Is addiction a disease?

[godismdma]

TO YEAHSME: with the hole genitic predisposition to addiction and that cause being genetic.......addiction is a behavioral problem and with EVERY behavioral action it will be copied especially by offspring. Humans conciously and unconciously learn things from their famillies,friends, who ever they r around ESPECIALLY growing up with the same people! So if u have parents and or familly members using u will learn the same in turn become addicted to drugs! Think about when people get married how the majority have the same type of marriage they hated watching their parents have as they grew up. Is this a gentic disease that is passed on as well?

[INodHardOhYeah]

No oThe addiction twin studies, studied twins who were children of addicts but adopted by other families of non addicts, the twins both growing up in separate non-addict families. The studies showed that if one child grew up to become an addict the other twin would invariably follow suit . There have been many other similar studies conducted with results strongly supporting this argument. Specific behaviors are never inherited, just their cognitive mechanisms.

researchers examined the DNA of 700 cocaine abusers and 850 ordinary people and found that cocaine abusers had a specific genetic variation in DAT more frequently than the control subjects. People carrying two copies of this variant were 50% more likely to be cocaine dependent.

Some good links
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...24/ai_78395682

http://www.nvo.com/hypoism/recentgen...getwinregistr/

http://www.drugabuse.gov/NIDA_Notes/...Promising.html

http://www.nvo.com/hypoism/geneticstudiespage2/

Oh yeah, do you have anything to support your claim or is it just an opinion. Ever since I first began having troubles with substance abuse, circa 1999, people that have no business talking to me (not saying that your doing this) would bombard me with their own opinions on the nature of addiction when they were not in any way qualified to have an opinion on the matter, similar to individuals who try and formulate their own theories of relativity, laws of physics, creation of the universe etc. Those people of wrong almost all of the time.

[godismdma]

I am speaking from personal expierience and expierience with others close to me. From my expeirience I believe it is a behavioral disorder that over time will change the chemical wiring in ur brain yes. I PERSONALLY do not believe that that addiction will change ur genetic make up enough to make ur offspring also addicts. The biggest thing especially now that reinforces my opinion on this matter is the profound effect drugs such as Ibogaine have had with addiction. If an addict was to be addicted for 10 years then clean up never feeling the urge to abuse the substance again and never does for say the last 40 years of their life will their children be born with this addiction gene, because by deffinition (To cause to become physiologically or psychologically dependent on a habit-forming substance: To occupy (oneself) with or involve (oneself) in something habitually or compulsively )the parent is no longer an addict! Please do not take this as an argumentative comment but rather something I enjoy conversing about this is still a very new field and much is still to be learned!

[sands of time]

In theory, this genetic trait is not something that is established because of addiction. People are supposively born with specific traits that lead them to become addicted easier than others. These traits could influence the speed in which a substance is metabolized, the way the brain reacts to a substances crossing of the blood-brain barrier, and so on. I think there is debate as to how this genetic predisposition should be classified.

The other side of addiction is almost entirely psychological. Positive reinforcement encourages the subject to use the substance, since it makes them feel good. Negative reinforcement makes them continue use once they are hooked. The negative stimulus is removed everytime they use the substance, no withdrawals! The psychological side is definately modified with extended periods of drug addiction.

I would like to learn a bit more about the changes in the brain that some people are referring to that result from drug addiction. What degree of change are we talking about here??? Is this change any different from the changes that occur after, say, post traumatic stress syndrom, ect?

[Richard_smoker]

Sands, since I replied to this topic the other day and then accidentally deleted my reply , I have done some more research on the neurotransmitters and second-messengers (2nd messengers are just what actually happens inside the cell after it receives a signal from, say dopamine or serotonin).

Basically, I got side-tracked from the overwhelming amount of information that I came across, so I will be posting my conclusions and various reports as I find the time to do so. Watch out for future posts on basics of neurotransmitters, what they do, how drugs affect them, how drugs can damage them, how NATURE can damage them (and what these diseases are), and a lot of other just basic cellular neurology that most members don't really understand. (for example: ask an open question on here about what "dopamine"'s function is in the body, or worse yet, ask what "serotonin" does and you'll see what I'm talking about.) So, that will be my focus, to debunk some myths, misconceptions, and maybe help some people avoid some dangerous activities--that is, avoid doing things that are EXTREMELY dangerous as opposed to just FUN-dangerous!

_________________________________

In answer to your question, you are correct in the psychological component to addiction. It is really not much different than the changes that occur from like you suggested--post traumatic stress disorder.

