Addiction

[BGDave]

Once it's a disease, insurance companies pay the bill. Lots of money to be made once it's a disease.
Always follow the money.

And there it is. In this day and age of information at your fingertips you couldn't pay me enough to "try" heroin or meth or oxy for a buzz. Watched my co-workers play that game. One moron started smoking crack in his 50s. Some people just think they are the exceptions. Everybody dies, but damn, don't rush things.

And, OP, sorry for your loss. It's always tough.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

I think that if we all knew how many people suffer harm, up to and including death (it says so right in the commercial), from the use of legal, prescribed pharmaceuticals, we might look at things differently.

Drug companies don't make 40% profits by curing people, they make it by inventing conditions and giving them catchy names, and then spending more money on advertising than they do on research. They make it by putting more and more people on meds that they then have to take for the rest of their lives, followed by more meds to treat the side-effects of the other meds.

The heroin user makes the choice to use his drug to avoid having to deal with the hard things in life, and the over-weight sedentary workaholic makes his choice to to take his drugs to avoid different hard things. As far as I'm concerned, both are missing out of the best that life has to offer. I've been the second of those (except for the workaholic part) but I'm trying hard to rehab myself.

 

[Vic Z]

Let me preface this by admitting that I am a recovering addict/alcoholic with several years clean and sober.
I am a 12 stepper and continually encounter the debate of disease or learned behavior.
I can't answer the question but here is what I know from experience.
I am somehow wired as such that the first "whatever" pathologically leads me down a road with little or no control.
My reaction to drugs and alcohol is like that of an allergy. Once started, the result is both predictable and unstoppable.
To complicate matters, after periods of abstinence, my memory absolutely does not recall the devastation that comes as a result of these choices.
My only defense is a daily choice to not use/drink, on purpose.
The good news is that life is fantastic today. I have a great family life, hobbies, and purposefully work to give back to my community.
The tough part is that NOBODY can do anything to help a person in the grips of this situation.
Until a person reaches their bottom, they will continue to fall.
To those not afflicted I will say this. This is not a moral deficiency. Those afflicted in this way are decent people, us, our children, and our friends. They believe their own lies before they tell them to us, and their actions are ruled by the NEED to use whatever they are hooked on.
I am available by PM that has any questions or would like help.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Let me preface this by admitting that I am a recovering addict/alcoholic with several years clean and sober.
I am a 12 stepper and continually encounter the debate of disease or learned behavior.
I can't answer the question but here is what I know from experience.
I am somehow wired as such that the first "whatever" pathologically leads me down a road with little or no control.
My reaction to drugs and alcohol is like that of an allergy. Once started, the result is both predictable and unstoppable.
To complicate matters, after periods of abstinence, my memory absolutely does not recall the devastation that comes as a result of these choices.
My only defense is a daily choice to not use/drink, on purpose.
The good news is that life is fantastic today. I have a great family life, hobbies, and purposefully work to give back to my community.
The tough part is that NOBODY can do anything to help a person in the grips of this situation.
Until a person reaches their bottom, they will continue to fall.
To those not afflicted I will say this. This is not a moral deficiency. Those afflicted in this way are decent people, us, our children, and our friends. They believe their own lies before they tell them to us, and their actions are ruled by the NEED to use whatever they are hooked on.
I am available by PM that has any questions or would like help.

^^^THIS^^^ Which explains why one person can have a couple of beers and stop, while another cannot. There is a good parallel to be drawn between addiction/alcoholism and an allergy. I can eat peanut butter sandwiches all day. I don't think anyone would condemn a person that gets a tiny bit of peanut in their food and goes into anaphylaxis. My system can handle it. Theirs can't. Doesn't make me "good" or "strong" and them "bad" or "weak".

 

[Clay Pigeon]

I believe its called Self Control. I will never believe its anything other than good personal choices along with Self Control.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

I will never believe its anything other than good personal choices along with Self Control.

I stopped thinking in terms of things "I will never believe in" after finding so many times that all it took was a change in perspective to change how I felt.

The way I see it, every day is a school day, and the world is my classroom. I'm 56 and I'm nowhere near ready for the final exam.

 

[Clay Pigeon]

I stopped thinking in terms of things "I will never believe in" after finding so many times that all it took was a change in perspective to change how I felt.

The way I see it, every day is a school day, and the world is my classroom. I'm 56 and I'm nowhere near ready for the final exam.

