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anonymous
writes: Do you think drug addiction is an disease,or its willpower problem?My sun is an addict, and I'm trying to help him, but he relapsed so many times , that I'm losing hope, and energy.I would never give up, but what can i do as a parent to stop this tragic problem?He went to rehab, for 3 month, before, he is clean a bit but goes back all the time.He lives with us, but I don't know what else can I do?Thanks Reply to this Question
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reader, anonymous, writes (8 June 2009): You cannot do much and you did not do anything wrong unless you provided the drugs and helped him use them.
Addiction is neither a disease nor a willpower deficit. It is a third thing.
Addiction is manifest by "craving." If there is no craving there is no addiction. If you have never been addicted to anything, it is best understood as the natural cravings we have for sex or food. When we want one of those things we really, really want it and nothing else will do. People addicted to drugs have the same cravings except x100, or x1000, or even much more intense. Those of us not addicted to drugs have real difficulty understanding a craving that intense, so first some to grips with the fact that you cannot know how an addiction patient feels; you cannot.
Addiction is powerful. We have all known people that smoked with full knowledge that they would very likely die from lung cancer if they didn't die from something else first. And we have known people who literally ate themselves to death. And nicotine and food are considered very mild addictive agents but they are deadly and the addicts maintain their destructive behavior with the full knowledge that they are severely damaging their health or worse, killing themselves.
Now, we are all born with the neurobiology to be addicted to many drugs: opiates including synthetic ones like Demerol, pain medicines like Darvon, sleeping medications like Ambien, anxiolytics like Xanax. Unless you are a genetic freak of nature, we would all develop cravings for those if we used them for a while and then quit using them.
In addition, we are all born with the neurobiology to be addicted to heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Those are more potent psychotropic drugs and if we used those drugs even for a short time and then quit using them, we would all develop intense, irresistible cravings for those drugs. In other words, we couldn't quit. We would all do whatever it took to obtain more of those drugs to satisfy those intense cravings.
So if we are all born with the necessary neurobiology to be addicted to so many things, and powerfully addicted to some things, why don't we all use them? We don't try them in the first place so we don't know how great it feels to experience heroin or meth. For example, most of us were indifferent about sex until we experienced it a few times, now I cannot live without sex, at least not for very long. If we had the drug experience a time or two we would also be addicted. Meth addicts indicate that they are addicted after a single dose and the only successful treatment is incarceration. And even after release from incarceration for over a year, the addiction is so strong almost all meth addicts and most heroin addicts relapse. So, in a sense, willpower (or fear) to not try these addictive drugs is all that separates us from addiction. We never tried the stuff, they did and became addicted.
So what to do? Addiction is a very difficult problem, socially and personally for each addict and their loved ones. In some cases there are drugs that can subsidize the sheer determination and willpower the addict requires to not give in to the intense cravings. We non-addicts cannot even imagine, much less comprehend what the intense cravings are like. A dose which satisfies those cravings is analogous to something like a lifetime of orgasms happening continuously over a few hour period. I've got to admit that experience sounds pretty good to me, but my intense fear of addiction keeps me from giving in.
In the end, to answer the question, I suppose addiction is a physiological response to an external stimulus the result of which is severe damage to tissues and organ systems, so in that sense it is a disease. Alternatively, it can initially be prevented by the willpower not to use addictive things and the only way out of addiction is willpower, so yes willpower deficits can lead to addiction analogous to how a pathogen can lead to infection so in another sense, willpower deficits can "cause" the disease.
The cravings are intense and since a willpower deficit allows the disease to progress, the "cure" is for the addict to somehow possess willpower sufficient to fill in those deficits that allow the disease to progress. Other than the few drugs cited earlier (some believe in talk therapy to bolster willpower) which aid the willpower there is nothing else. We cannot exogenously supplement the willpower other than forced isolation or incarceration of the addict. Obviously isolation is a perfect cure that is 100% successful. But most addicts relapse after release, and a lifetime of isolation is untenable.
I'm sorry but there really is nothing else. Good luck.
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reader, anonymous, writes (8 June 2009): It begins as a will power problem when they can't say "no." then they begin and for a little while longer it is willpower as well. But once they've gotten into it, it's beyond that. It's physical addiction.. cravings and headaches, etc. It produces chemicals in your brain that your body begins to rely on and then misses when it's not there. It does take a LOT to get these addicts back on track and completely off. I think mostly, they have to really, really want to stop. If they don't want to and are just being forced, then i don't think there is any possible way. I have never been in this situation so i'm sorry that i can't prvide better insight on how exactly to help him.I do know however, that the ony thing taht got my hubby to stop smoking, was the woman he loved being really disappointd in him.
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