Alcoholism & Drug Addiction are Diseases

[Anonymous]

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1891

this is just a student papaer but it summerizes the sit pretty well. The comments beneath are truly tragic and their stories make the 'drug addicts are just weak willed loser' line..,especially coming from people who insist they lost their willpower and ability to think clearly from brainwashing, materialize as so stupid and heartless.

[Anonymous]

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/closetohome/science/index.html

@@@@ Introduction: Addiction as a Disease
 
 
 
 By Janet Firshein

Most Americans have been affected in some way by addiction to drugs of abuse such as alcohol, nicotine, and illicit substances. Yet addiction to alcohol and other drugs is a phenomenon that has been clouded by myth, misunderstanding, and moral judgments. The very nature of the problem -- what addiction is -- has long been debated. Most people probably continue to think of addiction -- particularly to illicit drugs -- as primarily a moral or character problem, something caused by degeneracy or lack of willpower.

Scientific research into addiction, however, has led experts to conclude that addiction is actually a disease, a chronic illness like diabetes or hypertension. The American Medical Association broke new ground approximately forty years ago when it declared alcoholism to be a disease. And in the past decade, dramatic advances in technology have allowed scientists to examine the brain itself in search of the causes, mechanisms, and consequences of addiction. Today, scientists and physicians overwhelmingly agree that while use and even abuse of drugs such as alcohol and cocaine is a behavior over which the individual exerts control, addiction to these substances is something different. Scientists have begun to understand why addicted people may sacrifice everything that's important to them -- their jobs, their families, their homes -- in the quest for a chemical fix.

"When you get into an addicted state, it's a disease of the brain," says Alan Leshner, Ph.D., director of the federal government's National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Leshner says the stigma associated with alcohol and drug addiction is one of the biggest problems experts continually face in dealing with it. Leshner says that the public has little sympathy for addicts, but he adds that "whether you like the person or not, you've got to deal with [their problem] as an illness."

The so-called disease model doesn't mean that addicts cannot stop using drugs -- only that doing so is difficult and often requires treatment and major lifestyle changes. Addiction is a disease that causes changes in the brain, which then drive certain behavior -- taking the drug compulsively -- but addicts can learn to change the behavior. Treatment of and recovery from addiction are possible. Steven Hyman, M.D., who directs the National Institute of Mental Health, compares the disease of addiction to heart disease, which may also necessitate major lifestyle changes. "Take heart patients. We don't blame them for having heart disease," he says, but we ask them to follow a certain diet, to exercise, to comply with medication regimes. So it is with the addicted person -- we shouldn't blame them for the disease, but we should treat them as having responsibility for their recovery. "@@@@

[Anne Bonney]

Scientific research into addiction, however, has led experts to conclude that addiction is actually a disease, a chronic illness like diabetes or hypertension.

Citation please.


 

The American Medical Association broke new ground approximately forty years ago when it declared alcoholism to be a disease

Forty years ago.  Let's start to list the things that were believed to be true 40 years ago compared to what evidence we have now.

. And in the past decade, dramatic advances in technology have allowed scientists to examine the brain itself in search of the causes, mechanisms, and consequences of addiction. Today, scientists and physicians overwhelmingly agree that while use and even abuse of drugs such as alcohol and cocaine is a behavior over which the individual exerts control, addiction to these substances is something different. Scientists have begun to understand why addicted people may sacrifice everything that's important to them -- their jobs, their families, their homes -- in the quest for a chemical fix.

Citation please.

"When you get into an addicted state, it's a disease of the brain," says Alan Leshner, Ph.D., director of the federal government's National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

how many of us want to start listing NIDA peeps that are financially connected to "the industry"?


 

Leshner says the stigma associated with alcohol and drug addiction is one of the biggest problems experts continually face in dealing with it.

Now that part I can agree with.  The mis-information that's floating around is astounding!!!

Leshner says that the public has little sympathy for addicts, but he adds that "whether you like the person or not, you've got to deal with [their problem] as an illness."

Yes, as we do now with alcohol and tobacco.  Regulate and tax it.

