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Is addiction an illness?

katherineconlan

I have a family member who just got off drugs a month ago. They were addicted to prescription opiates, ADHD meds, alcohol, and cannabis (they live in the US). Their addiction nearly destroyed the entire family.

Half of my family there disowned them while the other half stayed by them through their addiction despite them pawning off stuff and lying to get money. Even though they are clean, the damage to the relationship is done and neither my uncle nor my mother speak to them. They also scoff at the idea that they had an 'illness'. I would think it's an illness.

Do you agree?

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https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358052#Comment_118358052

The addiction substance is the thing that makes the brain chemicals happen. It doesn't really matter if that's porn or a chemical like alcohol. They both make the brain produce the happy hormones and that's the addiction. The addiction method is pretty irrelevant.

Addiction is not a disease, but the disease model can be very useful in understanding it and providing interventions,

The main problem with labelling addiction a disease is that it can be quite counter-productive, removing responsibility from the addicted person on getting clean, and places the responsibility on the treating therapist or medic. The amount of people who are awaiting "detox" or rehab beds but won't take the first step otherwise! I would suggest the family who stuck with the OPs relative during all the horrors were enabling the behaviour

Yes, its a chronic illness characterised by discernable and measurable neurological changes in the brain.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358070#Comment_118358070

But loads of activities release dopamine/endorphins etc. So it's a natural occurrence, surely you can't lump a gambling addiction into the same category as an opiate addiction?

Why can't it be an illness with significant psychological and spiritual elements?

Defining it as strictly an illness is also a very political statement.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358290#Comment_118358290

I don't say they're both an opiate addiction. But they're both addictions.

We talk about loads of things as addictions. Are you looking at the kind of harm they do an classifying them based on that? In the brain they're the same. The action releases the happy hormones in the brain. Whether that's gambling or opiates.

How do you think addiction works in the brain?

Is addiction an illness

I will quote the following

"Being weak is achoice

So is being strong""

Addiction is weakness and it's not an illness that is the pc culture sh1t of the modern age

A junky is not ill they took the choice to be weak in the first instance when they first took drugs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358819#Comment_118358819

No I'm saying your brain naturally releasing happy hormones in reaction to activities such as running/sky diving/gambling can not be classified in the same bracket as somebody with an opiate addiction. A foreign substance that is literally altering your brain chemistry.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358107#Comment_118358107

The term used in the OP was illness not disease, the term is widely used for mental illness.

I was married to an addict for 15 years. Initially I saw it as an illness.

Now no so much, people who are ill seek medical help and listen and do what doctors tell them.

I don't know what addiction is but it definitely causes illness, it caused me to be ill.

It's terrifying to deal with. My ex even tried to refuse to see gp when he had skin cancer and even turned up to hospital drunk for surgery.

Viewing addi as an illness leads people to wrongly believe it can be cured, it can never be cured

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358965#Comment_118358965

Is that quote from a medical person.. ?

its an illness, diagnosed as such and treated as such.

It is an illness, not a disease.

A disease is a failure of some structure or form in any flora or fauna, as a result of a pathogen or a spontaneous physical failure in the subject, not resulting from external physical trauma.

An illness can be a disease, but a disease cannot be an illness.

Addiction, like other mental illnesses (note the absence of any reference ever to disease), is discernable by chemical and electrical anomalies in the central nervous system, not a failure of the physical form of that system. In other words, its bad fuel or oil, not a broken engine.

So, its an illness.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118359029#Comment_118359029

Yeah but that's just a direct chemical. The others are just one step removed. But what difference does it make? The addiction is exactly the same. Gambling produces the happy hormones and some people become addicted to the chemicals they get from Gambling. Opiates are a happy hormones (figuratively speaking) and some people become addicted to those chemicals.

