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?

You have worded it so
Much better than me. My mother is the same, I lost all
Sympathy years ago and we have very very limited contact. If I thought she was actually trying to stop/ get help then I would be there. She simply won't. It's so hard to be that child,

I've actually forgot when replying on this thread that I have a nicotine addiction. I just don't think alcohol is as addictive a drug as that and it would take a lot of effort to get addicted to it. I managed to get off cigarettes a few years ago, but I'm still using nicotine. I think though that I just don't have a great reason to stop at the moment. Saying that it took a lot to stop smoking cigarettes

I worked in a detox unit for people addicted to either drugs, alcohol or both. Sadly, many of them died, mainly, in my opinion, due to abuse in childhood and related mental ill-health. In my experience, once people are in the cycle of addiction/detox, it's very difficult to get out without long-term support and non-judgemental help.

Junkie is an unhelpful word.

If your dad takes codeine all day every day (even if he legitimately needs it), there is a good chance he is addicted to it but he wouldn’t know this unless he has tried to stop taking it.

Because many people like to judge.

I think people sometimes forget that addiction isn't immediate. I went through childhood having the odd glass, teenager drinking illicitly in pubs or behind the park shed with friends, university binges and lots, lots of clubbing, adulthood drinking on and off and then slowly every night and then slowly creeping up until I realised I was an alcoholic. Now I look back I can see that the addiction was setting in whilst in childhood - but how was I, a child, supposed to know that the dopamine and endorphins I was getting from the alcohol that everyone else was also drinking, would cause just my neural pathways to change and become addictive and responsive to alcohol? I was a child. Yes, I didn't become an alcoholic then, but that's because I was a child with limited access, no shopping ability etc... Does that make sense? It's a slow path and one that you don't recognise until too late. Yes, once I realised it was my responsibility to seek help, work for my cure and recover, but it's impossible to express how hard that is unless you've been through it.

Because while it's not a choice, it's also not an excuse.

Addiction is not a 'socially acceptable' illness because of the completely unacceptable behaviour that goes hand in hand with addiction.

Often addicts don't seek help or follow through with the support offered to them in the way people with other illnesses would. It's hard to be sympathetic when a person won't help themselves.

Addiction always affects many more than the person who is unwell.

For example, your relative has had care of her daughter taken over by her own parents due to her addiction. It's hard to be sympathetic to her plight when her daughter has suffered and her parents have changed their lives because of her illness.

There are many more reasons why addicts are judged. Read up on it.

This
If it was that easy to "just stop", don't you think they would?!

Alcoholism runs in my family. I don’t know the reason why some people can ‘choose’ to give up and others cannot. I think it depends on personality, past trauma and general living conditions/support. In my parent’s case, they suffered possible brain damage as a child (bomb injury during WW2) and with two alcoholic parents I don’t think they stood much of a chance.

I think with all addictions the primary relationship is with the addictive substance and that is very difficult to unpick.

There is no such thing as an ex alcoholic.
Every day is a battle against the shadowy figure in the background.
It’s far easier to accept a drink than to refuse.
A close family member had two broken marriages and died in her forties, she was not able to beat alcoholism.
The cause of death, “acidosis of the liver, due to prolonged alcohol intake. “

I think for many its an element of both. If you think of addiction in the same way as you would any other illness, people can be struck with it through no fault of their own, but once they have the illness, most are able to make at least some choices to influence its trajectory. Seeking appropriate help (admittedly very difficult now for addiction), self care, taking your medication, avoiding situations that make you worse, and so on. Unfortunately some people will be already too ill to do these things. Other people so ill doing them makes little difference. Still others will be trying and failing to address symptoms without any diagnosis or treatment of the underlying illness. Which almost always leads to poor outcomes.

I think this is right. It certainly isn’t a choice to become an addict. An awful lot of addicts are people who struggle to deal with childhood trauma, undiagnosed mental illness and other problems.

But I think some of language about addiction being an illness is misleading and sometimes is used as a bit of a get out of jail. A predisposition to addiction isn’t a foregone conclusion or a reason not to try, which is the way it’s sometimes presented by addicts or their enablers.

There are certainly people who are far more likely to become addicted and who find it difficult or impossible to rid themselves of their addiction.

But when people repeatedly refuse to engage with attempts to help them and to get them to prioritise health in the face of threats of the loss of their family etc I think it does become a choice. Repeated failure to work with support is a choice.

