How Exactly Is Addiction a Disease?
Question by Kishay: How exactly is addiction a disease?
I think people shouldn’t drink too much or do drugs because when they do they bring this “disease” upon themselves therefore I fail to see how addiction is a disease and not just conscience decision.
Best answer:
Answer by Matthew
The statement, in a CMAJ editorial, 1 that addiction is a disease is not supported by the evidence and reads more like a political policy statement than a reasoned intellectual argument.
There has been a steady erosion of individual responsibility and loss of any concept of personal blame for bad choices. To quote comedian Flip Wilson, “It’s not my fault — the devil made me do it.” Calls to destigmatize addiction remove any sense of personal responsibility.
Addiction does not meet the criteria specified for a core disease entity, namely the presence of a primary measurable deviation from physiologic or anatomical norm.2 Addiction is self-acquired and is not transmissible, contagious, autoimmune, hereditary, degenerative or traumatic. Treatment consists of little more than stopping a given behaviour. True diseases worsen if left untreated. A patient with cancer is not cured if locked in a cell, whereas an alcoholic is automatically cured. No access to alcohol means no alcoholism. A person with schizophrenia will not remit if secluded. Sepsis will spread and Parkinson disease will worsen if left untreated. Criminal courts do not hand down verdicts of “not guilty by virtue of mental illness” to drunk drivers who kill pedestrians.
At best, addiction is a maladaptive response to an underlying condition, such as depression or a nonspecific inability to cope with the world.
The study on the neurobiology of addiction3 referred to in the CMAJ editorial1 looked at the brains of people with addiction after they had damaged them by their behaviour — brains were not examined in their premorbid state. This is analogous to saying that the sequelae of a traumatic brain injury were themselves the cause of said brain injury. Ironically, the title of the referenced article uses the term “disorders” not “diseases.”
Medicalizing addiction has not led to any management advances at the individual level. The need for helping or treating people with addictions is not in doubt, but a social problem requires social interventions.
Answer by cowman1005
They ain’t, just like people with obesesity. They tend to take advantage of everything they can. But sooner than later those fiends and turkeys end up in the soil
Cheaper, more available than prescription drugs, heroin addiction now an …
"Regardless of the reason, heroin is a dangerous and highly addictive drug, and because it is a street drug it might have added harmful contaminated ingredients that make it even more dangerous and lethal, as witnessed by the recent rash of heroin …
Read more on The Union Leader
Officials: Time for a Bennington drug treatment center or methadone clinic
He said the Times article appears to have galvanized the people fighting drug addiction, and where some had been working on their own or in small partnerships there seems to be a desire now to work as a concerted group. Any effort undertaken must have …
Read more on Brattleboro Reformer
When addiction is born: Local mothers battle drug habits
Samantha Cantrell talks on Tuesday about her struggles with drug addiction while holding her son, Braydon, at their Lucasville home. / Frank Robertson/Gazette. CGO 0316 ADENA DRUG PROGRAM-secondary. Purchase Image Zoom …
Read more on Chillicothe Gazette
Being creative without drugs – http://addictionblog.org/the-news/being-creative-without-drugs/ Being creative without drugs | Addiction Blog So, you know other ways of how to be creative w…
Related Drug Addiction Articles Information…