Addiction is not a Disease

originally posted by: dollukka

Only for Hispanics, individuals who have a genoset composed of rs1799913(C;C) and rs7963720(T;T) are reported to be at 14x higher risk for developing heroin addiction (CI:0.83-244.63, p=0.012).[PMID 18181017]

also more behind the link
LINK

What race of Hispanics are they talking about? The Asian ones? the Black ones? the Indian ones? Surely not the White Hispanics. Are they talking about Mexicans? Do they mean if you have a Spanish last name you have a higher chance of being a heroin addict?

As I read these posts I get the image of the drug commercials that run the 30 seconds at the end of all the negative side effects that could happen with their great drug, and this tells us that every human is very different from each other. Addiction is much like this where every human reacts differently to drugs and environmental events. I have a sister that will become addicted to anything, she can not even take aspirin without abusing it in a short period of time, so there is something physical in nature that each of us has as to whether we are more incline to addiction or not.

This leads us to why it is called a disease

The brain has been physically altered by extended exposure to alcohol, causing it to function differently and therefore creating addictive behavior.

The problem with this statement is the old chicken or the egg causality dilemma. My sister to me is a great example of a person with an addiction gene or some other physical difference she has had her whole life and I do not. The addiction is there waiting, it is not created otherwise why would not huge numbers of us get this disease when we drink.

Another point to disprove the disease theory is that addiction is greatly influenced by environment. In fact the environment play a major role in addiction. When you remove a person from the environment where they started the addiction the addiction goes away. There was a famous study after the Vietnam war to follow around 10,000 heroin users when they returned back to the states. Those that started using heroin over in Vietnam had a high 90% that they never used it again. Those who started with heroin here in the states first before they went to Vietnam had about a 90% plus they would continue to use it. This is why Rehab clinics/getaways work at least for a short period. The person is removed from the environment, the addiction goes away, then the person goes back to the environment and the addiction comes back. I do not think a disease would do this.

a reply to: galaga

I hoped people will look behind the links (which has links to actual studies)

At the two locus genotype level in Hispanics, the TPH1 rs1799913 variant was found to significantly interact with the TPH2 rs7963720 variant and heroin addiction (P=0.022), and with the TPH2 rs4290270 variant and heroin addiction (P=0.011)

Through the links you get the study and it was categorized as "Hispanic Americans/genetics"
They study genes not the last names

originally posted by: galaga

originally posted by: dollukka

Only for Hispanics, individuals who have a genoset composed of rs1799913(C;C) and rs7963720(T;T) are reported to be at 14x higher risk for developing heroin addiction (CI:0.83-244.63, p=0.012).[PMID 18181017]

also more behind the link
LINK

What race of Hispanics are they talking about? The Asian ones? the Black ones? the Indian ones? Surely not the White Hispanics. Are they talking about Mexicans? Do they mean if you have a Spanish last name you have a higher chance of being a heroin addict?

What you just said makes absolutely no sense.

I'm with you OP!!!

I have an auto-immune disorder, it is a disease. I got no choice in the matter(but I still feel and try to be responsible in some really kind of f-cked up way)?

Addiction, however, just doesn't f-cking compare. For real, wtf? People are just literally running from personal responsibility. I know it's HARD, sometimes, it's very hard. And OP, I do think that people in general can't help themselves. Like, can we really blame them for never wanting to own their lives? It's so much easier when you just do what you're told, instead of working on making up your own mind about a thing and imagining and wanting something different.

Different is just too scary, even if that means better. It's the CHANGE that people are afraid of, not getting better. Still, it's a choice, yep. And it's about self-control, yep. You're spot on.

I love you!

a reply to: geezlouise

I don't know man, have you ever had to deal with addiction or someone who is addicted?

It's not cut and dry there is a lot of gray area and when your in the throws of it your not yourself and thinking clearly. You need a treatment program and a new living environment with a support structure to help you get through the first few years.

The pleasure center of the brain shuts down on a lot of these drugs and people are stuck in unending states of depression and suicidal for the first 1-2 years.

a reply to: onequestion

I have not lead a sheltered life no matter what I appear to look like to you.

It's a choice.

I sometimes get angry about all the sh-t I have to do to stay healthy, too, it's a lot of work. But I choose to do it, and it's a daily choice that I make. I choose life, man. I just do. I'm doing all I can to own it. I'm doing everything I can to get unstuck and be free wherever I can be because I understand the truth of the matter. We're living in a prison and we don't always call the shots(ex: my disease), so whenever and wherever I CAN call the shots... I will. But I ain't saying it's easy. In fact, the work involved may be a big turn off to most people which may aid their decision to just sink into their addictions.

originally posted by: onequestion

originally posted by: galaga

originally posted by: dollukka

Only for Hispanics, individuals who have a genoset composed of rs1799913(C;C) and rs7963720(T;T) are reported to be at 14x higher risk for developing heroin addiction (CI:0.83-244.63, p=0.012).[PMID 18181017]

also more behind the link
LINK

What race of Hispanics are they talking about? The Asian ones? the Black ones? the Indian ones? Surely not the White Hispanics. Are they talking about Mexicans? Do they mean if you have a Spanish last name you have a higher chance of being a heroin addict?

