Addiction is a disease

Prescription Drugs

Would you call the long term use of prescription drugs like Lipitor an addiction?
The person taking them originally had a choice to start them or change their symptoms through diet and excercise. Those who chose the drugs often cannot come off them without being given serious consequences from their doctors. It's really a dependence, not addiction, but I think the same principles of free choice versus pressure from society apply.
 
Aquila said:
Would you call the long term use of prescription drugs like Lipitor an addiction?
The person taking them originally had a choice to start them or change their symptoms through diet and excercise. Those who chose the drugs often cannot come off them without being given serious consequences from their doctors. It's really a dependence, not addiction, but I think the same principles of free choice versus pressure from society apply.
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These are simply unrelated concepts. You are ignoring the qualities of addiction that distinguish it from simply using something everyday.
 
skeptigirl said:
Why is this impossible?

The problem is drunk driving laws do not reflect the 15,000 annual deaths from drunk drivers. IMO, drunk driving laws and sentences reflect the fact many judges and legislators as well as much of the public underestimates this fact and underestimates the role addiction to alcohol plays in DUIs.
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Jails are so overcrowded with other crimes. Locking people up because they are caught driving drunk the first time will never happen. I have delt with people that have been arrested 40+ times for various crimes and are still walking the street.
Some murderers are released 3 years or less.

A DUI driver loses his license after the 3rd conviction of DUI. His license is suspended or revoked, for up to 3 years or more. If he is caught driving on a DUI again during this suspension, his car can be impounded and he is charged with felony DUI, spends the night in jail and is brought before the judge for bond hearing.
The laws appear strict, but there always seem to be cracks that people slip through. There needs to be more severe punishments, I agree.
People continue to drive anyway, they continue to drink.
Unless they are involved in a crash that results in death to the other party, they go to jail and don't get to drink anymore!
And he will probably use that excuse to continue to drink when he gets out.
A vicious circle.
 
chris epic said:
Originally Posted by skeptigirl
The more appropriate questions here are, "what percentage of drunk drivers have some degree of alcoholic disease? Because my reading suggests most if not all"?

I disagree. Getting pulled over for a DUI is literally luck of the draw. I have driven 100s of times drunk and have gotten two DUIs. Most people tha get DUIs were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I am in an alcohol class weekly per my DUI sentence. In a room of about 25 of us, about 4 or 5 say they are alcoholics, the rest are college students that just shoudn't have driven that night, but admit they don't believe they have alcoholism. Of coarse they could be lying, in denial, or haven't reaped enough consequences in their life as a result of drinking, but for the most part, they don't seem to fit the profile.

Its one of the first questions I ask them "do you think you have a problem with drinking?" and most of them say no. But it isn't like its hard to be honest with everyone in there.
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Actually, the fact people do drive drunk 100s of times for every 1 time they get caught is one of the reasons people with DUIs typically have addictive behaviors.

It sounds like you recognize you have a problem and you are saying the other guys in the class really did get caught on that one time they drove drunk. I can guarantee you unless your class is an anomaly, they are in denial.

Denial is a prominent feature of alcoholism. Lots of people have an issue with the word, "alcoholic". They picture it is the guy who is, "worse than me, therefore I am not one." And even if you don't focus on the terminology, research shows people underestimate how often they drink and how often they drink and drive. Family members underestimate how much the alcoholic drinks as well. Another feature of alcoholism is constantly offering drinks to others or getting them to engage in drinking such as, "let's go to the pub." The reason is it helps the person in denial feel their level of drinking is "normal". "See, everyone else drinks as much as I do, so I am OK."
 
Simone said:
Jails are so overcrowded with other crimes. Locking people up because they are caught driving drunk the first time will never happen. I have delt with people that have been arrested 40+ times for various crimes and are still walking the street.
Some murderers are released 3 years or less.

A DUI driver loses his license after the 3rd conviction of DUI. His license is suspended or revoked, for up to 3 years or more. If he is caught driving on a DUI again during this suspension, his car can be impounded and he is charged with felony DUI, spends the night in jail and is brought before the judge for bond hearing.
The laws appear strict, but there always seem to be cracks that people slip through. There needs to be more severe punishments, I agree.
People continue to drive anyway, they continue to drink.
Unless they are involved in a crash that results in death to the other party, they go to jail and don't get to drink anymore!
And he will probably use that excuse to continue to drink when he gets out.
A vicious circle.
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You are confusing what does happen with what should happen. I discuss what should happen because it never will if no one talks about it.

