addiction IS a disease. and i speak from experience.
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RIP -
We are free to determine our own wills.
What now?
Signature subject to change.
THE ZERRRRRG.Comment
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Because he won't continue this, I declare Tass the winner. He pointed out exactly what I would have if I had gotten here sooner.
As for addiction, it is a disease. I'm addicted to caffeine. If I don't have at leat 4 cups of coffee in one morning, I get massive headaches the rest of the day. I'm down to 3, now. That's good.
QComment
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Since we've obviously moved off that topic, here we go.
Addiction is a choice, it is not a disease... it is a behavior, and because it is a behavior, it is voluntary.. there's no such thing as an involuntary behavior (while conscious) - in the scientific community, there is a particular view of what constitutes a disease, and addiction and alcoholism do not meet those criteria for disease classification.
Drinking alcohol, putting the alcohol into one's body, is an activity, a behavior; that is an expression of choice and preference, but having a real disease like cancer is not something you can control with willpower.. there's a big difference.
If this is a disease, which everyone keeps saying that it is, then why don't we treat it as such, truly treat it as such. If someone had diabetes we would not suggest theres only one way to treat it... that would be insane. Which is why AA programs are ridiculous and don't work.. also why they have a 5% success rate. The success rate of people who quit on their own? 5%.
It's not a disease... its always a choice.. a conscious decision. You choose to go to the bar, and pay for the beer. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. Addiction is a psychological problem, it is not due to your brain chemistry, genes... there is no gene for alcoholism.
People say that it is a brain based disease, that there is a victim; but it's not about blame, its about responsibility.
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Addiction is a disease, as it generates a dependency and cravings in the body. Feeding the addiction is not, and that's what you're talking about, Aedak. Being addicted to alcohol makes one want alcohol and gives the body adverse affects if the demand is not met; it's entirely chemical. However, giving the addiction the alcohol it wants is the choice of which you speak.
The psychological part is the choice to either feed or treat the addiction. The addiction itself is physiological.
--Guido
Originally posted by GrandiagodComment
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1. you say alcoholism is an addiction.... and yet in the above quote, you speak against that, saying it is not an addiction. please keep your argument on the same trackAddiction is a psychological problem, it is not due to your brain chemistry, genes... there is no gene for alcoholism.
2. have you ever been addicted to something? and, i don't mean minor things like crushes on girls, caffiene, video games... things like that. i mean like alcohol, tobacco, drugs, gambling. things that are serious addictions that can ruin your life, put you in jail, or get you killed. i've been there. i don't want to talk about it in detail, because its not the time in my life that i'm most proud of. BUT... i do know what i'm talking about from a personal standpoint, but just a hypothetical one. so please, don't insult me or anyone else who has suffered from a serious addiction by trying to downplay its seriousness. if all my friends were like you... well, i'm just glad they aren't.RIPComment
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I don't think you are listening. It is not a disease. Do you even understand what constitutes a disease?
The cognitive model of addiction
Cognition is the process by which we attain knowledge and awareness of the world, and it has been argued that addiction is not inherited but is a learned behaviour. The more one consumes the more likely one is to be become addicted. Addiction can thus happen to anyone.
The cognitive approach to addiction assumes that:
Addictive behavior is 'learned'
Addiction is not a disease
The behavior can thus be 'unlearned'.
There are addicted personalities. But addictions do not meet the criteria that constitutes a disease. I don't know who brainwashed you into thinking that it is, unless it's an excuse to make you and others believe you are helpless.
When we talk about addiction as a disease, rather than a choice, then the individual no longer feels in control. "People use legal and illegal drugs like Prozac and heroin to avoid coping with their lives. The reasons people avoid coping with their lives may be judged good or bad …Addiction is not a disease...Addiction is a choice." You do not have to be a passive bystander to an imaginary disease of drug abuse or alcohol addiction; give up your will; be labeled as an alcoholic or "in recovery"; or attend meetings and substance abuse treatment for the rest of your life! (Unless you want to)
The majority of people who have had problems with alcohol abuse or drug addiction in the past quit on their own. Even those currently struggling with drug abuse or alcohol addiction will tell you that they have often refrained from drug or alcohol use for a period of time. There is no mysterious disease here, it is a matter of choice.
Now all of you addicts out there... You are in complete control right now. No one is stopping you from cracking that beer, or sniffing that powder.
If you want to use alcohol or drugs, you will. Addicts always find a way. But pretending it is a disease instead of a behavioral problem is only an excuse.