I enjoy a glass of wine, how would I know if I was becoming an alcoholic? do you just one day realise you're an addict?

Largely because society tells them to. The whole premise of AA is that ‘you have no control’ it’s seen as a weakness. People are celebrated when the stop smoking or loose considerable amounts of body fat. If you give up alcohol people ask’ what’s wrong with you?, Do you have a problem?’

Speak for yourself

Many people probably have incredibly shit experiences regarding 'addicts' and their plethora or excuses and destructive behaviour. It isn't 'judging' it is zero tolerance.

Never their fault, its always a disease or their childhood. Newsflash plenty of people have had shit childhoods and various hardships, they don't resort to getting pissed all day every day. There is help oit there except its never the 'right' kind of help 🙄.

Alcohol is unusual in that only a small subset of people are susceptible to addiction (whereas some substances, such as nicotine, are highly addictive for everyone). Because alcohol consumption is widespread, alcoholism can be put down partly to bad luck, although anyone with a family history of it would be well advised to be teetotal.

Addiction is caused by changes in the brain which drive 'seeking' behaviour. This was brought home to a friend of a friend, whose husband was prescribed a Parkinson's drug and as a result developed a new, and raging, gambling habit (reversible, fortunately).

Addiction should not be confused with withdrawal. Alcohol withdrawal is medically dangerous.

But people don't choose to become addicted. Some people can drink and never become an addict - some people develop the illness of alcoholism. Just like some people develop or are born with chronic illnesses and some don't.

People are very fixated on the initial choice to use a particular drug as though that proves addiction is a choice: if that were the case, everyone who ever has a Smirnoff Ice at 14 would become an alcoholic. But they don't. ("Oh but what about socially unacceptable drugs like heroin, you can't do that without really knowing how addictive it is?" is usually the response to this - and I worked in addiction services for quite some time and never, ever met an addict using heroin or crack that wasn't already actively 'addicted' - by which I mean the mental illness of addiction had taken hold, regardless of what drug they were using prior - before they took heroin/crack.)

Addiction is an illness you can be predisposed to (therefore being 'landed' with it, the same as your chronic condition). There's a degree of heritability in drug addiction (including initiation of use, so being literally predisposed to try taking drugs in the first place), and various things make you more likely to develop addiction. Plus you're more likely to develop an addiction if you have certain comorbid conditions such as ADHD or schizophrenia.

People see 'you choose to take X, therefore it's a choice' and they don't realise that it's the wrong way of looking at it - that the disease of addiction is 'unable to make choices about X like someone without the disease'.

YOU might be able to say, 'ooh, no, don't fancy drinking more, thank you' and put the bottle down. Addiction as a disease robs someone of the ability to make that choice in the same way.

There is loads online about signs you're boozing too much. Do people call you out on it, are you hiding bottles, are you drinking every single day?

Enjoying a glass of wine is of course normal. It's when you're enjoying a bottle of wine a night and more that you might want to question things.

Usually people close to you flag it up as a concern because your use of the substance in question has started to cause issues for them, or they've noticed a negative change in you. Occasionally people do this themselves, but its rarer, as the pull to denial to enable continued usage of the substance is powerful. Some people fear addiction, its in their family or they've noticed predisposition in themselves, so they're very vigilant. There's loads of stuff on line about recognising addiction and self assessments as to whether your substance use is problematic.

I think some of the replies have been a bit harsh. Several of my family members are alcoholics, including my mum. I know deep down that this is not a choice she is making however sometimes on the worst days I can't help but feel like she has made a choice. No-one is forcing her to buy and consume alcohol and I sometimes feel like she has given up and is just going to intermittently binge until her body decides enough is enough. It's like watching a very slow suicide and it fucking hurts.

It's not just motivation that's needed though, and the realisation that one's behaviour is hurting loved ones can send lots of addicts into a darker place rather than making them 'snap out of it'.

Probably because of the lies, deceit and general chaos that addiction brings. Including the ruining of their own lives and of their partner / family

But addiction is a very complex issues with a range of causes and maintaining factors. Plus is very personal to the individual. I struggle to believe people wake up one deciding being an alcoholic / drug addict is a cool way to do. Like a lot of things addiction creeps up upon people over time

Yes, this is a good point.
A lot of people who have alcohol every day for a long while or painkillers wouldn't know there was a possible problem unless they suddenly tried to stop.