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?

If someone drinks socially for example, and slowly becomes addicted, but did not have any MH difficulties to start with, does the alcoholism become part of a mental illness in itself? Or are the people I describe the ones likely to recover because they don't have an underlying condition?

I had an ED in my teens and early 20s. It's one of my biggest fears for my own teen DD. And I feel unbelievably guilty for what I put my parents through - and I was probably a really shit - and boring - friend as well.
But "just eat a burger/just eat more" didn't work. I knew what to do but for years, I just couldn't out of fear and control.

Most people know how to eat healthily ....but that ignores the emotional and psychological issues why people feel they cant

a close relative is an alcoholic.

I had several illuminating conversations over the years. One was them being astounded at the concept of “wasted” wine.

I live alone and used to drink wine at home but have stopped as I got so sick of throwing it away as 3 glasses over the period it stayed fresh with a Vacuvin was all I wanted.

relative was gobsmacked that I could open a bottle and not just drink it all.

I kind of get it. Chocolate has that effect on me but is more socially acceptable (will still shorten my life though).

That’s not how addiction works.

Your dad is addicted. He is a drug addict.

Anyone who takes codeine all day every day is addicted to that drug. They are not using the drug as a painkiller, they are using the drug so they don't suffer the withdrawal symptoms of stopping taking it.

The NHS can help him with his addiction.

There is help oit there except its never the 'right' kind of help 🙄.

Well, no, mostly it isn't the right kind of help and getting any help of any use is very very difficult unless you have a hell of a lot of money and even then.....

The argument that 'lots of people have shit childhoods and they don't choose to drink all day' holds no water due to the vast differences between one 'shit childhood' and another. These differences include age of onset of abuse, availability of secure attachment, socio-economic factors, level and opportunity of education to name but a few.

Our understanding of the true effects on the brain of early trauma is in its infancy. Society only started recognising that sexual abuse was widespread in the last couple of decades let alone begin to pick out the multiple effects or understand how to address them.

Therapy is very rarely offered on the NHS and even when it is research has found that ALL mental health interventions carry a success rate of around 50%. And it is hypothesised that it is the quality of the relationship with the therapist that makes the biggest difference. Difficult in a rushed, understaffed, underfunded health service.

But what if the 'addict' (to use that reductive term) has been so affected by their early neglect/abuse that they can't experience attachment as something safe let alone meaningful?

I have done therapy of one kind and another for twenty years. Sometimes three times a week. I fully committed. But despite this, I have not been able to improve the effect of the abuse that was carried out on me when I was very very young. In fact I feel worse now than when I started as at least I had some hope.

So when an addict says there is no help or not the right kind, actually they may have a point. Addiction services are on their knees. Often they address the addiction but not the underlying causes. But the therapists I have found who truly understand the effects of early child abuse are scarily low. And even then, mental health services will not treat anyone in active addiction but addiction services will declare mental health problems too complex for them.

Or, you may be right, they may not want to get better because to be sober would be to suffer an existence that for them may not be worth it and that's before the changes in neural pathways caused by alcohol have been addressed.

And yes, some people have no trauma in their backgrounds and still become addicted. Some addicts are likeable, some not. They are not of one mind.

I do appreciate, however, that many posters have had terrible experiences around addicts and anger is entirely understandable, particularly those who have posted about having an alcoholic parent. I suppose it is not as simple as saying it is an illness or a choice. It is so so complex.

And thanks to the poster who shared the Gabor Mate quote - so true. And to the same poster, I am sorry about your brother

They should tell you more about the power of addiction than it does about the addict.

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.

Well he might not be a junkie but he will be addicted and you’d be surprised at where that can lead you.

Addiction genuinely wasn’t a choice for me.

I was prescribed 56 codeine a week for back pain after my supportive office chair broke at work, my boss refused to replace it and sitting in a cheap hard backed chair for 12 hour shifts left me in agony.

After almost a year the chemist said I’d been prescribed the codeine too long and stopped the prescription and said to use paracetamol or ibuprofen.