Both addicts have a chemical dependency. One has a chemical dependency to a chemical which acts as a chemical in the brain, the other has a chemical dependency to a behaviour which produces the chemical on the brain. Why do you see such a huge distinction based on the behaviour that produces the chemical?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058223776/is-addiction-an-illness

yes its an illness, but primarily a psychological one, theres underlying psychological/mental health issues at play, which needs the appropriate professional attention, since such services are virtually none existing here in ireland, i wish you luck with finding them in the us!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358965#Comment_118358965

You’d be the sort of person who’d say to a depression sufferer to pull themselves together. Or to someone with anorexia to just get that dinner into you you look terribly thin.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118359935#Comment_118359935

we call those kind of folks, fcuking arseholes!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118357812#Comment_118357812

A bit of a backhanded complement there, but yeah...bingo. 🙂

The "illness" factor can be said to come from the mental issues that the addict may have had, or still be, suffering from before their addiction. But calling the addiction an illness or a disease is wrong to my mind.

Sure, the addict's body chemistry changes and becomes dependent on the dopamine hits that come from their dependency and it can be extremely difficulty to kick the habit. But that alteration is not really a disease.

Smokers are addicted to nicotine. But it isn't a disease that they have. It's an addiction to a substance that causes a specific dependency.

That activity may lead to actual illness, like COPD or cancer. But the addiction caused by smoking itself is not an illness.

Frankly I think it's kinda dangerous to try and classify addictions as "illnesses" or "diseases".

The world is getting fcuked up more and more. Personal responsibility is being dissolved into nothing.

Reminds me of Alan Hawe when he killed his family and then himself. If he just killed himself people would be like "poor guy, depression is a terrible illness" yet when he kills others as well as himself it's "dirty rotten scum, rot in hell!". Why doesn't mental illness not cover harm to others as well as themselves? How was Hawe not mentally ill when he did such a thing?

Same people talking about gambling being a scourge and a curse and want it banned are the same people saying government should legalise weed as people should be allowed make their own choice.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118356035#Comment_118356035

Most medical science is a “fairly recent development”, if you take fairly recent as meaning within the last 150 years or so (alcoholism has been considered a disease since at least the 1950s).

Using the word “disease” itself to refer to physical sickness is actually a somewhat recent development too. It originally meant literally dis-ease, a state of being or feeling uneasy. It only took on its modern sense in the 16th century.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118360237#Comment_118360237

Alcoholism was classed as a "disease" first in America in the 50's, correct. It took longer for that to travel elsewhere. But there has been much dispute about calling alcoholism and other addictions "diseases" for as long as it's been classed as one.

Some physicians, scientists and others have rejected the disease theory of alcoholism on logical, empirical and other grounds. Indeed, some addiction experts such as Stanton Peele are outspoken in their rejection of the disease model, and other prominent alcohol researchers such as Nick Heather have authored books intending to disprove the disease model.

These critics hold that by removing some of the stigma and personal responsibility the disease concept actually increases alcoholism and drug abuse and thus the need for treatment. This is somewhat supported by a study which found that a greater belief in the disease theory of alcoholism and higher commitment to total abstinence to be factors correlated with increased likelihood that an alcoholic would have a full-blown relapse (substantial continued use) following an initial lapse (single use). However, the authors noted that "the direction of causality cannot be determined from these data. It is possible that belief in alcoholism as a loss-of-control disease predisposes clients to relapse, or that repeated relapses reinforce clients' beliefs in the disease model."

One study found that only 25 percent of physicians believed that alcoholism is a disease. The majority believed alcoholism to be a social or psychological problem instead of a disease. A survey of physicians at an annual conference of the International Doctors in Alcoholics Anonymous reported that 80 percent believe that alcoholism is merely bad behavior instead of a disease.

Thomas R. Hobbs says that "Based on my experiences working in the addiction field for the past 10 years, I believe many, if not most, health care professionals still view alcohol addiction as a willpower or conduct problem and are resistant to look at it as a disease."

Lynn Appleton says that "Despite all public pronouncements about alcoholism as a disease, medical practice rejects treating it as such. Not only does alcoholism not follow the model of a 'disease,' it is not amenable to standard medical treatment." She says that "Medical doctors' rejection of the disease theory of alcoholism has a strong basis in the biomedical model underpinning most of their training" and that "medical research on alcoholism does not support the disease model."

