Are there people here who believe being addicted to alcohol or drugs is an illness?
 

I was watching this documentary made by Russel Brand and it was basically about 1 thing: people who are addicted to alcohol or heroin etc aren't by choice. It's an illness.

So people who believe that kind of nonsense, please explain to me how they got "ill" in the first place. Because as we all know illness is not something you choose to be. It happens to if you want to or not.
So these people suddenly woke up with a needle in their arm or something?

Brand forgot to mention this part.

If being an asshole is an illness, then yes it's an illness.

But it's not in a class with something like depression, where the chemical processes in your brain are out of your control. You can control whether or not you pour alcohol down your stupid throat.

Some form of mental illness yes, the same as people who over eat to obesity, who over exercise to the extreme, plastic surgery addicts.. that sort of thing.

And he went nuts about people who reject the idea that it's an illness. He just kept on mentioning it yet not once he mentioned how these people got ill exactly.

its a load of bollocks you can quit anything

Basically trying it for the first time can "awaken" a pre-existing illness...i dont understand whats so hard to understand about addiction being hard wired.

when they started calling it a disease it bothered me too.

however, i don't think there is an argument against it actually being an illness though. It's more of a personality disorder rather than a physical one. The same type of person who can't stop eating 2 bags of marshmallows a day or who has to drink 4 litres of soda a day despite being 500+lbs. Or someone who can't stop gambling until all their possessions and friends are gone? Heavy drug problems the same.

same problem, just different vice really.

Yes, there are people who are mentally very ill and do crazy stuff. But that's something else. If you look at it like that then anything is an illness if your mental illness tells you to do this or that.

Some people will get addicted easier than other people. Sure, no problem with that.
But nobody is forcing you to put a needle in your arm or drink a bottle of wodka.
And illness is something that happens to you if you want to or no. Drinking a bottle of wodkda is your own choice. It isn't forced upon you.
It's quite simple really.

They are sick. But they wanted to!

it's actually exactly like depression, something happens to create an inbalance in your brain and you become addicted... sure you can control it, but it's kinda like trying to control hunger for food... easier to just eat food (drugs) than wait for the hunger to go away.... :2 cents:

I guess we would have to properly define "illness" first.

The brain isn't physical? It's the most complex organ in the entire human body and the least understood, we've barely scratched the surface. As time goes on and neuro biology and neuro psychiatry progresses there is more evidence that there are physical reasons for most personality/behaviour/mood disorders.

My question is and it's not answered yet is does what we think and do affect brain chemistry - right now it seems all I read about is chemical imbalances and other abnormalities in how a person's brain works being the cause of these type of disorders not vice versa.

There's no doubt the pharmaceutical and medicial industry want all these disorders to be considered physical illnesses so they can market expensive drugs and make billions of dollars. I understand where the scepticism comes from.

Trying to separate mind/brain from body is impossible.

There's also the possibility that the truth is that there are some people with addictions who do have a biological chemical abnormalities causing it and others with the same addictions have emotional problems stemming from sociological issues.

Putting aside all the scientific research, blah blah blah, I say its simply WEAKNESS in humans!
Either you man up and help yourself or you don't. :2 cents:

Sounds like a challenge, I will provide you the Heroin for a week then you have to quit.. K?

Because its not. Not anymore than being gay is. It is taking a wide range of behaviors and motivations and putting them all under a single umbrella of "disease".

A girl can wake up one day and decide to have sex with her girlfriend. She can choose to do it every day for months. That doesn't mean she is hard wired to be gay. One the other hand, you can see men/women that clearly are. You can have a woman that's been raped and be left with no ability to bond with, trust or be intimate with males.... and so on and so on.. and so on.

Addiction in almost all cases is "self medication" to deal with emotional issues. Of course there are neurological components in different types of addictions and with different types of drugs. Once a person has started down that path, they have a huge fight in terms of stopping their addiction in most cases. However, that doesn't mean that one can't take responsibility for their behavior or should not be held responsible for their behavior or that their behavior should be instantly dismissed as "oh, he has a disease, so he can do what he wants, say what he wants, steal what he wants, abuse who he wants and so on with impunity"

Dyslexia isn't real either. It's fake!

a physical addiction to a drug is an illness but how they got there in the first place is a different story.

There's your problem.

^ ^ :2 cents:

To me, the important difference is in how we recognize and treat these people as a society. We've lost the part us where being a junkie was one small notch above child rapist. (incidentally, most of the same arguments for being a junkie and why its not their fault, can be made for a child rapist as well)

If you are a junkie, you should be judged and scorned and ridiculed and held up as an example of failure and as "what not to be".