I'm 60, I watched a girl overdose and die in 1972 in JH school from taking Quaalude's, It left an indelible mark on a few of us. Lots of dead friends and a few family members in my life, I have always believed that taking drugs and drinking excessive alcohol was a personal choice and nothing more.

 

[Vic Z]

I'm 60, I watched a girl overdose and die in 1972 in JH school from taking Quaalude's, It left an indelible mark on a few of us. Lots of dead friends and a few family members in my life, I have always believed that taking drugs and drinking excessive alcohol was a personal choice and nothing more.

It is until it isn't.
It all starts out as fun and games and then one day you wake up in a hellish situation with seemingly no way out.
Genetic predisposition or learned behavior? I don't know.
All I know is that I can't imagine anyone "choosing" a lifestyle that is so destructive to themselves and their loved ones.
I certainly don't remember saying "think I'll give drug and alcohol addicion a shot today and see how that goes".

 

[DoggyDaddy]

I believe its called Self Control. I will never believe its anything other than good personal choices along with Self Control.

I can't imagine someone not being able to eat peanut butter, but there ya go... I'm sure if they just willed their throat to stay open, the hives to stay away, and just keep breathing they could do it. Not trying to be flippant, but there truly is a physiological component to addiction, just as there is to allergies. It's a medically established fact. If you could have a "normal" person hooked up to a brain scan, and an alcoholic/addict hooked up to a brain scan, and observed what happens when they each start drinking, it would illustrate that more clearly than any explanation that I can give.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

PET brain scans show chemical differences in the brain between addicts and non-addicts. The normal images in the bottom row come from non-addicts; the abnormal images in the top row come from patients with addiction disorders. These PET brain scans show that that addicts have fewer than average dopamine receptors in their brains, so that weaker dopamine signals are sent between cells. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

[Leadeye]

Publicly hang drug dealers as a start. Some state should try this just to see the results.

 

[Vic Z]

Alcohol and pharmaceuticals donate big money to campaigns and cartels are greasing the wheels real nice like.
Also, drug addiction is a good way to keep people dumbed down and on the government tit and keep the welfare state alive.
There's big money in crisis. Just ask Obama.

 

[Clay Pigeon]

It is until it isn't.
It all starts out as fun and games and then one day you wake up in a hellish situation with seemingly no way out.
Genetic predisposition or learned behavior? I don't know.
All I know is that I can't imagine anyone "choosing" a lifestyle that is so destructive to themselves and their loved ones.
I certainly don't remember saying "think I'll give drug and alcohol addicion a shot today and see how that goes".

But you certainly remember thinking and saying "Hey I like this" and repeating it over and over knowing the entire time that is a bad road to travel, until you finely admitted to yourself that it has been a bad choice since the start.
The addict drove the cart down the path.

 

[Vic Z]

But you certainly remember thinking and saying "Hey I like this" and repeating it over and over knowing the entire time that is a bad road to travel, until you finely admitted to yourself that it has been a bad choice since the start.
The addict drove the cart down the path.

I am not looking for sympathy and I certainly, absolutely take complete responsibility for the path that I chose.
Having said that, you don't understand. You can't understand. You will never understand. No disrespect intended, but you are not afflicted as such. Be grateful.
Like I said, it all started as recreation with no harm in sight. Before you know it your entire life consists of getting, using, and finding ways to get more.
The thought that it is a bad road, or that I was going down a bad path never crossed my mind.
Then one day you wake up and realize that you are completely screwed and can't stop even when you try.
It's a subtle trap.
Try not breathing for a while. It becomes kind of the same thing.
I am grateful to have gotten out alive and well. I am grateful every day.

 

[Clay Pigeon]

I am not looking for sympathy and I certainly, absolutely take complete responsibility for the path that I chose.
Having said that, you don't understand. You can't understand. You will never understand. No disrespect intended, but you are not afflicted as such. Be grateful.
Like I said, it all started as recreation with no harm in sight. Before you know it your entire life consists of getting, using, and finding ways to get more.
The thought that it is a bad road, or that I was going down a bad path never crossed my mind.
Then one day you wake up and realize that you are completely screwed and can't stop even when you try.
It's a subtle trap.
Try not breathing for a while. It becomes kind of the same thing.
I am grateful to have gotten out alive and well. I am grateful every day.