After a couple of days I woke up feeling a bit rough but as the day went on it got worse and worse, I got stomach cramps that were so painful I was screaming and asking DP to knock me unconscious. I started being sick, I was sweaty but freezing and honestly believed I was dying.

We rang an ambulance who were concerned about the state I was in and I was given morphine, after the morphine kicked in I started to feel better. I spent 3 days in hospital having all sorts of tests but nobody thought it might be related to coming off codeine.

This happened again with another 3 night stay, I was given injections to stop DVT in hospital and co codamol to take away with me when I checked out for the pain.

A week later I was staying at my DP’s who lived in a different city from me at the time. The codeine had finished the day before but I was feeling fine and hospital assumed it was a bad stomach bug that I was over. I woke up the next day with the same symptoms and another ambulance called. One of the doctors noticed the needle marks where I had the DVT injections in a different hospital and assumed I was in drug withdrawal from heroin because my symptoms improved after morphine again. It took a lot of convincing him to believe me but this led him to finally realise it was codeine withdrawal making me so ill.

I was offered subutex to deal with physical withdrawal but didn’t want the stigma involved, after a huge amount of begging and my DP and mum saying they would support me, it was agreed I would continue to be prescribed codeine but reducing it slowly till I was weaned off.

By his point I was mentally addicted as well as physically, when they started to taper the prescription I realised how a good job it had been doing at blurring the edges of life. I’d recently lost my dad and I’d had a lot of trauma growing up and I’m also ND. I started panicking about being without it.

Because I’d had no actual professional support for the addiction everyone was so proud when I was finally weaned off and no longer physically addicted but it lasted just 7 weeks before I became seriously depressed without it. I felt like I had a huge hole in my life that nothing could fill and a desperate yearning that never went away.

I found out you could buy 100 codeine at a time on the internet and this is when my life really got dark.
I spent all my wages on codeine, lost all interest in doing anything else, I got into trouble at work and I kept it hidden so was lying to everyone. When I couldn’t get hold of it I smoked opium and I’m ashamed to say I’d rifle through friends medicine cabinets and handbags looking for opiates. I’d never steal anything else and taking medication didn’t feel like stealing because I needed it more.
My tolerance levels meant I had to take more and more…

I lost my job and started a new one, I lied to everyone that I had period pain/back pain/toothache, lots of people had codeine left over from being prescribed it for pain, then a colleague worked out I was addicted and offered to sell me his prescription weekly, I was still buying online and getting into debt and taking 50 - 80 codeine a day.

In the end the colleague selling me them (who was addicted to weed) grassed me up to work, it all came out and I was offered a choice - my job or my addiction. I was absolutely powerless over the addiction and terrified but DP found out and my family and friends and realised how bad things had become.

We went to my GP and I wanted to see the woman who had helped me wean off last time but instead I saw a different GP who was a horrible man and told me I was a junkie and he had no sympathy, he referred me to drug and alcohol services.
I do understand why he behaved like that now, addicts are self centred and he wasn’t prepared to be manipulated.

When I was refused to be prescribed any more codeine from drug and alcohol services I had the biggest meltdown imaginable, I cried, begged and it was like being told someone I loved had died. I was taught I had to grieve the end of what was a toxic love affair and start on the subutex.

That was 8 years ago and I’ve been clean (except for one slip up the first month) ever since.
I still take the subutex and I have to factor that into things like booking holidays because I need the prescription to take but I feel so much freer then before. I get so much support now as well and I’ve realised I have the capacity to get addicted to anything! I have the ultimate addictive personality, it’s highly possible if it wasn’t codeine it could have easily been something else.

People get addicted to drugs for different reasons but I think some people are just born with addictive tendencies, it might be coffee, alcohol, sugar etc… most people have a drug of choice.

I like to tell my story both as a warning and also it changes people’s perception on what an addict looks like. I came from a middle class background with parents who never even smoked - never mind touched drugs!
i have all my own teeth with no fillings even, I look “respectable” and people are often gobsmacked I take subutex.

The first time I picked up my prescription I felt I’d die of shame, the pharmacist was so kind though and told me people from all walks of life are prescribed it.
I was told it’s often doctors who end up prescribed it from getting high on their own supply.