The problem with psychology is multifold. Psychology is essentially our attempt to qualify, to observe, to describe, and then to define certain sets of behaviors, attitudes, and thoughts and to try and establish behavioral and environmental associations like finding out what childhood experiences tend to result in different behavioral mechanisms. I know, this is a very BROAD topic and I'm not doing it justice with my explanation. Psychology is one of the most imortant fields in science, but just by its very nature, it is also one of the most confusing, frustrating, and impossible to define. Just when you think you know everything... then comes a brand new problem like girls who are "cutters." So, just understand that psychology is based largely on observations of people's thoughts, actions, behaviors, and patterns. I know, this is an enormous playground to explore, but I'm not going to do it here.

So, you are totally correct in regard to your description of positive and negative reinforcement, etc. The old-school of thought would take your description as the lump-sum of addiction--because you are correct and your hypothesis can be observed and duplicated, then you are correct. Question answered. Problem solved.

The newer and expanding schools of human (and animal) behaviors focus on physical aspects of thought and behavior that were previously unknown and couldn't even be studied until now.

This is where the answer to your question lies: in the physical aspect of mentation--a subject that delves into many complex and yet-to-be-understood pathways that exist in actual neuron-circuits. BTW, these subjects are what I plan to discuss in my future, educational threads on basic cell-cell communication and nerve properties.

The brain is stuffed full of different nerve connections that serve to connect different regions like wires connecting peripherals to a central computer. These nerves are responsible for MANY things. For one, they connect nearly every bit of sensory data (vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, etc) with processing circuits that then feed this data into regions of the brain responsible for thoughts, reactions, impressions, memories, associations, etc.

Now, there are also "reflex arcs" that bypass the central processing area altogether--and these are largely uncontrollable by the brain. For example, place your hand on a hot stove, have someone try and push you off of a 3000 foot cliff, smash your left foot with a hammer. You will find that there are some pretty elaborate reflexes that involve more body parts than just the one you are playing with (i.e. your foot will jerk back from the hammer, while the other leg presses down into the ground, catapulting your body away from the hammer's next strike). These circuits are just like brain neurons, but they don't need to be connected to your central processor to work. They just signal each other locally (in the spinal cord).

Neurons use lots of different stimuli to trigger them into the "ON" position. There are different kinds of touch receptors, pain receptors, heat&temp rec's, pressure, light (retina), sound, balance, motion, to name a few. When these tiny wires are stimulated, they turn "ON" and then that long-ass wire (axon) transmits the ON signal all the way back to its other end which looks like a tree with hundreds (or thousands) of branches. These branches all connect to OTHER neurons and all the branches will send the ON signal to the next nerve in line.

This is where neurotransmitters come into play. In keeping with our example, the ON signal will cause a release of an activating neurotransmitter at each of its terminal branches. These are called synapses. There is a space between the incoming dendrite and the receiving neuron called the synaptic space or synaptic cleft. The incoming nerve will dump out stored neurotransmitters (NT's) into this space where they will travel across the space and bind to receptors on the 2nd neuron.

Depending on how sensitive that the 2nd neuron IS (too many variations to try and explain--just think about it like they're either sensitive or resistant to incoming NT's.)

If the 2nd neuron is sensitive, then it will only take a few NT molecules to cause that neuron to FIRE! It is now in the "ON" position also, and it blasts its ON signal all the way up to wherever it ends (in the case of sensory 2nd neurons, that one neuron "wire" runs all the way up to the brain's central processing unit where it has dendrites that dump out NTs on its connecting wires as well...

and on and on the system goes. based on the sensitivity of the receiving neurons, the ON signals will either cause further activations upstream, or they will just fizzle out in the synapse.

SOOoooo.... all this same physiology applies to the brain as well. The biggest difference in the brain, though, is that there are many MANY more dendrite branches--all sending their signals to multitudes of receiving nerves who all serve different purposes. Some go to the "memory" area, some go to the "what the fuck does this mean" area, other run to places that we don't even know about, and still others run to the places where decisions are made concerning balance, posture, blood-pressure regulation, hunger zones, digestion centers, pleasure centers, etc. etc. etc.

I hope this makes any sense. My point is to emphasize just how complicated our mental supercomputers really are, but how that they're still based on a simple on-off wiring model.

Almost all of these nerve conduction pathways take place OUTSIDE of our conscious knowledge. It's like your brain LITERALLY runs most of its activity on AUTOPILOT.