What you just said makes absolutely no sense.

How? Hispanic is not a race. its a title. I mean, are they saying if you have Spanish ancestory you are prone to addiction? Last time I checked. Spanish people are white.

I personally also can't understand how addiction is passed off as a disease.

Addiction to a substance can be broken at any time with the correct amount of willpower. Addiction, while very destructive, is breakable and treatable and easily overcome with the right approaches and the will to break it.

Addiction is not a disease like cancer, or diabetes. I'm sorry. It's not.

All someone has to do to not be "addicted" is not partake in a particular act. Poor will power, and repetitive pleasurable action create neural pathways that get reinforced each time the person acts out their addiction. It's a chemical pathway between the midbrain and frontal cortex. Addiction is a psychological issue:

A sense of helplessness. The key moment in addiction is when a person decides to perform an addictive act, not when they take the drug or the drink. Patients say that the moment they decide to engage in an addictive behavior, they no longer feel helpless. They have now made a decision to do something that they expect will make them feel better—something that is entirely in their control. At that moment, far from being helpless, they are empowered. It is this reversal of overwhelming helplessness that drives addiction.

Dr. Lance Dodes

The alcohol doesn't jump off the table, walk over to the individual and force itself down a person's throat. The addict does not become a soulless zombie incapable of controlling themselves. Addicts use mental gymnastics to justify their poor behavior, even when they know what they're doing is wrong.

If an addict improves their life, learns skills to see alternatives when feeling trapped and powerless -- addictions generally fall to the weigh-side.

The simple truth is -- there hasn't been ANY concrete proof (genetic or otherwise) that definitively PROVES there is some kind of biological "disease".

If addiction were a disease, people could theoretically be "cured". People apparently are born with addictions, but some people never go on to become alcoholics despite all members of their family being alcoholics. How? They jut don't drink.

How can you have a disease you're born with but never experience it? In any case, addiction is chronic compulsion.

People who run around seeking a drug are those in acute physical withdrawal, which is not usual addictive behavior. Addictive behavior in people is precipitated by psychologically meaningful events or feelings. (The exception is in the case of physical dependence, where transient withdrawal symptoms may induce drug seeking.)

More from Dr. Lance Dodes

While the disease concept may take away some of the shame, it doesn't address the core issue of the psychology behind addiction. Claiming you have a disease is a cop out, an excuse for bad behavior.

17 months sober here.

a reply to: babybunnies

You saying that addiction is easily overcome shows me your lack of experience with it.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

What about people with TBIs?

a reply to: pl3bscheese

from the article

Without a doubt, AA and similar programs have helped a lot of people. But they’ve also failed others. One size does not fit all, and there’s a growing body of evidence that empowering addicts, rather than insisting that they embrace their powerlessness and the impossibility of ever fully shedding their addiction, can be a road to health as well. If addiction is a form of learning gone tragically wrong, it is also possible that it can be unlearned, that the brain’s native changeability can be set back on track. “Addicts aren’t diseased,” Lewis writes, “and they don’t need medical intervention in order to change their lives. What they need is sensitive, intelligent social scaffolding to hold the pieces of their imagined future in place — while they reach toward it.”

then an extensive definition of disease

en.wikipedia.org...

A disease is a particular abnormal condition, a disorder of a structure or function, that affects part or all of an organism. The causal study of disease is called pathology. Disease is often construed as a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs.[1] It may be caused by factors originally from an external source, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune diseases. In humans, "disease" is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, or death to the person afflicted, or similar problems for those in contact with the person. In this broader sense, it sometimes includes injuries, disabilities, disorders, syndromes, infections, isolated symptoms, deviant behaviors, and atypical variations of structure and function, while in other contexts and for other purposes these may be considered distinguishable categories. Diseases usually affect people not only physically, but also emotionally, as contracting and living with a disease can alter one's perspective on life, and one's personality.

www.psychologytoday.com...

See how easy the definers of non-existing mental disorder have it. First they define it one way, as they did in the DSM-4: “A mental disorder is a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual and that is associated with present distress or disability or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom.”

Then, under pressure by skeptics as to the whether this definition made any sense whatsoever, they redefined non-existing mental disorders this new way in the recently released DSM-5:

"A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning. Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress in social, occupational, or other important activities. An expectable or culturally approved response to a common stressor or loss, such as the death of a loved one, is not a mental disorder. Socially deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious, or sexual) and conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society are not mental disorders unless the deviance or conflict results from a dysfunction in the individual, as described above."

The very idea that you can radically change the definition of something without anything in the real world changing and with no new increases in knowledge or understanding is remarkable, remarkable until you realize that the thing being defined does not exist. It is completely easy—effortless, really—to change the definition of something that does not exist to suit your current purposes. In fact, there is hardly any better proof of the non-existence of a non-existing thing than that you can define it one way today, another way tomorrow, and a third way on Sunday.

from the same source

The question is not, “What is the best definition of a mental disorder?” The question is not, “Is the DSM-5 definition of a mental disorder better than the DSM-IV definition of a mental disorder?” Those are absolutely not the right questions! The first and only question is, “Do mental disorders exist?”

en.wikipedia.org...

