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,).

I'm not going to enable it and excuse it by medicalising it and calling it a 'disease'.

Addicts are selfish people who know exactly what they are doing and choose their lifestyle over the welfare and wellbeing of everyone else.

This is exactly how I feel about my mother!

Cancer is a disease and a consequence of smoking. Smoking is an addiction.

no one chooses to be an addict. It is awful and so often fatal.

That’s YOUR opinion

It is medicalised - alcoholism is in the DSM5. The vast majority of addicts have some kind of trauma, big or small in their background. It's not about having a great time while strung out but relieving the withdrawal that feels so impossible to live with.
A school mum died this time last year because she drank herself to death. She'd already lost her husband and children to it and so many people felt so lied to and let down when it was revealed what she died of. Of course I felt for her ex husband and children but it's also possible to feel foe the addict and to consider how desperate someone has to be to do that to themselves.

I think it's well known that addiction is a disease and should be treated as such.

aside from anything else 'addiction' means it's beyond their control. They do not derive anything positive out of it, it is not a choice anyone would voluntarily make. When as, for example in the case of PP's BIL seemingly extreme (but in reality, not that rare) example, the PP's BIL did not 'gain' anything by all the 'choices' that he made, no more than the fungus-infected ant climbing to the top of the branch to allow the fungal spores to blow through his head. He is not 'deciding' to do a bank robbery and go off and live in the Bahamas with a cocktail in his and on the beach. The mental compulsion (however derived) leads to such tragic self destruction and, as well correlated by others re dementia etc, such tragic impacts on families and loved ones. In the occasional moments of clarity they might be lucky/unlucky enough to have they know that. They know where addiction leads, and likely know people who have died of it. and STILL cannot stop. That is how powerful it is. a truly deadly disease. One of the biggest killers.

'That is how powerful it is. a truly deadly disease. One of the biggest killers'

A truly deadly condition maybe. One of the biggest killers maybe but unlike cancer and actual diseases one that the person has complete control over whether they care to accept that or not.

Is smoking a disease? No. Is gambling a 'disease'? No. They are addictions. I'd rather time, money and resources went into treating illnesses.

Hard disagree. I’ll let you read my previous posts to see my personal experience of this and why I feel this way.

I don’t feel my mother was the victim in a million years. I believe she chose alcohol over me and there’s nothing anyone can say on here that will make me feel sorry for her. She got pissed every night to ‘cope’ with my abusive father but we didn’t have the option to gets pissed so we had to deal with the abuse instead. Nice one!! Great parent, the poor woman….. Not.

She has a lovely childhood, made shit choices and we were all traumatised by our childhood and that trauma is evident today. Meanwhile she had an idyllic childhood. So I’m the prime example of someone who could be an alcoholic, genetic as some would say tick ✔️ trauma ✔️ yet I put the need of my kids above all else.

Reading some of theses posts makes me
sick. Absolving people of ANY responsibility is like saying someone who robs your house and takes away everything should be forgiven because they couldn’t help it…. After all, ‘who would chose to rob a house?’ don’t make me laugh!

@HamptonPlace

Just to add also, most people would do anything for their children and would take a bullet for them, because it’s instinctive to want to protect them. Not all mothers but I assume the majority would. Yet mine wanted to get pissed every single night even though it severely affected us
and she knew fine well it did. If she even half cared then she would have at least sought help but low and behold she never bothered, not once. You can only lead a horse to water, you can’t make it drink (mind the pun)

someone who's not an addict can indeed choose to consume whatever substance whenever they want to. Maybe that was your mother? I don't know. Being an addict doesn't make you a good person or bad person, though it can and sadly often does result in bad outcomes. Nor does being a good person or a bad person make you an addict or not.