All of the NT's are used in activating these sequential nerve-firings and they are also used to signal non-nerve cells like the muscles in your arteries. It isn't the individual NT that produces effects in your body. There's serotonin, dopamine, nor-epinephrine, GABA, glutamate, and all the rest of them coursing through your bloodstream, and signaling cells NOT IN THE BRAIN--out in your periphery all the time. It's not the NT that determines its function, it's the RECEPTOR-TYPE that different cells have covering their surface that cause different effects from the same NT's.

Take for example, my favorite misunderstood NT on this and every other drug site: SEROTONIN. It has 6 different known receptor-types. Sure, many of them are located in key areas of the brain. Activation of the BRAIN'S 5HT-1A receptors are known to be linked to anxiety-relief. Others in the brain serve different purposes. 5HT-2 receptors are found throughout the arterial system (including the heart) and they say CONSTRICT to the muscles in arterial walls, causing your blood pressure to INCREASE. They also do something else to the valves and yet another effect on the right-heart's function which can cause lethal pulmonary hypertension (this is what phen-fen does, and also what 4-methyl-aminorex--aka U4EA will do if you make it and abuse it without researching its effects).

Circulating dopamine has a multitude of effects on the body, and I don't even have the energy to describe Acetyl-Choline... it's fucking EVERYWHERE. that's what your parasympathetic nervous system runs on; as well as running the nerves that tell your muscles to contract...

I can go deeper into details, and I probably went TOO deep in some areas, but I really want people to grasp these concepts.

NOW! FINALLY, THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION!!
The brain is loaded with nothing-but neurons: receiving ends, transmitting ends, dendritic trees that are too vast to even visualize. These actually quite simple little on-off switches and relay wires are unbelievably complex in the way they work in unison to create what psychologists have been studying for the last 130 years.

Drugs (all drugs--not just fun ones) affect the natural balance of ON's and OFF's throughout the entire body. Remember, nerves and NT's are present in every organ and they serve to affect every single cell--whether directly or indirectly.

When you take drugs of abuse--drugs that affect the CENTRAL nervous system (the brain), you are trying to alter the natural balance of transmission, activation, deactivation, excitability (remember "sensitivity of nerves"?), blood-flow, oxygen perfusion, and just about anything else that can be modified, including symptomatic relief of seizures, migraines, head-aches, and others.

Various recreational drugs will alter the normal conduction system, leading to changes in perceptions, changes in thought patterns, changes in moods, changes in personality, and on and on the list goes...

Drugs within this category that are addictive in nature are highly active in the pleasure-center of the brain (nucleus accumbens). Psychologists might refer to the effects of this and surrounding regions of the brain as the Motivation-Reward Center. also located around here is the hunger and satiety center. Learning, emotional rewards, pleasure, compulsive & repetitive activities, and addictions are linked to this region of the brain.

Substances (or behaviors--like gambling, or overeating!) are used to reinforce a new balance in the pleasure center. Soon addicts begin to use drugs to feel normal--or 'neutralize' the pleasure center, because it has become so resistant to the constant bombardment of PLEASURE signals. Several mechanisms underlie this process, but suffice it to say that receptors are produced more--or less--to offset the constant influx of pleasure molecules.

Also, there are proteins which are specifically made to clear away excess pleasure molecules. One specifically studied is the Dopamine Active Transport molecule (DAT) which serves to remove excess dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. When you STOP taking the drugs, you still have all those extra DATs removing dopamine. You still have cells that have built up defenses AGAINST the incoming pleasure signals.

This can be thought of as brain "damage" because the entire areas of the brain are now functioning abnormally compared to a non-addict's brain. The good news is that after an unknown period of time (most noticeable changes should take place within several weeks, but in all this healing process could take many months to complete), the cells will return to a normal level of sensitivity, and the 'damage' will be reversed.

The problem with this understanding of addiction is that it still isn't COMPLETE! Just ask a psychologist! You still have the problem of having a memory... you remember what the drug felt like even when you've been clean for several years. You will always remember. There's a good chance that you will begin insulting the cells again by developing a new addiction... you will need to learn "normal" coping mechanisms to respond to life's ups and downs. Artificial pleasure-inducing chemicals tend to replace good-old-fashioned coping with one's problems, and they will turn even the most mundane task into a HUGE PROBLEM for someone who has just taken drugs for 20 years in order to feel pleasure and reward.

There are also some possibilities for semi-permanent changes. When a cell's metabolism is boosted way up for prolongued periods of time, it could ('could'--not likely in most of the cells, but still possible) become injured from oxidative free radicals from burning too much energy without proper clearance of the charged radicals, and also 'could' have some damage from oxygen-depletion caused by the exact same metabolic increase. I wouldn't worry much about these changes. Neighboring cells will likely compensate for minute neuronal losses, but still technically brain 'damage.' just like a mild heart attack causes damage, but the heart is well-capable of healing, scarring and repairing the injured myocardial cells, and compensating for the injured region.

