Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth. – Mahatma Gandhi
Finding out that someone you love is addicted to hard drugs will wreck your world every bit as much as they are wrecking their own world. I have learned, however, that many people caught in that nightmare (people in recovery and people with loved-ones suffering from addiction) have gained a very good, intuitive understanding of the changes that addiction causes in those trapped in its grip. It is my wish that you could gain this understanding without having to suffer the pain that far too many of us have experienced. I have made it my goal to educate people about addiction because I fervently believe that we do not stand a chance at success with this horrible disease until we first understand it..and that means everyone.
So, today’s post will take on one of the biggest stumbling blocks to solving this problem. That is,the persistent belief that addiction is not a disease, it is a choice. Please read the information below. If you still do not agree that addiction is a disease, that’s OK with me. At least you will have a better understanding of how addiction affects those in its grip.
“It is difficult to feel sympathy for these people. It is difficult to regard some bawdy drunk and see them as sick and powerless. It is difficult to suffer the selfishness of a drug addict who will lie to you and steal from you and forgive them and offer them help. Can there be any other disease that renders its victims so unappealing? Would Great Ormond Street (Children’s Hospital) be so attractive a cause if its beds were riddled with obnoxious little criminals that had “brought it on themselves?”
― Russell Brand
Twelve Things That Made Me Conclude that Addiction is a Disease
- Comparative brain scans show that addiction dramatically alters the response of the brain, particularly with respect to dopamine. Dopamine is a feel-good compound that our brain makes to drive us to seek certain things or activities. Addictive substances cause a flood of dopamine that overwhelms the brain.
- Comparative brain scans show that addiction causes significant changes in a very primitive part of the brain (the limbic system) that is responsible for automatic, survival-type responses such as hunger, thirst, fight-or-flight, etc. These changes can lead a person’s brain to conclude that the addictive substance is necessary for survival.
- The behavior of truly addicted individuals is illogical and incomprehensible unless it is viewed as a response to a need to survive. If one considers that the primitive part of the brain of an individual suffering from addiction believes that using is essential for survival, then their actions are understandable. (“Imagine trying to live without air. Now imagine something worse.” — Amy Reed, author)
- Things that happen when an addict stops using make sense as their brain attempting to protect them. It is trying to force them to get the substance that it incorrectly “knows” that they need. These things include: intense, relentless cravings; drug dreams; thoughts that they can just use a little and control it; panic attacks; etc.
- There is a mechanism for the brain to change itself in response to what it perceives as important, that is, those things that it is thinking a great deal about. It is called neuroplasticity. The massive dopamine response to addictive activities causes the brain to focus intently on the addictive substance or activity. This results in neuroplasticity physically changing the addictive parts of the brain.
- There is no threat or reward that is great enough to cause someone to get to lasting recovery..not prison, not abandonment, not isolation, not a life of discomfort and misery, not even death. I don’t believe that everyone has to “hit rock bottom”. I believe that you have to genuinely come to the conclusion that your present path is unlivable and seek whatever help you need to stay away from abusable substances and reconstruct the great person that you were meant to be.
- Like many diseases, addiction has a very strong hereditary component. In fact, some people may use and stop before ever becoming addicted, while others rapidly experience changes within their brain that are the very definition of addiction.
- Heredity seems to be the more dominant factor controlling the point at which a person’s brain will shift into addiction. There are, however, environmental factors such as their experiences growing up and traumas that they may have experienced that will make one susceptible to addiction.
- Addiction needs an initiating step (trying the drug) that the person suffering from addiction must accept their role in. Once started, addiction rapidly spirals out of control and the addicted individual is not capable of stopping without help. This is no different than many other things that we call a disease such as, smoking =>lung cancer or emphysema, poor nutrition and lack of exercise => heart disease, risky behavior => STDs, Hep C, HIV and many more.
- On average, people suffering from addiction enter into rehab eight times before they find lasting recovery. Can you really believe that you are so wonderful, that you are so much stronger than all of those people? That they are weak and can’t “just stop”,like you could. That is a monumental level of arrogance..don’t you think?
- There is no period of remission (recovery) that is long enough to guarantee that there will not be a relapse. This is because the changes to the brain,while healing in recovery, still leave a trail of breadcrumbs back to active addiction.
- Statements that I have heard or read from people suffering from addiction:
- I didn’t want to feel sick anymore but the drug always wins.
- When I was loaded, I was sure that I could stop tomorrow but when I started to withdrawal, I knew that there was no way that I could stop.
- It was like the drug knew what I was going to do to stop and it was just a little smarter than me. (Correct, except that the drug doesn’t want anything, it is a chemical. It is your own brain that you are battling.)
- I started using to take away the pain, soon it stopped taking away the pain but I could not stop using.
- I had used so much that I was always sick and depressed. Using didn’t get me high anymore, it just made me feel normal.
- I didn’t even want to use but the next thing I knew, there I was with a needle in my arm.
- I wish that people saw the time that addicts spent alone. Thinking about everything they’ve done, every time they’ve lied or stole.
- I don’t have an off switch.
- “I call it stained-glass glasses…Like active addiction changes how you perceive life around you… makes you think every thing is fine when it is not…Makes you blame everyone else for every problem in your life…And mostly it convinces you that people hate you when they try to love you.”
I want to leave you with one final thought:
We used to believe that genetic markers such as hair color, eye color, facial features, or skin color indicated that some people were superior and that some people were inferior, less human. We don’t believe that anymore(most intelligent people, anyway). When will we stop seeing the genetic marker of a susceptibility to addiction as an indication that someone is inferior, weak, less of a human? When will we find empathy and compassion for those less fortunate in genetic roulette?
A wonderful lady named Lynda Hacker Araoz reached out to me because she too is trying to educate people about addiction. She has a blog, www.weightofafeather.com and a book “The Weight of a Feather, A Mother’s Journey Through the Opiate Crisis”. I have not read the book, yet. But her email was very articulate, and her book sounds fascinating. I have no doubt that it will be excellent.