Today, we live in a world where junkies are openly celebrated on TV and in the media.. where a hardcore drug addict like Charlie Sheen can become a hero as he fully implodes, loses his kids, his career and everything he cares about. Hollywood is full of twits that party day and night, most of whom are addicts that should be talked about and treated as such... but they aren't. They're just the cool kids now.

Can you make a conscious choice to be dyslexic? Can you wake up and make the conscious choice to stop being dyslexic from that moment forward? You can do both with drugs and alcohol.

I consider it a form of mental illness. You start off enjoying it, but then when you realise its hurting you and you want to stop...

You still find yourself taking another drink.

You can make a conscious choice to stop putting it in your mouth. It doesn't mean you don't have some serious issues going on in your brain that draw you to it, minute after minute. We are talking about addiction here. Something I don't know anything about because I am not an addict, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

If a pedophile is not touching a little boy this minute, does it not make him a pedophile anymore? That is a choice.

I have no clue what you are trying to say here.

I guess it's the same as being fat because you have an illness.

The "illness" is really just weak or total lack of self-control if you ask me.

What exactly is it about addiction that you don't believe is true? It certainly isn't an excuse to do stupid things. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

We blame the brain for all sorts of weird, choice related things. Pedophilia, child abuse, serial killers, the list goes on.

Why do you want to suddenly stop crediting the brain for a serious issue?

I'm not an addict, but when I have a Coca-Cola, I tend to want another Coca-Cola. It's not an issue for me, I don't have the addiction issues. But based on me wanting more of what I just enjoyed, it's not a real stretch for me to understand how another person could have serious issues with this. And it's not just about "control" and "willpower", there's more behind it.

Putting a needle in your arm is a choice. Not an illness. Nobody is forced to shoot heroin. I can't explain it any better.

A sociopath will lie, cheat, and steal to get what they want. All controlled actions that this person puts forth.

Does anyone here really believe a sociopath does not have something strange going on in their head?

Again i have no idea what you are trying to say.

How do you figure you can just switch addiction off? someone who is dyslexic can learn to read if they work at it. An addict can get clean if they work at it, isn't that the same? Addiction is an illness

Imagine you are fat, and you are trying to lose weight by not eating anything at all for 5 days... how long do you think you would realistically last? I bet you on day 2 or 3, you would say "fuck this" and would continue eating as usual...

that's kinda how quitting heroin feels like (except it's 5x worse) from what I heard...

That was only on in the UK last week.

How did you watch it?

Surely you didn't pirate it?

Being dyslexic is not a choice. Putting a needle in your arm is.
How can you people not understand something so simple! You weren't born with a damn needle in your arm.

It was aired here 2 months ago.

And i pirate the shit out of movies in case you care.

Yup, how about you don't start using heroin. It's a choice you know.

Find that hard to believe.

Oh right. You're *that* guy. Awesome.

Yeah, i must be lying because it's really something i would lie about.
Maybe 6 weeks ago, maybe 7, i can't remember exactly and i don't care.
Neither do i care if you believe me.

what if for whatever reason you do try it? perhaps you are curious, or are unaware of the dangers of it? then what? it's not like addicts wake up one day and think to themselves: "lets get hopelessly addicted to heroin so I can ruin my life"...

So you agree it isn't an illness. It's a choice. You weren't born with a needle in your arm.

Great. We're getting somewhere.

Its nowhere near the same. Eating food does not create a physical dependency like heroin does.

I love it when people post saying how little they care, thus demonstrating they care.

You have some seriously retarded logic going on :error :1orglaugh

Poor guy.

I meant NOT eating creates perhaps similar "pain" as withdrawing from heroin... I'm just speculating though...

most people who do so have emotional/mental issues. they need to escape from reality because their reality is hell. with heroin they are just trading it for another hell but in the moment it feels good.

Okay, you get hit by a fucking bus, doctors give you painkillers to save your life, you get addicted... Was that your choice? Bret Favre had a serious painkiller addiction for years due to the beatings he took as an NFL QB. Are you saying that people who are pounded like that should refrain from any sort of relief? Why did Bret get addicted and Joe 6 pack not? Illness?

Also have you ever done drugs? If the answer is yes like most of us then you might not suffer from an illness that causes you to be weak and keep going, though others do..

it's a choice when you first try it, then it turns into an illness...

So every addiction is an illness you are saying?

You can't be just addicted to the drug it self. It's an illness?

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