Other effects that come to mind as far as brain damage are:
-hypoxia--holding your breath or keeping oxygen from your brain... Inhalants can cause this. nitrous use might also do this--one theory i read is that nitrous changes oxygen-tension in your bloodstream and reverses the flow of oxygen somewhat--away from the brain and toward the lungs. The first structure to go in generalized brain hypoxic injury is your hyppocampus. Essentially, you mostly use this structure to solidify short-term/medium-term memories into long-term memory.

-huffing inhalants (hydrocarbons--like gasoline and paint) is said to melt your myelin sheaths surrounding axons. this is like insulation on a wire. Makes sense because myelin is made of semi-hard fats and organic solvents dissolve fats.

-serotonin-damage from ecstacy--I don't know enough about this to say if it's truly a permanent change in nerve function or numbers. I know that the cell's vessicles which are used to store serotonin are quickly dumped out into the synapses... obviously causing serotonin-depletion, but I doubt this is the actual cause of so-called brain damage from MDMA. If there is permanent damage, I suspect that it would be from the secondary effects of serotonin itself--reacting with structures touching the synapses or some other possible toxic effect of the drug. AFAIK, no one has ever determined whether MDMA use actually causes permanent changes in physical structures or function.

that's it--I'm off. Sorry if this was insulting to anyone's intelligence. Sands, I know you already know most--if not all--of the first part of this post. I just wanted to help contribute some relevant scientific 'mumbo-jumbo' in a way that people could hopefully understand. Please correct me or feel free to elaborate in areas that I am weak or just dead-wrong. Truth is Paramount. I couldn't care less about being right. -RS

[godismdma]

deffinitly good info.....................have u ever read about research conducted with monks that have been practicing meditation 20+ years? One thing that amazes me is the power monks have proven to have over these chemical reactions in the brain. I read about a study where they hooked up a monk in deep meditation to moniter brain activities, while in a tube in complete darkness they fired off blank rounds from a gun next to his head with no change what so ever in brain activity. Sorry I guess it's kinda off topic but it's so interesting what one can acomplish over the chemical reactions using mental control alone! Also, from what I know about the studies involving MDMA, the study about brain damage and MDMA was garbage that finding was retracted after another study prooved the contrairy. Later the person in charge claimed it was a mistake and in the study the bottles were miss labeled and methamphetamine was being administered not MDMA. That study was also being done by the government what a beutiful mistake in their favor!!!

[sands of time]

You weren't lying, you have a mountain of information there! Ever think of becoming a professor??? That's an interesting point about inhalants destroying myelin around the axons. That would result in slower signalling between neurons for sure, definately bad stuff. I wonder what the threshold is for this damage to occur. If you work in industry, you are breathing in all sorts of nasty stuff. It's still not widely known, from what I have seen, as to what kind of damage is being inflicted upon everyday industry workers.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Yeah! that was a Mountain of information! j/k right on with the workers though. You just started a new nationwide lawsu...

[Richard_smoker]

As for the damage done by passive inhalation and industrial workers, I wouldn't think that the damage would be severe enough to notice. By that I mean kinda like when you slowly gain a bunch of weight--and you KNOW in your mind that you weigh more than you used to (by the scale), but you don't notice that you look like a fat-ass, and the people you spend all your time with don't notice it either...

But then, when you see someone that you haven't been around since you were skinny, and they say, "OH MY GOD! YOU'VE GOTTEN FAT AS A MOTHERFUCKER!!!"

This is how I would expect that an industrial worker's exposure to hydrocarbons might affect their mentation... it would be so gradual that no one would be able to tell the difference between myelin-sheath melting and just normal effects of aging, watching too much t.v., and no mental stimulation.

However, since you bring this up, I wouldn't be surprised if some damn motherfucking lawyer read this thread and decided to sue all the chemical plants for melting all their employee's myelin sheaths!

I know this post is sorta meaningless, and isn't really based on anything but a guess, but one reason I think the effects of passive inhalation might be minimal is because I'm thinking of news stories I've seen that show kids in 3rd world countries pouring rubber cement into big plastic bags and breathing the vapors basically all-day-long, every day. To me, this constitutes inhalant abuse. These kids will definitely suffer from permanent damage to nerve conduction velocities and (if I remember correctly) the electrical conduction along their nerves will lose signal amplitude much faster than you or I would, and so they would probably start out with symptoms like you said-->slower signaling, but also less signals being conducted all the way down an axon due to fizzling out of the message.
one thing about axons is that they can somehow take advantage of their neighboring axon's myelin, so fucked-up myelination would probably lead to blending together of adjacent nerve signals. I would imagine that the effect of this would be a lower ability to discriminate fine details by the entire nervous system as a whole.

