ADDICTION a DISEASE???????

[LindyTara]

Hey,  I would like to have peoples views on addiction being a disease.  I have had this DRILLED into my head so much, I am beginning to believe that it is a self fulfilling prophecy.  I do not want to live in a world where I am forced to view myself as sick.  Is it possible that back in the day, when addiction was marked a disease that they didn't know what to call it?  How we were all just classified as sick people so there was an excuse for our behavior.  So really we are all walking around making a terrible excuse? I'm starting to this I am an alcoholic/addict is just an excuse.  We are sick people trying to be well.  If we keep telling ourselves that, then wouldn't it come to be?  I think EVERYONE can benefit from the 12 steps but this telling myself every day that I have a disease and am sick is for the birds in my eyes. These are the questions I am asking myself lately. I find it hard to believe that it is so cut and dry. What are your views/thoughts?

[refills]

I watched a good movie in detox, "Pleasure Unwoven" all about the brain. Try it out. In a nutshell, when the experts could finally find the connection to the brain and could see tangible evidence that the brain function differently in a addict they called it a disorder. (Right on Weaver) Now it is still a highly debatable topic. Once again. Use it or not. That's your choice as well.

[weaver71]

I think it is a dis ease, much like the affects of working at a nuclear power plant for too many years. Once exposed to enough radiation, or drugs, one's body start to adapt, that is the physical part, disorder. The body is no longer working on factory settings. Now, if a power plant worker avoids radiation exposure, then they can live a totally normal life. I met a man who worked on a super collider, he had to avoid radiation, even EMF, or he would fall into a stuper and couldn't get out. Once removed from the exposure, he would return to himself again. I think drugs are the same, the symptoms don't continue to grow, so long as the exposure stops.

Addiction is progressive, this is known fact. What may take 10 years to form an original addiction, could happen in a week with someone who has been physically dependent on a drug before. That to me, is the disease. Like my dad, he has polio. I could say he had polio, but some of the effects are still obvious and people ask why his leg is the way it is. He says Polio, he still has some of the symptoms, but it has stopped progressing. So, our brain is permenantly changed by drugs, meaning it can reach compulsive addiction levels much easier and faster than the original use of the same drugs had in the past.

I don't think anything is cut and dry, especially MI and addiction. I also don't feel the need to definitively give a name to everything. I call myself bipolar order, because I don't want to be diseased, and that is not even a real word or expression. I find that helps. Whatever you want to call it, as long as it keeps you from using drugs, that is as perfect a definition is one can give to this.

[motye51]

Hmmmm.....good question....
I do believe it is a legitimate disease we have. I'm not sure about the makeup's of our brains and how we are wired differently (which we ARE) but I do think of it as a dis.....ease that we have within ourselves.  I don't wake up every morning telling myself that I have a disease though. I am working an N/A 12 step program and I think we STOP the negative when we start making the right decisions.  I don't agree with using "I have a disease" as an excuse to continue making mistakes.....but I choose to not use today. I choose to continue doing the next right thing....I think as long as we are working a program we are recovering addicts.....who help each other to stay clean!  But I definately know some that use "disease" as a crutch or excuse to continue bad behavior but here's a thought.  I had cancer as a young teenager....technically I had a disease but it went into remission about 4 weeks after starting chemo...I technically had no more disease but I had to continue chemo treatments to ensure that my disease didn't come back......make sense????