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Originally posted by AedakI did not say it was not an addiction, I explained what addiction is, a psychological problem. Diseases can be gene-based, addictions are not.Originally posted by Tasselfoot
I'm not trying to insult you, but when you use an excuse like "alcoholism is a disease" you are lying to everyone around you because it simply is not. And, I'm not downplaying anything. When you go to a bar and pay for alcohol, that is a conscious choice. When you buy that heroin, that is a choice. There is no disease here, it is between you and yourself. If you would like I could post a few hundred thousand sources to prove this as well; though I'd prefer it to not come to that.. -_-2. have you ever been addicted to something? and, i don't mean minor things like crushes on girls, caffiene, video games... things like that. i mean like alcohol, tobacco, drugs, gambling. things that are serious addictions that can ruin your life, put you in jail, or get you killed. i've been there. i don't want to talk about it in detail, because its not the time in my life that i'm most proud of. BUT... i do know what i'm talking about from a personal standpoint, but just a hypothetical one. so please, don't insult me or anyone else who has suffered from a serious addiction by trying to downplay its seriousness. if all my friends were like you... well, i'm just glad they aren't.Comment
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Ok, let me take this challenge. Diseases are fascinating to me. I tend to fall into the habit of studying them sometimes.
Now, let's see. Addiction is a disease. First, let's look at addiction in and of itself, just so you can't claim we're not listening. Addiction is a physical condition in which the body of the abuser (or the mind of the abuser, in the case of porn or gambling addictions) do not function to their normal capacity due to the substance that is being abused. Disease is a condition of abnormality, often harmful.
First point: Is not addiction abnormality? The substance being used happens to be disturbing to the body's (or mind's) normal method of working. Being in the state of addiction is technically an abnormality not to mention harmful. Therefore, addiction can be classified as a disease.
Why isn't it psychological? This is the harder part to argue. Although the dictionary definition does include parts that relate to the psychological and pathological order of the subject's mind, they often mean different kinds of addictions, such as the aforementioned pornography and gambling addictions. Those are not harmful to a subject's body, but rather to their mind (psyche, persona, pathos, whatever you want to call it).
Why else? Yes, to cure addiction you decide to stop using the substance and therefore break the addiction. You also do this with other diseases, but instead of refraining from substance use, you use more substances (i.e. medication).
The hardest part is deciding the line to draw. In a normal disease, the subject is entirely unwilling to participate in the disease at all and have no real say in the matter of catching it (infections, mental defects, etc. This has been proven untrue, by the way, unless the disease is genetic. In other cases, such as infection, the subject has the choice of being more sanitary in their daily activites), whereas in addiction, the subject goes into the disease willingly, knowing that there are consequences. This is more a matter of semantics than anything. Don't bother in this category as it is entirely based on belief and no fact can be involved without digging the hole deeper.
Is there anything else I missed?
QComment
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just a small point Q... alot of addictions are also treated with medications. anti-depressants alot of times. also, drug users go through a VERY painful cleansing process to get the drugs out of their system. medication is often used to reduce the pain of the withdraw.RIPComment
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Aedak, did you read my post at all?
Summary: Addiction is not a choice.
Now, whether or not it is a disease is just a problem with definition. You have some weird-ass definition of what one is, and The Q gave a rather good one. By your definition it's not one, and by The Q's it is.
However, when you claim that addiction is not a disease, you do claim that it is a choice. GETTING an addicion, FEEDING the addiction, and/or TREATING the addiction is a choice. The addiction affecting your body is NOT. Now, whether or not the adverse affects of an addiction is a disease comes back to the problem of definition as stated above.
Basically, the rest of your last post is just a rambling on the idea that I cleared up in my last post. Since you missed it the first time, I'll bold this, too: The psychological part is the choice to either feed or treat the addiction. The addiction itself is physiological.
--Guido
Originally posted by GrandiagodComment
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out of curiosity, Aedak, how old are you, and how much schooling do you have? Do you actually think about what you write or do you jut write them for curiosity's sake and to try and "cause controversy" or some crap... ok just wonderingbut for now... postCount++
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Haha. If you'll look at his location, he's at VA Tech. I certainly hope that the latter is what's going on, though.
--Guido
Originally posted by GrandiagodComment
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ehhh... Tech isn't exactly your ivy league school. UVA is the top school in the state. not that that is a scientific method of determining.... but it works in alot of cases. most people don't choose to go to crappier schools when accepted to better ones.RIPComment
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Woah, holy shit. You guys are blowing my mind with all this criticle thinking. By the way blahblah18, I hope you reallize how, I don't know, offensive, your rescent post was. Just because someone is annoying you, you can't attack them as a way of convincing them your "correct." (This post is in no way "taking a side" in any of these matters. I'm just a thoughtfull reader.) ^^Comment
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no offense Robo.... but, based off the rest of your posts in other forums... and your post above, perhaps posting here is not your best option. we take critical posting in this forum seriously, and even a post to say that you are really confused isn't acceptable. if you wish to post in this forum, make it relavent. this forums is help to a much higher standard than any other forum.
also... blahblah's comment may have been offensive, but as you said yourself, you aren't following the discussion, so it probably isn't very apparent to you that Aedak's posts are for the most part flat out wrong. he contradicts many accepted beliefs, uses definitions that deviate from the normal, enjoys arguing semantics, and... although i can't prove this... i have a strong feeling he plagerizes some of his arguments, copy and pasting his arguments directly from a website that provides information related to the point he is attempting to make.RIPComment
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