If this theory is correct, then you'd end up with a typical huff-junky story. Permanent burn-out, and difficulty exercising clarity in thought. Instead of thinking and acting with a high resolution, instead of being imaginative with infinite possibilities of thought, they would be basically stuck in broad generalities of thought. Not able to remember exact details. not able to think of words. nothing would ever be specific--just generalized, dull, and overly-simplified. also prone to super-simple types of thought processes. Essentially the same as a retarded person.

I think that the reason you see these changes within the brain so easily and not the peripheral nerves (in huff-heads) is because the brain is already like a virtual cluster-fuck of neurons, running every-which-way, and all at the same time, some running south-east with XYZ information, some running toward your eyeballs, other going to the back of your head, etc. But with the nerves which signal from your limbs and spinal column, the neurons are all essentially running in the same direction and they're all clustered in together. Because of this, they all benefit from their neighbor's myelin. So, again--just an intelligent guess--but things like gait disturbances, difficulty balancing, trouble controlling their large muscle groups, etc. will be the last things to fail. This is probably why you would notice that the kids I saw on dateline huffing rubber cement all day are simply "slow" or "dumb." because the rest of their nervous system doesn't reflect their damaged state as quickly as their brain cells do.

I hate to say something to encourage people to try stupid and awful things, but I would guess that the threshold for workers experiencing damages even remotely measureable would be EXTREMELY high. In fact, I think I'm going to slip off to the garage right now because i forgot what ether smells like.
j/k--BTW, i've heard that before about the professor thing... i really do enjoy helping others understand things even more than I enjoy learning the shit myself. I guess that stems from having NEVER had a decent teacher before in my life!
-RS

[lurkerbot]

Sorry if anyone else has already added this short and to the point little comparison, I overlooked it then!

I, like others, do not consider addiction a disease. A disorder yes, a disease no. The main reasoning for this is that true diseases can not be cured by willpower and self discipline.

Examples:

A heroin addict could theorhetically consciously decide to stop using, and if their resolve is great enough, effectively walk away from their habbit forever. Yes, easier said than done, but technically possible.

However, now, if you look at someone with an actual disease, let's say AIDS... no ammount of will power or determination on the part of the infected person will ever enable them to stop having AIDS. The same as how you can't will yourself to stop having cancer, you can however put the bottle down at any time. Substance addiction requires YOU physically putting something in your body on a repeated basis.

I personally feel the "addiction is a disease" claim is a copout by people who don't want to accept that they themselves are ultimately responsible for their actions. People with a disorder who aren't ready to stop. They weave this lie into their head and force themselves believe it full heartedly as it justifies their actions in their mind. For the addict, it eventually becomes the honest truth in their eyes for they have given up on trying to do anything to stop themselves as eventually they no longer even realize that choice exists. We're good at lying to ourselves, and that's why addiction is hell.

Sorry for my rambling here, just some opinions formed during my months spent in rehab and observing others in group therapy.

[godismdma]

Originally Posted by lurkerbot

Sorry if anyone else has already added this short and to the point little comparison, I overlooked it then!

I, like others, do not consider addiction a disease. A disorder yes, a disease no. The main reasoning for this is that true diseases can not be cured by willpower and self discipline.

Examples:

A heroin addict could theorhetically consciously decide to stop using, and if their resolve is great enough, effectively walk away from their habbit forever. Yes, easier said than done, but technically possible.

However, now, if you look at someone with an actual disease, let's say AIDS... no ammount of will power or determination on the part of the infected person will ever enable them to stop having AIDS. The same as how you can't will yourself to stop having cancer, you can however put the bottle down at any time. Substance addiction requires YOU physically putting something in your body on a repeated basis.

I personally feel the "addiction is a disease" claim is a copout by people who don't want to accept that they themselves are ultimately responsible for their actions. People with a disorder who aren't ready to stop. They weave this lie into their head and force themselves believe it full heartedly as it justifies their actions in their mind. For the addict, it eventually becomes the honest truth in their eyes for they have given up on trying to do anything to stop themselves as eventually they no longer even realize that choice exists. We're good at lying to ourselves, and that's why addiction is hell.

Sorry for my rambling here, just some opinions formed during my months spent in rehab and observing others in group therapy.