I think “nobody chooses to be addicted” is complex, because of course nobody in active addiction is enjoying their substance and weighing up each day whether to have a hit / drink or a nice cup of tea instead. But, I have a cousin who has been addicted to heroin (and frankly whatever drug she can get) her whole adult life. She’s had periods of being clean after her parents have funded residential detoxes for her, but she always relapses. All it takes is meeting an old “friend” who is still addicted and going for a drink with them and ending up having a hit. I do understand that recovery from addiction is a lifelong process and that there are numerous pull factors which mean that people who have detoxed and no longer have a physical addiction frequently end up choosing to return to drugs - but ultimately I do see that as a choice, regardless of whether it’s a choice made because the choice not to is harder to make.

I’m also not convinced that the majority of addicts have a background of trauma we can absolve their behaviour with, tbh. Addicts in active addiction lie and they manipulate. That’s addiction. Unfortunately you can’t trust their narratives about their sad backgrounds any more than you can trust them when they say they haven’t been near drugs or alcohol all week, didn’t steal the cash that was in the drawer, and definitely went to their NA meeting yesterday. None of my cousin’s stories of trauma are true, but they do help her avoid accountability, and manipulate health professionals when she’s drug-seeking. It’s the addiction talking.

So sorry for what you endured .

It is indeed impossible to have any sympathy for these people who put their needs and wants above their supposed loved ones. 'They can't help it, it's a disease' 🙄. No, they can help it and it isn't a disease. It causes diseases.

I think she fits the definition of an alcoholic, she done it every day when I came home from school she was drunk. It was her escape from reality but instead of seeking help like AA or leaving my abusive dad, she stayed and continued to drink. That’s why I have zero sympathy and little time for any of it

'Being an addict doesn't make you a good person or bad person'

It absolutely makes someone a 'bad' person. A selfish, manipulative person. They all lie and thrive on causing drama and destruction.

Someone I know tries to help an allkie amd omg she's alway going to aa next week or the week after but first has to bore my pal to tears for hours going on about how bad her life is, when it isn't, the only bad thing in it is how how pissed she gets. She even lied about a made up sister who had died of cancer and the trauma made her get shitfaced. I've told my friend to block her and ignore.

Self inflicted disease.

an alcoholic is someone who can't stop drinking when they want to... doesn't sound from the information that you have provided that this was never attempted? p.s. the resentment however merited does harm only to yourself, my empathy for your troubled childhood..

'an alcoholic is someone who can't stop drinking when they want to''

An alcoholic is someone who won't stop drinking when they want to. You telling them they can't is enabling. You need to promote positive thinking a bit.

Are you telling the posters here who are adult children of alcoholics that? Really!

I mean, yes. It's awful and the ongoing effects on the other people affected are awful. That doesn't mean it's not a disease.

I'm an adult child of alcoholics and I do see it as a disease. My father was abusive and he could have chosen not to be abusive, but his alcoholism felt like an illness in that I don't think he could have chosen not to drink. I don't think he even realised it was a problem until it was too late.

I think it’s important that you educate yourself about diabetes op.
Tyoe 1 (as put in your post) is absolutely not a choice - type 2 is.

To me I’d say it’s mostly like other mental health issues - you’re more likely to get it in certain circumstances, there are things that you can do to help yourself but if you take 2 people and put them through the same experiences one may get the disease and the other may not. Mostly due to genetic factors.

Their point that people who get diseases have no choice also doesn’t entirely ring true. Diabetes (T2), lung cancer, Alzheimer’s, dementia, skin cancer, fatty liver, asthma, osteoporosis, many many other diseases can be caused or associated with smoking, drinking alcohol, obesity, lack of exercise, lack of thinking, not eating enough vegetables or calcium, where you live, your job choice.

Plenty of diseases are preventable or associated with lifestyle factors.

Every single addict I've ever known HAS in fact CHOSEN to either drink to excess or ingest illicit substances. How on earth is that not a choice?
To compare addiction to a disease is an insult imo. It's one of the only 'diseases' that can be cured through willpower, now if only cancer was so easy 🤔