To think that addiction is a disease?

[feryon98]

Was having a discussion with a few coworkers about this and it seems to offend them when people claimed addiction is a disease and they said people with actual diseases don't have a choice.

Yes, addiction it's self inflicted but there are many diseases which are caused by an initial choice (e.g Eating unhealthy can cause Type II diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure,).

It is a mental illness yeah. Nobody chooses to ruin their life by carry on drinking, gambling or taking drugs when they lost their family, job, friends and even their home over it.

The addiction is like a disease in your brain, a compelling voice. If you've never had it it's very very difficult to understand or even have much sympathy.

This image of a heroin addict 'off his head, having a great time', is just not the reality for hardcore addicts. They need vast amounts of it just to not be violently sick. And sudden abstinence from alcohol can actually kill you.

Don’t you think that’s a little bit the wrong way round. They don’t choose to ruin their lives, but they do choose a set of actions which lead to their lives being destroyed. The reality of course is that addicts would happily choose to be off their face all the time, if it was a consequence free zone. Anything to avoid spending time with themselves.

It seems to me that when addicts (with a nod to trainspotting) choose life - that this is a choice. They are happy to stand by it. But when they choose not to choose life. That’s not a choice and therefore is something which they can absolve themselves from.

I think the relationship between addictive behaviours and personality is much more entwined that you give credit.

But lots of addicts do exist and don't do crime or ruin their lives. They still have little control over stopping. Without help that is.

Heroin is physically addictive. So withdrawal makes you genuinely physically unwell. Not just mentally. Anorexia is an addiction. That also causes physical symptoms. Cocaine addicts can suffer psychosis.

Thank you. I understand what you’re saying and why people would think that but my own experiences is that she chose alcohol over her kids and were suffering the aftermath of it. Incidentally I get less empathetic about her situation the older I get. When I was younger I was more understanding but not now in my current situation.

To top it off, one of my children is disabled and likely won’t ever be independent and life is very hard and stressful at times
and I could easily follow the same route as my mam (they do say addiction can be genetic so I tick that box and the trauma box) but what stops me is my children. I’m proud to say that one is almost an adult and I’ve never had a drink in front of them.

I do drink and I do go OTT sometimes when I do have a drink and they’re with dad and have a good binge to drown anyway my stress, but they are the reason I stop myself doing it more frequently, because I want to be dependable and never do something that will be detrimental to them.

Heroin is physically addictive. So withdrawal makes you genuinely physically unwell. Not just mentally.

Very true, but also whereas the unpleasant physical symptoms of opiate withdrawal do go away after a week or two, the bleak depression continues and it’s so difficult to stay off , knowing all that is needed is opiates to lift the despair - and obviously take one back into using.
A close relation of mine gave up via Narcotics Anonymous and has remained clean and still, several years later, goes to meetings.

Not all diseases are communicable. Heart disease, chronic kidney disease, Parkinson’s, diabetes, malaria, rheumatological diseases, CPD…. A disease is just a condition that has a pathology.

In contrast, children of alcoholics and drug users are exposed as use and are likely to have the use normalised within their family, so are vulnerable to becoming users themselves.

With drugs in particular, addicts have a choice at the beginning. If someone offered me cocaine I’d make a choice and say no.

Sure. But no-one is born an addict.

I grew up in middle of nowhere in the 70s and 80s Ireland, and I knew not to take heroin. No one can say “I didn’t know”, because the reality is they did know but thought that heroin addiction was for other people, and they were too smart, too achingly cool, too knowledgeable to not be caught out.

People absolutely do make choices.
And yes we should have compassion and support for when they want to choose not to take heroin, but we shouldn’t pretend that what precedes that is a long period of choosing drugs.

No, I really don't think it's an addiction at all

Addiction as a disease dogma makes me think of the phrase: Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. It minimises the addicted person's responsibility, very much lets them off the hook for the awful things they do and makes life so much harder on the people who love them, often framing their victims as the villain for their lack of sympathy.

This sums it up so succinctly!

It can be both, it starts as a choice and then can become a disease - but requires will power and effort to overcome and this can be different to other diseases. No-one should be receiving PIP for poor life choices.

and makes life so much harder on the people who love them, often framing their victims as the villain for their lack of sympathy.