The so-called disease model doesn't mean that addicts cannot stop using drugs -- only that doing so is difficult and often requires treatment and major lifestyle changes.

But that's NOT a "disease".  At all.


 

Addiction is a disease that causes changes in the brain, which then drive certain behavior -- taking the drug compulsively -- but addicts can learn to change the behavior.

No, ABUSING heavy drugs or alcohol for a number of years MAY......MAY cause some of those "symptoms".

Treatment of and recovery from addiction are possible. Steven Hyman, M.D., who directs the National Institute of Mental Health, compares the disease of addiction to heart disease, which may also necessitate major lifestyle changes. "Take heart patients. We don't blame them for having heart disease," he says, but we ask them to follow a certain diet, to exercise, to comply with medication regimes. So it is with the addicted person -- we shouldn't blame them for the disease, but we should treat them as having responsibility for their recovery. "@@@@

And how many people who have heart disease do we forcibly lock up???

[Anne Bonney]

I mean, come on!!!!  I've been guilty before of doing the 'cut & paste' of certain articles I feel are relevant, but at least I back them up with the sources they're quoting.

[Anonymous]

Do you think I'm arguing to lock people up forcibly? Hardly. Yeah, it was declared a diesease 40 years ago, that article was about all the evidence compiled since then backing that up and charting on its pathology. Read it with an open mind if you feel like it

[Anne Bonney]

Do you think I'm arguing to lock people up forcibly?

Ummm....yeah, I do.

Yeah, it was declared a diesease 40 years ago, that article was about all the evidence compiled since then backing that up and charting on its pathology. Read it with an open mind if you feel like it

Really?  I didn't see any recent studies quoted but I may very well have missed them.  If I did, please post them here.

[Anonymous]

I mean, come on!!!!  I've been guilty before of doing the 'cut & paste' of certain articles I feel are relevant, but at least I back them up with the sources they're quoting.

lol. i didnt claim to write the article. OK. So i shouldnt just cut and paste the relevent article but, I guess, demand this journalist's source notes for my internet arguments. Well, apparently this material is ammassed from at least 50 sources including The Scripps Research institue, Geroge Koob M.D,National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) director Alan Leshner, Ph.D.Steven Hyman, M.D, and the NiDA brain imaging center. So if you think PBS is lying, contact these folk and see if they feel misrepresented. But You DO realize the science supports that addiction is real, an illness, a disease, whatever you want to call it, right?-Even if you don't agree with that? I'm sure this isnt the first youve heard about this information. I mean, this isnt some tiny, crazy, obscure opinin by a doctor in kallamoozoo, this is mainstream verity , supported by mainstream legitimate research for half a century.
There are 1000s or more studies on, and around this subject all supporting and charting this pathology. Anyway, good night

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/closetohome/sci ... ssing.html
***No one becomes addicted the first time they try a drug," says George Koob, M.D., a professor in the neuropharmacology department at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Although there are some cases where a person's reaction to first use is so positive that they immediately begin to abuse a drug, Koob says most addiction has a subtler start. It usually doesn't take place until the person has been using chronically. The person has become an addict when his or her brain has literally been changed by this chronic use of the drug, University School of Medicine
 
 
 
   
 Many substances and activities, from food to sex, exert control over human behavior by motivating us to indulge in them. But addictive drugs, such as alcohol, nicotine, cocaine, and heroin, can affect the structure and function of the brain -- and hence our motivations -- in long-lasting ways. They can actually alter and "usurp," in one scientist's term, the "circuits" in the brain that are involved in the control of emotions and motivation, impairing an addicted person's will. "What addiction really is, is a result of brain changes that over time get translated into behavior changes," says National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) director Alan Leshner, Ph.D.

If a person uses drugs, at a high enough dose, frequently enough and for a long period of time, these drugs change the way the brain works. "You change the way nerve cells communicate in such a way that you develop this compulsive, out-of-control use despite knowing that all kinds of terrible things can happen to you, and despite even experiencing many of those things," says National Institute of Mental Health director Steven Hyman, M.D.