Those 15,000 annual deaths are hidden in that not enough people are paying enough attention.
 
Aquila said:
It's really a dependence, not addiction,
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In this circumstance, dependency is synonymous with addiction. When people in the medical or psychological field speak of developing chemical dependency, they are just using a less abrasive word for addiction.
 
skeptigirl said:
Another feature of alcoholism is constantly offering drinks to others or getting them to engage in drinking such as, "let's go to the pub." The reason is it helps the person in denial feel their level of drinking is "normal". "See, everyone else drinks as much as I do, so I am OK."
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Yes, that's called "misery loves company."

I can see that. There are also varying degrees of alcoholism. The general stereotype is a soul-batered man or woman, under weight with a bottle of vodka in arms reach. Not so typical, though- I was never one of "those" alcoholics. I was the type, however, where once I had one drink, it was very very very hard for me to just leave it at that, and if I did stop at just one drink, I felt miserable at the amount of self-restraint I had to exhibit. Another "symptom" was the choiced I made when I was drunk: usually always bad- criminal in fact, or violent. I had to stop period. But it wasn't just the DUI sentence that influenced my decision to quit, because I continued to drink until months after my last DUI- it was a combination of things- and I knew it was important that my choice to quit wasn't because I was court ordered- I had to quit because I wanted to quit. I think the last straw was when I faught with one of my friends, a pretty ugly fight, and then got into an awesome relationship with a woman that inspired me to better myself.

I think we're getting caught up in connotation. I have ADD, but I wouldn't call it a disease although it contributes to "abnormal behavior" (what ever the hell that means). Its a disorder... again, what ever- For all I know, the alcoholism, the substance abuse; it's all rooted in my "ADD"- but I can't seem to consider that a disease either when I feel its contributed to other positive things in my life like excessive thought and introspection, art, and a good sense of humor.
 
As far as jail for DUI offenders- I was put in work-release. In the city I live in, the jails are over crowded, so they leave non-violent offenders out of jail first, makes sense to me.
 
chris epic said:
In this circumstance, dependency is synonymous with addiction. When people in the medical or psychological field speak of developing chemical dependency, they are just using a less abrasive word for addiction.
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Not exactly. :cool:

The problem with the word 'addiction' isn't the abrasiveness, it's the difficulty in defining the term, just like you're seeing here. It's easier to define 'abuse' and 'dependence', and both people who are abusing or are dependent can be addicts.

Roughly, abuse is abnormal use of the substance even though it interferes with social, occupational or physical functioning. Dependence is that plus tolerance, withdrawal symptoms or a pattern of compulsive use.
 
ok I guess I got ignored. I tried to find evidence of psychologists deeming addiction a disease, rather than a disorder, and found none. I think the whole AA mantra of addiction being a disease is silly and untrue, but I think psychology is getting a bunch of flack here without a good reason. "disorder" is a very good term for it I think, and as for criminals, a good way to describe them is 'disordered'. Besides biological things that they cant control that contributes to criminal behavior (like schizophrenia) criminality isnt a hopeless, escapeless lifestyle. It can be changed, its certainly not easy to unlearn what you are used to, so disorder sounds just about right considering that.

I dont think its fair to compare schizophrenia to alcoholism either. schizophrenia has biological, observable causes that CANNOT BE CONTROLLED BY THE SUFFERER. Addiction is a series of actions, of choices, that people make. People with diseases cant simply stop having them, they may be able to better their condition with good choices. But I cant see how an action itself can be a disease.
 
Actually, nails, pathology might be a better word than disorder.

However, just because addiction involves complex issues in addition to pathology, does not mean there is no pathology involved.

And just as one person might have milder pathology than another, there may be aspects of addiction not viewed as severe as aspects of schizophrenia.

But you would be as wrong to deny the pathology in addiction as a person 100 years ago would have been wrong to attribute the cause of mental illness to something other than pathology.
 
Clearly this is one area of medicine which has a terminology problem.