I agree except I think that after being an addict for so long that you rewire the make up of ur brain chemistry and hence why for some it's will power and others its a continuos problem that will always be there!

[a-SalviaLover]

Disorder is really a beter definition for addiction. I am not on the opinion that addicted people are fully aware of what they are doing (about the drug, not talking about adequate behaviour). SWIM had been addicted to meth for a while. He has some sort of ADD (although there is no such disease in Bulgaria and nothing is prescribed for it). After taking meth, he fastly realised that he is getting better in his life. He was doing things better and with desire. Shortly after he realised that this began to be a problem (for his body and mind) and discussed it with me. He told me he was feeling able to stop it, but the situation doesn't accept it, because he is at his best form on the drug and he has far too much problems to try stopping it. Just the same as I was thinking about cigarettes. I told him that if he wanted me to help him, he'll just have to write down the time and at least one reason to do it each time he does meth. If he doesn't do it every time, this means he doesn't want any help and he is only fooling himself. He swore that he'll write down EVERY time. We rarely see with this friend and I wasn't aware of his responsibilities and problems. May be he chose me, because I was his last none meth addicted friend. But from what I understood from the reason list he wasn't a very busy person as he had said before. He had a few jobs to do in the morning, for which he always took meth twice and the rest of the day was full of so meaningless reasons that made me shocked. He told me I'd get shocked, but this was really what he was thinking before taking the drug. There were reasons like taking the dog for a walk, having sex with his girlfriend, going out with friends etc. When I asked him, he told me he wanted to be his best, so he won't loose his social life and girlfriend which meth helped him achieve.

[JaWill88]

swim has been through treatments many times. this includes inpatient, outpatient, detox, twelve step meetings (aa,na, whatever) and just plain therapy. btw his drugs of choice are cocaine and heroin (mainly intravenous, only iv with the heroin, mostly iv with the coke, but now finds himself making base out of his cocaine hydrochloride as he doesn't do heroin anymore and really wants needles out of his life). anyways, every place he goes he finds addiction referred as a "disease". now swim didn't even fully understand the term disease until just now looking on wikipedia. swim realizes now that "disease" isn't quite what he thought it was and is much more broad in definition. so now swim really isn't asking the question as if it is a disease, but more, is it cureable? or does it stay with one forever? btw swim is only talking about addicion, or habituation. anyways, can one grow out of it? should addiction be treated as a disease? swim believes that addiction is an obsessive compulsive disorder and can be treated/grown out of. what does swiy think?

[Sklander]

In most recovery programs addiction is going to be called a disease and will be compared to cancer. This is the analogy: just like a cancer survivor is in remission, and never cured, a person suffering from addiction is in recovery, also never cured.

For a long time I struggled with this idea. I thought that what I "choose" to put in my body couldn't be a disease, but when I stopped being able to control my drug use I re evaluated my assumptions about this thing they call addiction.

There have been numerous scientific experiments with brain mapping that show an addicts mind "lighting up" in different areas when just showed a picture of their drug of choice, whether the "drug" be alcohol, cocaine, gambling, prostitutes for sex, etc. Addiction is far reaching and very unbiased.

While I am not completely sold on the fact of not using any drugs again ever (SWIM has a soft spot for pot) I am more than willing to do it for now as a few circumstances in my life have dictated that I stay clean. I have found life boring at times, but overall things have never been better. If you're the kind of drug addict that I am then problems sure seemed to manifest at infinite at the most inopportune times possible. Jails, institutions and death right? :P

SWIM wants to smoke pot again, though... Its natural right?

[staples]

The thing that bothers me with calling addiction a disease is that one is addicted to something by an exploitation of certain circuity in the brain (be it opiod and brain stem systems, or the cortico-mesolimbic system)--which seems rather specific and overall just doesn't sit well with me. I suppose it fits the definition of a disease, if you want to be technical about it. I think referring to it as a disease forces the topic to adopt the connotations surrounding all diseases which isn't really that fair. I feel like it also sends a message to an addict that they are even LESS in control, which I can't imagine would be helpful, but I guess it must be.

What I don't understand is: Why is this necessary? Why not just call it addiction? Why do people feel that they need to clarify just how bad addiction is--or why do some people need clarification?

[samuraigecko]

SWIM believes that addiction is a disease because of the way it can modify brain function on a biochemical level. Opiates for example stop the brain from producing the much needed "endomorphin" endorphin. This endorphin is used by the brain as a "filter" to tell the body which pain signals are worth worrying about and which pain signals are actually serious. In this sense an opiate user has the capacity to do themselves a much more serious injury and not even realize it.