@alittleprivacy i completely agree with this and as far as I know, in 12 step programmes blaming others isn’t acceptable. The addiction may not be responsible for his/her addiction but they are accountable for their actions.
I believe it’s genetic as alcoholics and addicts come from all sorts of backgrounds.

What I don't get though - if addiction is a disease, how can SOME people manage to

A) quit smoking through will power (I did this)

B) lose weight of their own accord ( not blowing a trumpet but I did this).

Was I not addicted to smoking? Did I not have an addiction to nicotine? I did.

Do I not struggle sometimes with sugar abuse? I do.

What is that? Are there different kinds of addiction? Is it all just the same umbrella of addiction?

Genuine question.

Genuinely I don't understand why some people can't or don't quit. My DM is 77 and has smoked for decades. She had a health check and she has the lungs of a 125 year old. She's cut down to 3-4 a day but she just can't quit.

No amount of me telling her - look you just have to get through the first few days works.

Even though I've seen her try so many times, then get cranky at day 3 and fail. She just doesn't correlate the crankiness to the quitting, it's like she forgets they are related, and just wants to relieve the crankiness.

Yet I know if she actually did it, she'd then be like 'oh darling I wish I'd just given up years ago'.

It honestly baffles me. The psychology.

I was highly put off when I was a kid being around smoking so I knew I never wanted to be an older adult smoking.

I also educated myself a lot about the damage it does which really reinforced my motivation - there's many ways to start quitting an addiction without actually taking any action yet- education, finding a support network, starting to change your environment etc. All helps reinforce change. Builds a gap between the addiction, your current self and your future self.

BlueberryOats · Today 18:42
Genuinely I don't understand why some people can't or don't quit.

I don’t think anyone knows. Addiction remains a mystery. Maybe one day there will be irrefutable evidence as to why some people become addicts, why some can stop and some can’t stop.
On threads on here posters have different views - it’s a disease/it’s not a disease. It’s caused by trauma or divorce or something. My mother was an alcoholic so I became one (and plenty of people say my mother was an alcoholic so I made sure I wasn’t an alcoholic so as not to inflict that misery on my children).
Some people swear by AA & NA, some don’t.
There are plenty of different opinions offered by medics as well.

I do drink and I do go OTT sometimes when I do have a drink and they’re with dad and have a good binge to drown anyway my stress, but they are the reason I stop myself doing it more frequently, because I want to be dependable and never do something that will be detrimental to them.

Seems like you might be treading a fine line there. As has already been said, addiction can creep up on you without you noticing. You're already saying you do it to cope with stress and basically self-medicate. Being a binge drinker isn't exactly great either is it.

Yes, but it doesn’t impact on my kids and that’s the line I wouldn’t cross. If I go out with the girls there’s always someone in the group that says “Let’s get another bottle” and we go “Ohh ok then” then we have sore heads the next day, because we’ve glugged an extra glass of wine, but that’s where it ends. So I’m certainly not tea total, but like many people who drink, I can over indulge on occasion, but I have limits I wouldn’t cross and I stick to them so it can be done.

How is sex non physical? 😳

That's good, just checking! Glad you're aware of your limits. I have an addictive personality and brothers who are alcoholics and it's too much of a risk for me to even touch the stuff.

I think they mean your body doesn't get physically reliant on it like alcohol or drugs.

Tell us you don't understand addiction without telling us you don't understand addiction.

I'm an angry person around this subject.
If you're life has been completely fucked over by an addict in the family, you have earned the right to call them exactly what you fucking well want.
I'm so so angry about it being all about them.

I prefer the word disorder. The word disease, to me, suggests something that just happens which you cannot help.

FindingMeno · Today 06:37
I'm an angry person around this subject.
If you're life has been completely fucked over by an addict in the family, you have earned the right to call them exactly what you fucking well want.
I'm so so angry about it being all about them

Absolutely. That’s why addiction is so terrible - the effect on families and anyone close to the addict. Or even people not close to - my alcoholic father was unbelievably rude to waiters, medical staff who were trying to help him and so on.
The blast radius goes a long way and it’s really grim for those on the receiving end.
Something like 70% of violent crime is committed by drunk people and addiction causes a lot of theft.
Maybe one day a solution will be found.