Here's what it says about disease:
alcoholism, disease concept of, The belief that alcoholism is a condition of primary biological causation and predictable natural history, conforming to accepted definitions of a disease. They lay perspective of Alcoholics Anonymous (1939)-that alcoholism, characterized by the individual’s loss of control over drinking and thus over his or her life, was a "sickness"-was carried into the scholarly literature in the 1950s in the form of the disease concept of alcoholism. The concept was rooted in 19th-century medical and lay conceptions of inebriety as a disease. In 1977, a WHO Group of Investigators* responding to the loose and varying usage of alcoholism, proposed substituting the term alcohol dependence syndrome in psychiatric nosology. By analogy

*Edwards G et al. Alcohol-related disabilities. Geneva. World Health Organization, 1977 (WHO Offset Publication. No.32).1 with drug dependence, alcohol dependence has found general acceptance in current nosologies.
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Wow, I have seen this before. I had a boyfriend with this. I had no idea it might be a syndrome but it certainly makes sense. He was an alcoholic. He would be fine one minute, then seconds later totally snap into something like the following.

The relationship didn't last long. A couple experiences like this and it was time to go.



alcoholic jealousy (F10.5)
A type of chronic, alcohol-induced psychotic disorder, characterised by delusions that the marital or sexual partner is unfaithful. The delusion is typically accompanied by intense searching for evidence of infidelity and direct accusations that may lead to violent quarrels. It was formerly regarded as a distinct diagnostic entity, but this status is now controversial. Synonyms: amorous paranoia; conjugal paranoia
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So I had to go to my alcohol therapy class today (court ordered). I asked my counselor about the whole issue- she said "during my training, our intructors told us to 'treat addiction as if it WERE a disease'" and then she said some people just took off with that how ever they wanted too.
 
Definitions are always confusing things. In nature, there is no real classification of things which neatly fall into 'disease' or 'not disease'. We look for similarities between things and classify them. Language, being what it is, then evolves and adopts different connotations to the original meaning.

I strongly suggest that before any meaningful debate take place, people accept definitions for 'disease' and 'addiction'. Before I was a teacher I worked in pathology; I can tell you now, the definitions for disease were varied, but as I said in an earlier post, they all had some basics in common.

Further problems arise when people refuse to see psychology as a biological function. Again, consensus on this needs to occur before discussion can be meaningful.

Athon
 
I see this already been debated while I've been away. As stated before psychology does not define alcoholism as a disease it is a substance related disorder. For those who know so much about psychology it would be wise to actually pick up a psychology textbook before writing out your opinions.

I see no point to this discussion, addiction is not defined as a disease by the American psychological association and psychology in general. I will provide sources if anyone cares to dispute this.
 
Disorder and disease, at a definitive level, are no different to one another. Both are an abnormality of function. The fact is, some areas of pathology or medicine use the terms definitively for particular conditions. To ask, however, whether something is a disease or disorder for definitive purposes depends on one's own definition (man, I feel like Dr Seuss now).

In other words, there's no strict category called 'disease' in medicine, nor is there one called 'disorder'. Common nomenclature associates certain conditions with either based more on common practice.

The fact that the APA use 'disorder' does not mean it is not a disease. It means they use the term 'disorder' to describe the condition.

Athon
 
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Solus said:
I see this already been debated while I've been away. As stated before psychology does not define alcoholism as a disease it is a substance related disorder. For those who know so much about psychology it would be wise to actually pick up a psychology textbook before writing out your opinions.

I see no point to this discussion, addiction is not defined as a disease by the American psychological association and psychology in general. I will provide sources if anyone cares to dispute this.
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Is this your way of ignoring everything I have said in this thread, focus on semantics instead of the issues?
 
skeptigirl said:
Obsessive compulsive disorders offer insight into addictions to things like shopping, hoarding and gambling.
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On a spectrum, sure. Addiction can occur with OCD, the two are not exclusive. And even though there are people who are self medicating, esp. bipolar disorder. There are people I believe who are straight up alcoholics, they have a behavioral disorder.

The point I wanted to make clear and that I think you agree with is that human behavior is biological. And while many alcoholics do not have OCD, they do have a part of thier disorder that is biological. It may not be OCD, but there uis the adrenaline rush, there are the effects of the substances and the behaviors themselves. Psychology and human experience is biologicaly based.

Then there are the consequences of alcohol use itself(or other addiction) it creates the emotional tension that can feul the addicted thinking and behavior.
 
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