I not offering any sympathy nor personal disrespect at all.
Do you think that as a kid growing up in the 60's and 70's I wasn't around drugs and alcohol?
I'm not affected with drug and alcohol because I make different decisions with what I chose to intake. Like I posted earlier, I watched a friend that I went to school with since kindergarten OD and die in 8th grade, I fully understood in 1972 what drugs did. I was born in the 50's and I have watched many friends and family travel down that road in the past 60 years. I'm not buying that I will never understand and can't understand. It was a conscious choice to put drugs and alcohol in your system from the start and it was a conscious decision to continue down that road. Its no different than when an addict decides to get clean and stay clean, its a person decision to get clean.
Anyone born in the last 75+ years that didn't understand the harm from drugs and excessive alcohol as a young teenager is kidding themselves.

 

[Denny347]

I not offering any sympathy nor personal disrespect at all.
Do you think that as a kid growing up in the 60's and 70's I wasn't around drugs and alcohol?
I'm not affected with drug and alcohol because I make different decisions with what I chose to intake. Like I posted earlier, I watched a friend that I went to school with since kindergarten OD and die in 8th grade, I fully understood in 1972 what drugs did. I was born in the 50's and I have watched many friends and family travel down that road in the past 60 years. I'm not buying that I will never understand and can't understand. It was a conscious choice to put drugs and alcohol in your system from the start and it was a conscious decision to continue down that road. Its no different than when an addict decides to get clean and stay clean, its a person decision to get clean.
Anyone born in the last 75+ years that didn't understand the harm from drugs and excessive alcohol as a young teenager is kidding themselves.

Of it only took willpower, we'd have so many LESS addicts. When your brain sees the drug as = to oxygen, kicking it becomes more than wanting to. It requires the brain to be reprogrammed. But then there is the WHY they started in the first place. Most cannot even address that as they are too consumed in satisfying the addiction.

 

[Jeepfanatic]

My two older brothers experimented in high school and their early 20s. Both of them almost ruined their lives over it. Out of the two my middle brother would have been the one to be classified as an addict but all he was trying to do was drown his demons. He didn't care what the drug was, he would do it.

Luckily they both saw where their lives were headed and made the decision to join the Navy to get away from this area and their "friends" as well as their back story in order to get a fresh start.

 

[CHCRandy]

Of it only took willpower, we'd have so many LESS addicts. When your brain sees the drug as = to oxygen, kicking it becomes more than wanting to. It requires the brain to be reprogrammed. But then there is the WHY they started in the first place. Most cannot even address that as they are too consumed in satisfying the addiction.

I have been dealing with this with my daughter the last couple of years. She asked to go to Florida for help, we sent her for 45 days and she came home and went to Fairbanks for another 35-40 days. She came home Friday. While in Fairbanks her mother and I would go up for educational meetings and group therapy. Let me say I am not much on psychologists and such. I have been thru a lot in my life, since I was 5 years old...and I never needed no help to get by. I think if I can do it, why not others. Why can an alcoholic not just stop drinking? I mean do they want to be killing themselves slowly? DO they want to lose their job, family, home? I asked myself that for years with my dad. Then with my daughter it was the same thing, just different addiction.

In meetings they like to say no one is born an addict. There are triggers and it is PTSD or whatever. You become an addict because of another social trigger, and even if you beat the addiction the underlying trigger mechanism is still present and has to be addressed. They say it is a disease (which I don't fully agree with). The main thing I learned in the meetings is that the brain gets annihilated when you use regular. I seen scans of brains from people who were clean, then addicts and it was amazing! The scans I seen was from alcoholic and Meth user. After months of either one your brain that does the thinking is black, hollow spot. The only good thing I seen was the same brains after 12-15 months of no use, was almost completely back to normal. Getting to that point can be hell for an addict. And even if you clean up you still have to understand what caused you to become an addict in the first place.

I will say, I learned a lot by just attending these meetings.

 

[NKBJ]

Publicly hang drug dealers as a start. Some state should try this just to see the results.

Yeah, public hanging is good for suppliers.
And their money launderers.
And the officials providing them cover.
And the dealer on the street.

 

[churchmouse]

Yeah, public hanging is good for suppliers.
And their money launderers.
And the officials providing them cover.
And the dealer on the street.

Totally agree but........(yes, but) supply and demand. If there is a demand someone will supply. I see both sides. How do we slow/stop demand. That is the same question that is still looking to be answered. I do not have the answer. There may not be one.