"Many doctors have been loath to prescribe drugs to treat alcoholism, sometimes because of the belief that alcoholism is a moral disorder rather than a disease," according to Dr. Bankole Johnson, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia. Dr Johnson's own pioneering work has made important contributions to the understanding of alcoholism as a disease.

Frequency and quantity of alcohol use are not related to the presence of the condition; that is, people can drink a great deal without necessarily being alcoholic, and alcoholics may drink minimally or infrequently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease_theory_of_alcoholism

Addiction, illness or disease what does it matter the definition. They need help. Unless people who have a problem with defining it as an illness want to somehow justify blaming the addict and not offering them the help they may need?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118356035#Comment_118356035

having struggled myself, this is correct, by changing who i was and having more focus and self control. i'm out the other side,you are who you think you are.

I taught a number of children who were born while their mothers were still using. They had to be weaned off what was in their system at birth. In the environment they lived in, it was only a matter of time before they went the same way. A couple of them are dead now, but remarkably one girl is in her mid 30s now, despite having been at death's door many times. From what I can see of her, she seems to go on and off it regularly.

Wondering how the 'personal responsibility' folk would judge them?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118360710#Comment_118360710

theyd do just that, 'judge' them!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118360481#Comment_118360481

It matters because there's a real danger whereby the addict abdicates their responsibility for their actions and therefore their predicament and falls back on "it's not my fault, I have a disease", which allows relapses to occur more frequently.

Also, this isn't about "blame", it's about correct nomenclature and I think that's important in helping addicts to overcome their addictions. I've known several former addicts and they all tell you that the hardest step was realising that the actions had very severe consequences. That they needed to change their actions and to stop making excuses for their addiction. It was they who needed to learn to control the addiction and not the other way around.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118360556#Comment_118360556

Good to hear that you came out the other side. 👍️

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118360710#Comment_118360710

It's not about "judging". It's about recognising what the problem is and why someone chooses to go down a certain path. Obviously those kids you taught were born into some very serious circumstances that facilitated mental issues that they ended up trying to medicate, because of the "environment they lived in".

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118360143#Comment_118360143

Quote - “The "illness" factor can be said to come from the mental issues that the addict may have had, or still be, suffering from before their addiction. But calling the addiction an illness or a disease is wrong to my mind.”

Are you a professional involved in addiction? I’m not really up to date on current definitions. What are the current definitions those in a professional setting are using?

From my own experience I am sober 16 years, I struggled to explain what exactly was driving my addiction back then and I still don’t really know now. Getting off the drink was very tough and the first 2 years sober was hard, after that it’s been fine. I just know in my heart I can never safety touch the stuff again and I remember how awful the last few years of drinking was for me.

I struggle to understand how people who have no professional knowledge of the subject or no personal experience of addiction are so sure in their pronouncements on the subject?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118360931#Comment_118360931

This is a discussion forum. It's going to involve people discussing things.

And no, I'm not a "professional involved in addiction". But I don't HAVE to be. I'm capable of forming an opinion on these matters due to my own life experiences and what I've read on the issue. But just because someone expresses an opinion on a given matter, it doesn't mean that that opinion isn't subject to change. It's just their position at that moment in time.

It's good to hear that you were able to get sober. My uncle was an alcoholic and wasn't as lucky. But back when he died, the data and supports weren't as numerous and available as they are today. Had they been, it's doubtful they would have have been any use to him anyway as he never faced up to the fact that he was an alcoholic. Nor did he ever face up to the matter of his depression either which was, more than likely, the reason for his heavy drinking to begin with.

It's those types of mental issues that are often (although not exclusively) the genesis of addiction problems. You might have been different and I'm sure you've done many deep dives into why you started drinking so heavily to begin with.

I will say this about alcohol though. It's an insidious drug that can creep up on you and because society deems it as a "good time", where being completely pissed isn't anything to be worried about. And it isn't, so long as it's not 4 or 5 nights a week. But, inevitably, there will be folk who will be unable to regulate their drinking properly and the view that's subtly perpetuated that it's "harmless" doesn't help them either.