SWIM once saw a friend drop a kitchen knife on his foot after SWIwe pushed off and he was preparing dinner. The friend did not even notice that the knife had gone almost right through one of his toes. After a little while he felt a little faint . . . SWIM saw that his shoe was almost completely red from all the blood and immediately took him to hospital after stopping the bleeding from the wound.

In this sense it could be called a disease "a disease of not being able to process pain signals in the correct manner". This is also the reason for WD pain. The majority of the pain of withdrawals comes from the brain not producing endomorphin and therefor the body is flooded with pain signals it could normally just filter away if the endomorphin was present. This could be likened to a cancer which causes a deficiency in some kind of area.

Some of this is SWIMs opinion and parts of it are medical fact.

Hope this has been of help

Reputation Comments on this post:

some good points outlined, thankyou

[jayjohnson81]

Are we talking about an addiction to 1 substance and the `behavior` of needing it? Or addiction as a person's behavior that has them switching addictions when they can't have their fix of choice. Aka - "I won't drink, I'll only smoke weed and chain smoke cigs. Or, I'm not doing herion," only to find their drinking go out of control. The `addictive personality.` ???

I don't think `an` addiction is a disease - to a chemical, food, killing, etc. It's the addictive personality that is labeled `disease` because it's tendancy to have harmful effects. (Forget the `work-addict` isn't usually labeled as a disease, only because their addiction isn't killing them!)

Fat people. Do they have the disease of glutteny? What percentage of American's have fat-ass syndrom (or, the common male version `beer-belly-itis`) Despite, KNOWING that eating fast food and soda is what is causing their disease? I doubt there are many people with `the bigness` that honestly don't know how to be less big - they're addicted to their food, and lifestyle. Despite knowing the health ramifications. Most people would call that `their choice.` Fat chance! You tried dieting? Cutting out the crap you know isn't good for you - but tastes great? It's f'ing hard! That's an addiction, not a choice!

Cunning and baffling are what addiction is. To call it a disease I think is only to `mold it` into a mental area that we can understand better. The map however, isn't the territory. It helps us to label addiction a disease, because it fits a number of the definitions - not all though. It HELPS to treat it, to fight it. Sometimes.

Hope I made some clear thoughts... not feeling well, and slightly medicated. Good topic....

[Sklander]

Fat ass syndrom is known as Overeating... Many Americans do have this disease.

Addiction is classified as a disease because it has many symptoms and can be treated. Addiction is more closely related to any neurological disorder rather than a physical malady like cancer or diabiates.

Addiction is classified as a disease because there are physical changes in ones body (specifially the brain) that allows the addiction to take place. These changes lead to long term obsessive compulsive behaviors that eventually manifest into something that is larger than the person and completely beyond control without the aide of another.

Addiction is cunning, baffling and powerful...

[madpad]

I don't know about a disease but it's certainly a chronic condition. Swim is very stoical and in control of every other substance or vice. Swim has had little bouts of trying everything but can drop everything from alcohol, coke, nicotine to sex without the slightest bit of trouble. No problem at all, just by stopping one day, even after years or months of use but opioids are completely different for some unfathomable reason.


PS it was called palfium vmark and swim still misses the old dicanol.

[rxbandit]

I believe people are more susceptible to addiction when the drug use is used as a way to sidestep a pyschological problem( a break up, job loss, rejection...) If the addiction is rooted in pyschological turbulent periods I believe it is difficult to kick the addiction without first addressing these other insecurities, pains, fears and inconsistincies in the mind.

I have struggled with addiction in the past and had alot of trouble quitting, went to a few rehab centers(forced). During that time in my life I was very confused and insecure, drugs were my fix and my way to sidestep and forget troubling things, when the drugs werent there and the unadressed emotions re ermerged without any tangible cause that I could recall I could not work through the initial problems especially with the many demands life makes upon us daily. Once I untangled my subconcious I have since used many far addicting compounds and have quit without a problem.

I think alot of addiction is a matter of programming your brain and kicking the addiction involves reprogramming your brain as to associate the withdrawal symptoms with why you dont want to do the drug again rather then redosing to avoid the withdrawal. This avoidance I think is a key part of the addicted personality at the time, they are always trying to avoid a thought or a feeling or a crash.

A disease is not something you can overcome with therapy and deep introspection, at least not a terminal one. drugs cant fix addiction although there is a new article in newsweek about the addiction vaccine but I am skeptical to say the least(although it may be a helpful tool, not a cure all...). I think addiction is more a matter of neural confusion, and the term addiction and disease are discouraging and crippling to a full recovery and understanding of the self. This method is in fact reprogramming your brain with a negative connotation rather then adressing the underlying issues.