Studies using new technologies show the precise effects of drugs on the brain. "In many cases, we can actually see changes in the structure of synapses and in the shapes of [brain] cells," says Hyman. A NIDA study released in 1996 provided the first direct evidence that chronic use of opiates (such as morphine and heroin) is linked with structural changes in the size and shape of specific neurons. Researchers at the Yale University School of Medicine found that rats chronically given morphine experienced marked structural changes in critical brain "circuits." Other NIDA studies have shown that altered brain circuits could be responsible for the major differences in brain functioning between an occasional cocaine user and a cocaine addict.

-- Janet Firshein
 
 
     
 Image: Courtesy of NIDA Brain Imaging Center***

[Anonymous]

Do you think I'm arguing to lock people up forcibly?

Ummm....yeah, I do.
.

Well, that's the trouble with mind reading then. Nope, not pro forcfully locking people up except if they pose an immediate danger to themselves or others. Any attempt to hold anyone in med confinement should be of course only exist within the context of the target's right to due process and habeous corpus.

[Anne Bonney]

Nope, not pro forcfully locking people up except if they pose an immediate danger to themselves or others.

By what or whose standards do we apply that?  Do you not see how easily that could be corrupted?  How easily it WAS corrupted?

Any attempt to hold anyone in med confinement should be of course only exist within the context of the target's right to due process and habeous corpus.

And to date, at least from my knowledge, there is no such thing as a "right to due process" or even habeas corpus in TTI programs.

[Anonymous]

Of course addiction is a disease. I got addicted to drugs and alcohol at separate points in my life and I would of killed myself both times from overdose or driving intoxicated sooner or later. It's not about forcing people to go to drug rehab, it's the people in your life watch you degenerate into someone who has a difficult time doing everyday things. It becomes obvious to friends and family you are deteriorating from substance abuse and they want to get help. It's not sinister or complicated, it's just people who care about another person helping them get the help they need. If someone gets cancer it's the same thing, we help people who are sick get better and help them get back into a regular life after recovering. Addiction recovery is no different. The obsession here with being against any form of treatment whatsoever is laughable. All the professionals and colleges and peer organizations agree that drug rehab works and it's the standard way of dealing with people with addiction problems. There are different types of rehab so people can pick and choose what type of recovery they want. It's an industry totally designed to help people, and somehow you guys found it and accuse it of being evil. I don't understand whether you are crazy or just misguided, but it really takes away from credibility when talking about programs. Fornits sure isn't what it used to be. Soon it will probably just be a board for people who went to AA and didn't like it, to complain about it. I can see why this would be beneficial because AA is so big and programs are all going out of business, that no new visitors will come to fornits unless the topic shifts to AA. You can dismantle my post and quote it and point out what you view as things I said that are wrong but let me tell you there's no point since I am not going to respond. The anti drug treatment thing is more of a cult than AA is and so there's no point in arguing with any of you. Just try to remember some people need drug and alcohol treatment and you have no right to tell them they don't. You try to make people feel shame for being addicted just like decades ago. You want to erase all progress made in the science of addiction and treatment and go back to a world in denial and shame. Thanks but no thanks .

[Anne Bonney]

Of course addiction is a disease.

Why?  Because you say so?


 

I got addicted to drugs and alcohol at separate points in my life and I would of killed myself both times from overdose or driving intoxicated sooner or later.

I'm confused.  How does that make it a disease?

It's not about forcing people to go to drug rehab, it's the people in your life watch you degenerate into someone who has a difficult time doing everyday things.

And again....who's to decide that?  Who is all knowing enough to decide when someone is having "too" difficult of a time??

It becomes obvious to friends and family you are deteriorating from substance abuse and they want to get help.

THEY want to get help.  Fine.  Let "them".  Let the "addict" decide if he/she wants help.  Afterall, it won't work unless they want it, right?

It's not sinister or complicated, it's just people who care about another person helping them get the help they need. If someone gets cancer it's the same thing,

Bullshit and don't diminish cancer by comparing it to something someone CHOOSES to do.  That's just sick.

we help people who are sick get better and help them get back into a regular life after recovering.