Szasz argued throughout his career that mental illness is a metaphor for human problems in living, and that mental illnesses are not real in the sense that cancers are real. Except for a few identifiable brain diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, there are “neither biological or chemical tests nor biopsy or necropsy findings for verifying or falsifying DSM diagnoses",

definition of doctor

verb
1.
change the content or appearance of (a document or picture) in order to deceive; falsify.
"the reports could have been doctored"
synonyms: falsify, tamper with, tinker with, interfere with, manipulate, massage, rig, alter, change; More
2.
informal
treat (someone) medically.
"he contemplated giving up doctoring

We deal with humans with all their burdens ills joys heartaches in our everyday interactions.
Many moons ago the priest was the doctor of the soul.

Now that role has been supplanted by Psychologists. Are psychologists even doctors? Are they scientists? Or are they another clever name for healers/treaters of the soul. Its unfashionable to seek out healing through self reflection confession and all the attendant ministrations of a priest.

You pay dollars and you think that psychologists because they went to school for x years they can "treat" you.; and that a malaise or condition of human living is a disease. Its a clever setup they have devised. Even if the treatment of addiction is "bought into the new century" as suggested in the article, the same psychologist will adapt their diagnostic tools to embrace this new article of faith. They will never be without work for they dont talk about curing anything - they speak in broad brushes like administering treatment or not responding to treatment or try out new modalities.

What no-one is ever allowed to ask is "hey are you still looking for that elusive chemical imbalance of the brain?"

If not then how come you've created an industry of legal drug dispensing in attempting to bring some elusive benefit for a metaphor for human living?

a reply to: onequestion

Brain injury? That's still not a disease, that's a disability caused by damage to someone. If someone craved sugar because they had their pancreas obliterated -- would we say they have an "addiction disease"?

If someone's legs got blown off and the ONLY would ride in a motorized wheel chair, and not a regular one -- would we say they're addicted to their motorized wheel chair and have a disease?

If addiction is a disease, then every single smoker has a disease.

Look at how many people quit smoking on their own each year. Fewer people smoke now than in decades. How did these people overcome this "disease"? What medication did they take that eradicated some kind of biological pathogen that afflicted them?

Addiction is compulsion on an epic level that's reinforced through repetitive behavior and the reward pathways of the brain.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

what about damage to the frontal lobe?

I don't think it's a disease but there's a lot of grey away I don't think you cans guys come in here and make blankets statements about everyone conditions.

You should know better.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

I like you.

Congrats on your sobriety!

You guys want a conspiracy?

Classifying addiction as a disease makes it able to be treated and PAID FOR by insurance companies!

That's right, an entire cottage industry of 30-day in patient rehabs like Betty Ford now exist to suck on the golden calf of insurance!

Ever wonder why those fancy spa-like rehabs are 30 days? That's because that is how long nearly ALL insurance companies will cover. Convenient, eh?

When you make addiction a disease it becomes part of the medical industrial complex. Huge rehabs, and government tax money can now be asked for and spent.

a reply to: pl3bscheese

I agree with you. Heat disease, cancer, flu, the common cold are diseases. Although we can be predisposed to these things and have lifestyle choices that contribute to it, we can't choose to stop it. We can choose to stop addiction, we can choose to not Drink, inject, snort, or smoke. We can say no, we can't tell cancer no.

a reply to: onequestion

Most of the time, it takes about 7-10 years for an addicts brain to return to normal after cessation of drug/alcohol abuse. In extreme cases, there can be slight lasting permanent damage. That's actually good news!

Now someone who is in a car accident and whacks their head really good? Are they given the free pass "addiction disease"?

Not really. It's still not a disease. It's a compulsion that they no longer have the ability to control.

And to be quite honest, in all the rehabs, AA meetings, homeless shelters and jails I've been through -- most people do NOT have some kind of brain injury severe enough to claim that they are simply powerless and incapable of not overcoming their addictive compulsions.

A lot of the really bad people in jail and on the streets are mentally handicapped, not brain damaged. These folks have developmental disabilities -- they're basically 5 year old's in adult bodies. Do 5 year olds like something that makes them feel better? Of course! Does that mean that 5 year old has a disease? No!

a reply to: PhloydPhan

Saying that addiction, in general, is or is not the result of any one of these factors is short-sighted and wrong.

But maybe we need to rethink why we "religiously believe" your statement has any more validity than the ops. Put another way you gave the secret of the game away in the beginning of your post....

I am not a medical doctor, a psychologist, or an addiction specialist. However, I know

You have given your power away by giving these people in a white coat and a pedestal to preach their religion. They retain a high degree of power to legally experiment " we'll try a new medication - the other was not working", to incarcerate and remove the freedoms of people suffering by putting them in "hospital" and forcibly administering chemical straitjackets drugs against their will.

Even a layman such as you or me can see through this - you alluded to such by saying "I am not ...but I know..." They are just people like you or me who have been given a piece of paper saying they have "legal powers" that you or I dont possess.