So in short I agree with the original posters premise.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Interesting and insightful post

[valium_mark]

Originally Posted by rxbandit

I believe people are more susceptible to addiction when the drug use is used as a way to sidestep a pyschological problem( a break up, job loss, rejection...) If the addiction is rooted in pyschological turbulent periods I believe it is difficult to kick the addiction without first addressing these other insecurities, pains, fears and inconsistincies in the mind.

I have struggled with addiction in the past and had alot of trouble quitting, went to a few rehab centers(forced). During that time in my life I was very confused and insecure, drugs were my fix and my way to sidestep and forget troubling things, when the drugs werent there and the unadressed emotions re ermerged without any tangible cause that I could recall I could not work through the initial problems especially with the many demands life makes upon us daily. Once I untangled my subconcious I have since used many far addicting compounds and have quit without a problem.

I think alot of addiction is a matter of programming your brain and kicking the addiction involves reprogramming your brain as to associate the withdrawal symptoms with why you dont want to do the drug again rather then redosing to avoid the withdrawal. This avoidance I think is a key part of the addicted personality at the time, they are always trying to avoid a thought or a feeling or a crash.

A disease is not something you can overcome with therapy and deep introspection, at least not a terminal one. drugs cant fix addiction although there is a new article in newsweek about the addiction vaccine but I am skeptical to say the least(although it may be a helpful tool, not a cure all...). I think addiction is more a matter of neural confusion, and the term addiction and disease are discouraging and crippling to a full recovery and understanding of the self. This method is in fact reprogramming your brain with a negative connotation rather then adressing the underlying issues.

So in short I agree with the original posters premise.

may be but not all the time as we get younger people taking drugs before they leave school ? but only cannabis i wouldnt think at that age they would no about dyke palfium etc i think there old school folks drugs i dont no it all no one does i just like to add my comment if you disagree folks put me straight

[Greenport]

"It's like alcoholism is a disease, but alcoholism is the only disease that you can get yelled at for having...

Damnit, Otto, you're an alcoholic!
Damnit Otto, you have lupus!

One of those two doesn't sound right."
-Mitch Hedberg

[AntiAimer]

Addictions are health problems, not diseases. There formed by the person.

Someone who drinks to much or someone who plays to many video games, is all the persons choice. Without them chooseing to do such, they would never developed the addiction.

[psyche]

Sure, addiction can be seen as a disease. But in my opinion it is a bit dodgy to call it a disease since it needs your very conscious actions constantly to keep addicted. Well,yes, you can have cravings for coke all your life without taking it in the past 50 years, at least in theory. But no one knows of it if you don't take the drug. At the same time someone can be taking the drug but be able to stop at any time. Well enough with the vague line between a disease and a quality of personality.


Disease is also IMO a senseless classification for addiction since it rather describes the object for which the subject is driven to, whereas other classifications of mental illnesses describe not the object but the different process of mind that lead people to misery. Well, they don't describe the processes, but symptoms in behaviour, but when we are talking about i.e OCD everyone knows the feeling of 'did I lock the door'. The disease is not defined by the door.

What I don't understand is: Why is this necessary? Why not just call it addiction? Why do people feel that they need to clarify just how bad addiction is--or why do some people need clarification?

It helps the individual by taking of some responsibility, even if it could be considered illlusion. When you have a disease, you can talk about it more freely, and the first step to healing is the recognition of the problem. It can be also seen as a society's way of tellling people that we don't hate you per se, as long as you hate that drug.

[cyndi]

No I need to put this in a different way I guess. In my case, the addiction will get me eventually. That is probably the best way to put it. Not everyone that uses drugs are addicts. Some people can use socially and get away from it. Others, it alters your life in a very negative way such as ending up in prison or dead. It would depend I suppose.

I thought at one time drug addiction is not a disease, it is some idiot trying to ruin other people's lives or their own. With that being said, swim would love to just never have the urge to use again. She doesn't think through consequences till it is too late. She wishes she could stop at one hit instead of 1000 hits later....The behavior is definitely not logical so what would it be.......I will put it that way.

Reputation Comments on this post:

I agree with your logic on addiction.

[TMM]

I have no problem with it being called a disease, but in my mind it doesn't make much sense to do so. Addiction is a classification in the same way that disease is. It would be like saying 'disease is a disease.' Addiction isn't a thing, it's an umbrella term. If someone were to ask me if alcoholism is a disease, I'd say no it's an addiction. I see them as different terms on the same level, rather than addiction being categorised under disease.