, or a couple of pain pills for a dodgy back.

Then those 2 drinks/pills aren't quite hitting the spot so you try 3 a day ... and so on until it's at point of being a problem.

It's probably more unusual to go from no drinks/pills to addition levels taken daily

No, afraid not. If it were a choice no one would be an addict.

Yep doing the same thing repeatedly as it feels good then unsurprisingly it stops feeling good. I was waiting for the bit where it ignores the nugget, walks past it and life lights up again but unfortunately they missed that bit out. Defeatist self indulgent twaddle imo.

It is a choice to carry on, not accepting help or deciding to go for treatment, despite knowing the SHEER AGONY it is putting your loved ones through.

Metal anguish, physical anguish, emotional anguish.... the friends and family suffer most, yet are helpless.

People are also failing to acknowledge the massive difference between mental ‘addictions’ and physical addictions. You can be addicted to chocolate but you wouldn’t die from withdrawals if you ran out in the same way you could with alcohol, heroin, tranquillisers, for example.

The first drink/cigarette/drug is obviously a choice.

Personally, I don’t believe that people are addicted to cigarettes, simply through personal experience. I was a heavy smoker for 15 years, since late childhood. My husband hated it and refused to try for a child if I continued. So I stopped, simple as that, there and then because he and having our child WAS more important to me. Found it surprisingly easy and haven’t smoked since. That child is nearly 30 now.

Can’t speak for the other issues, not experienced them.

This is right.

I speak as a recovering alcoholic with over five years of sobriety.

I think I could stop vaping ok if I wanted to, but cigarettes were really hard to give up for me. I would get terrible withdrawal and always gave in until a couple of years ago. People might think it's the same addiction, but it's a weaker one for me anyway

Maarta
I think I could stop vaping ok if I wanted to, but cigarettes were really hard to give up for me. I would get terrible withdrawal and always gave in until a couple of years ago. People might think it's the same addiction, but it's a weaker one for me anyway”

I suppose it might be a case of finding that one thing that’s more important to you. Well done.

@MrsSkylerWhite Thanks, but I credit it to taking a few low doses of psillocybin, and I absolutely believe it could help so many people if it were licensed to treat addiction

I was taking pain pills for a few a year or so before I had kids and the Dr would have carried on Prescribing but I thought no this is not the life for me and just stopped

Granted alcohol withdrawal can be fatal but it takes a lot to get to the point you have withdrawal symptoms, that decision should have been made way before that point.

I knew DH was going shopping the following day so I asked him to pick some up then.

Wow that is impressive, I always thought smoking was one of the hardest things to give up

FGS listen to yourself.

You have made an arbritrary decision that some illnesses are "acceptable" and others (to which you are not very susceptible) are entirely the fault of the ill person.

So why did you start this thread? You plainly are not interested in any of the research on mental health, genetics or sociological factors around addiction.

As for "the help is there people choose not to take it" - good luck accessing the level and quality of care needed on the NHS. If you can pay there is meaningful help available. A phone number which then "triages" you out of the system, offers you a cheap few hours of CBT from a non clinically qualified counsellor (if you can wait 12 months) or tells you there is help if you can pay for it is not "help" and the total prize for a condition which is characterised by multiple recurrences before real recovery - you only get one crack and the piss poor care available. Its a fig leaf enabling CCGs to tick a box.

Lucky you - you missed the genes which likely contributed to your sister's "weakness". Be aware your children may have those genes, you might want to learn some facts about risk and susceptibility to addiction and why some of us can drink and put the bottle back in the fridge and others cannot.

You are missing the point. I love a drink etc but I know my life would be ruined if I did it all the time.

Was I addicted to those pain pills all those years ago because I just stopped? not because I had to, I could have carried on, I made a choice not to, what you think?

The help is there trust me. You just have to want it enough as it will not come to you. I begged and begged for help when I had PND, every day, multiple times a day.

That still isn't how addiction works. And you are using your own experience - it doesnt translate to other types of addiction.

You are not LISTENING.

Could it be that this is the point though, that people often develop their addiction in adolescence ? I think that was how I got addicted to nicotine, because I was so young I was irresponsibly just using it constantly with no thought to moderate it. I do understand people with established heroin addictions it not being easy to just stop, but I do still struggle understanding being addicted to less addictive substances. Maybe also some personal resentment regarding alcoholism. It's hard when someone has harmed you through it

There are phone lines link frank who can signpost, Samaritans, Crisis lines, drug helplines.

I think the drugs that cause nasty withdrawal symptoms would be hard to stop, like heroin. It must be awful just doing something for the sake of it even though it doesn't get you high to avoid the withdrawals. A heroin addict must run out of money frequently and have to go through withdrawal, I wonder how many times they do actually experience it.

I have also watched some videos of alcoholics who look terribly sick and are even struggling to get a drink down them as it makes them so ill.

Say I was addicted to those pain pills, how did I just stop? I made a decision? Nobody even knew, I was functioning, not taking copious amounts and the DR kept prescribing them. I told the Dr I no longer needed them, I did miss them a little but the urge to not have something ruin my life was the greater pull.