By who's standards??

Addiction recovery is no different. The obsession here with being against any form of treatment whatsoever is laughable.

I seriously doubt ANYone here is against true, VOLUNTARY treatment.  We're against forced/coerced rehab.  Without due process....without consent.


 

All the professionals and colleges and peer organizations agree that drug rehab works

All of them?? Are you sure??  And which rehab??  What are the cutoffs of someone using v. abusing??


 

and it's the standard way of dealing with people with addiction problems. There are different types of rehab so people can pick and choose what type of recovery they want.

What if they don't want it?

It's an industry totally designed to help people, and somehow you guys found it and accuse it of being evil

Bullshit.  It's an industry designed to squeeze the most out of the parent insurance/savings that they can.

Fornits sure isn't what it used to be. Soon it will probably just be a board for people who went to AA and didn't like it, to complain about it. I can see why this would be beneficial because AA is so big and programs are all going out of business, that no new visitors will come to fornits unless the topic shifts to AA. You can dismantle my post and quote it and point out what you view as things I said that are wrong but let me tell you there's no point since I am not going to respond. The anti drug treatment thing is more of a cult than AA is and so there's no point in arguing with any of you. Just try to remember some people need drug and alcohol treatment and you have no right to tell them they don't. You try to make people feel shame for being addicted just like decades ago. You want to erase all progress made in the science of addiction and treatment and go back to a world in denial and shame. Thanks but no thanks .

 :boycott:  :boycott:  :boycott:  :boycott:  :boycott:  :boycott:  :boycott:

[Anonymous]

It's obvious that what I said bother you. Instead of me responding to you point by point, I think you should explore the reason why someone getting help for their problems bothers you so much. It might go deeper than you think. Don't be afraid to get help, there's no shame in it.  God bless..... I hope you do better than me with drugs and drinking.

[Anne Bonney]

It's obvious that what I said bother you.

Now, seriously.  Why on earth would you say that?

Instead of me responding to you point by point, I think you should explore the reason why someone getting help for their problems bothers you so much.

Well of course you do.  That's called an "ad hominem" reply.  You can't refute or even attempt to answer the pointed questions I've posed, so you assume I have some deep seeded problems.   Sweetie, I can tell you that any problems I may have had were caused by my unfortunate and wholly inappropriate incarceration.  I might also add that this is/was a common tactic in programs.  No dissent or critical thinking is allowed.  It's met with baseless accusations and cheap shots at one's character because you cannot refute what I'm saying or back up what you are.   How many times have we all seen or lived this?

It might go deeper than you think. Don't be afraid to get help, there's no shame in it.

No thanks.  I've had just about all the "help" I can stand.  It damn near killed me.

 God bless..... I hope you do better than me with drugs and drinking.

I have.

[Anonymous]

Do you think I'm arguing to lock people up forcibly?

Ummm....yeah, I do.

Yeah, it was declared a diesease 40 years ago, that article was about all the evidence compiled since then backing that up and charting on its pathology. Read it with an open mind if you feel like it

Really?  I didn't see any recent studies quoted but I may very well have missed them.  If I did, please post them here.

There are over 1/2 million google hits for the CREB gene. I don't understand why you don't like this. If they know and accept it as a disease then these behavioral modification programs are invalid.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=CREB+gene&aq=f&oq=

[Anonymous]

Nope, not pro forcfully locking people up except if they pose an immediate danger to themselves or others.

By what or whose standards do we apply that?  Do you not see how easily that could be corrupted?  How easily it WAS corrupted?

Any attempt to hold anyone in med confinement should be of course only exist within the context of the target's right to due process and habeous corpus.

And to date, at least from my knowledge, there is no such thing as a "right to due process" or even habeas corpus in TTI programs.

Anything is easily corrupted, but holding adults in medical confinement is heavily formatted and due process and habeas corpus have been working quite well. Minors should have the same rights as adults. I am agaisnt the TTI, but pro-science and helping the wounded.