When Matthew Perry died he was the perfect example of a man who could have had it all but “chose” drugs. I don’t see how anyone could look at him and possibly think it was choice.

I write this as I am watching my now estranged husband disintegrate from alcoholism. 'Rock bottom' is not pretty, and I know where he finds himself now is not where he wants to be. I don't know if he will be able to fix it. He certainly can't without major help. And there is the problem, those who try to help from a place of love, get hurt so much along the way in the end they have to put their life jackets on and save themselves. I thought he had reached bottom and we were on the way up so many times, but with each relapse the bottom got deeper, and in the end I had to get out. I'm crying as I write this.
I think the answers you get will vary from those who have never directly seen a loved one in addiction, those who know the story too well, and from the lucky and strong few who have fought their way out. I wish this world on no one.

@Minimili thank you for sharing your story, just shows how easy it is to slide without realising, hopefully it will make more people think

You are really brave telling this story. You have done amazingly well.

I posted upthread about my Mum refusing to try and get sober and the damage that has done to our relationship. Do you mind me asking if you have children? I’m not seeking to judge - I’m more curious about seeing this from the parent’s point of view.

Wow, You have done amazing. Its just so scary, I just find it crazy how some people can take things and be fine and others not. What do you think it was that made you addicted?

@Minimili thank you for sharing your powerful story.

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?

Surely the answer to this is very obvious? Your intake increases over time, your tolerance increases, so that you need more to have the same effect. You start to find it harder to have days without it. It starts to be the dominant thing in your life and take priority over other things. You don't turn from a moderate social drinker to an alcoholic overnight.

I'm fully aware it's now recognised as an illness etc but I think I get what the Op is trying to say.

To start with, it was very much a choice, likely a social habit that got worse and worse. (We see posts on here all the time from posters asking if 2-3 bottles a wine a week is OK etc) And on this person's journey, she still had a choice on not drinking I.e. only going to drink on a weekend or ensuring she has 4 days sober a week etc and being a parent and then there's the addiction itself which is the illness she now struggles with.

I've severe MH issues and I can admit to periods in the last few years where I've had a bottle of wine a night for 3 weeks to "help" me get through dark times when I hit rock bottom. That habit started for me during covid and I retired. It almost became normal to open alcohol at 3/4pm on the many many glorious sunny days we had. One glass soon became 2, soon became the bottle....I can imagine a hell of a lot of people ended up like that. I know when its becoming a problem when im hiding wine bottles from my DH because he nags, which makes me want the wine more. However, I can go months in the winter and drink nothing but I wont lie, first week or so every time I know I have to stop, i crave that first glass at the end of the day.....like most people crave the first cup of tea/coffee or cigarette.

So in short, addiction via alcohol doesn't start after 1 bottle v 1 shot of heroin for example and if said person suffered from depression or stress etc the journey time to reach addiction is quicker. I believed the wine made me feel happy, I thought I was a better person with it..... my skin, weight, PTSD said different but I didn't want to see it. I felt I needed the alcohol to be the person I used to be before MH.

Addiction is so very complex, you should read/watch Russell Brands story....quite enlightening.

It is an illness but one that can be conquered with the correct help and treatment.

However, some addicts are not willing to engage with the support services. I know this because I have a close family member who is alcohol dependent and has been offered several chances of help going down the recovery route but refuses to accept the help.
I can only hope they will see the light before it's too late x

I agree with this. We know the risk factors for developing alcoholism or drug addiction.

I used to drink a box of dry white wine (I think that's about 3 bottles). I was a fully functioning alcoholic. That certainly didn't help.

Maybe I need to raise this with my dad. I honestly cannot get over this, I am so sorry for what you went through

That's a great way to look at it. So sorry about your brother💐

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

Yes - alcoholism & addiction has a terrible effect in those around them. No one who hasn’t had an alcoholic or addict close to them can really understand what it’s like.

Heroin isn't just psychologically addictive, it's physically addictive and if you felt a withdrawal you'd understand why it's so hard for addicts to stop. If it was as easy as just saying I'll stop there wouldn't be any addicts

From what you've written there it sounds like you are an addict