Do you believe that drug addiction and alcoholism is a disease? Why or why not?

Comments

• I like your point of view, and you bring up some really good points, for it being an unfinnished answer.

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on February 7th, 2007

• how do you know cancer is caused by smoking there is smoke all around us people who dont smoke get cancer. i say alcoholics and drug addicts dont have a disease because they can stop with help and implant things(i dont know what they are called) with cancer etc you cant just get rid of it you need chemo etc. alcoholics and drug addicts know that when they start they are doing something that will eventually mess them up

  • Report
  

  by staffie on February 7th, 2007

• Staffie, did you really just ask 'how do you know cancer is caused by smoking'?? have you been frozen in carbonite for the last 20 years? <A href="http://www.thetruth.com/" target=_blank rel=nofollow>http://www.thetruth.com/</A> I would suggest you might want to read up on it a little bit.
  Also, what is this implant you speak of? Do you maybe have a link to it?

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on February 7th, 2007

• i know cancer is caused by smoking but what i am saying is how do you know it was caused by smoking because people can have lung cancer without ever smoking cigarettes.

  • Report
  

  by staffie on February 7th, 2007

• so you cant 100% say to a smoker it was caused by smoking cigarettes when someone who as never smoked can have the same disease aswell. i will look up the implants now

  • Report
  

  by staffie on February 7th, 2007

• He admitted he had tested the implants he had sewn into his stomach to see how many drinks he could have before he was sick (this is about george best) and this is the link http://www.aa-uk.org.uk/alcoholics-anonymous-reviews/2005_11_01_archive.html

  • Report
  

  by staffie on February 7th, 2007

• He's not saying that all lung cancer is caused by smoking, %100, period. What he's using is an example. If you had a person who smoked for years who got lung cancer, would you say their cancer wasn't a disease because it was self inflicted.

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on February 7th, 2007

• no i wouldnt because cancer can be caused by many things and not just smoking. what is hard about not picking a bottle of beer up or popping a pill its down to will power sorry im not arguing its just my opinion

  • Report
  

  by staffie on February 7th, 2007

• The article (If I read the right one) was about him having a liver transplant after being an alcoholic for many years. Is that what you meant?

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on February 7th, 2007

• yeah but he had an implant sewed into his stomache to make him feel sick everytime he had a drink. and thats another thing that gets me mad he was given 2 chances and most people dont even get 1 chance at living a life again he had 2 transplants and wasted them both

  • Report
  

  by staffie on February 7th, 2007

• Right OK, lovely tea, a bit catching up to do here! Yep, people can indeed have lung cancer without ever smoking themselves. Just tell Roy Castle. Died from years spent working in clubs, never smoked himself. The thing with cancer is it is multi-factorial. Just as you can get heart disease even if you have never smoked, exercise well every other day, eat well, etc, you can still have a heart attack. Smoking is a "risk factor", and in fact for lung cancer is so strong that it causes all sorts of problems for epidemiologists trying to identify other factors, because it's effect is so great it masks others. I understand (I think) what you are saying staffie - you agree that smoking can cause cancer, but for each case you cannot say definitively that had they not smoked they would not have got it. I've got a graph here (paper, not electronic, sorry can't post it), that shows changes in death rates from lung cancer over a century.

  • Report
  

  by ChrisDG on February 7th, 2007

• For males in 1980, about 70 non-smoker people per million died from lung cancer. For smokers, the rate was over a thousand per million.

  • Report
  

  by ChrisDG on February 7th, 2007

• yeah thats what im trying to say but i think its come out all wrong

  • Report
  

  by staffie on February 7th, 2007

• I'm having a hard time catching up! I agree that giving Best a second transplant was a waste, certainly after he had lost a first transplant completely. Now then, the will power question. OK, could you live without, I don't know, cakes? For the rest of your life. Yes probably, you may not want to, but you can do it. The craving for sugar/fat isn't that strong, and you can receive your 'hit' oads of other ways, sweets, chocolate, biscuits etc. Could you cut out all foods that contained more than 2% fat for the rest of your life. Probably not. Supply problems aside, you would find it hard. And you're not even thinking of yourself as addicted. But fast forward 20 years, you carry eating as you do now, nothing wrong with it (I'm assuming, you eat sensibly etc, have the occasional treat, fin), and you have a heart attack. And it was caused by an atheroma in a coronary artery. Is that self inflicted?

  • Report
  

  by ChrisDG on February 7th, 2007

• Good question. No, sometimes things just happen that you can't control. You can be what is assumed perfect health and have any mumber of things happen to you, that you would not have thought possible.

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on February 7th, 2007

• Ultimately, my answer comes down to the fact that it fits the definition of disease as I undertsand it. Therefore it's a disease.

  • Report
  

  by ChrisDG on February 7th, 2007

• yeah but i reckon my brother is an alcoholic and i still think they bring it on themselves. i know what you are saying but i dont see it as a disease. i feel like knocking my bruv out everytime i see him drinking but its his choice

  • Report
  

  by staffie on February 7th, 2007

• The problem is that although disease can be given a strict definition by e.g. the World Health Organisation, people still interpret the word as how they want it, so that any preconceptions they have causes them to think in different ways against the current medical train of thought. I (as a current medical student) have been taught alcoholism is a disease, hence my answer.

  • Report
  

  by ChrisDG on February 7th, 2007

Comments

• Thanks.

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on February 19th, 2009

Comments

Comments

Comments

• Why did this response get downrated???

  • Report
  

  by MeMySelfAnEye on August 3rd, 2008

• So did mine, +6

  • Report
  

  by Jen-Jen on August 3rd, 2008

Comments

• +6 for you, too...

  • Report
  

  by Punny on August 3rd, 2008

• Thank you!

  • Report
  

  by MeMySelfAnEye on August 3rd, 2008

Comments

Comments

• surely if it is genetic then it is a disease and medical?

  • Report
  

  by Dideedidi on February 28th, 2007

Comments

• Thanks! I agree.

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on May 30th, 2009

Comments

• True..

  • Report
  

  by CT on May 28th, 2009

• Sure is.

  • Report
  

  by Mountain Momma on May 29th, 2009

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

• Good answer, thanks. +4

  • Report
  

  by MeMySelfAnEye on August 28th, 2008

Comments

Comments

• I've always kinda felt the same way.

  • Report
  

  by MeMySelfAnEye on August 4th, 2008

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

• I would tend to agree...I think genetics play a role, as does a desire to self-medicate a chemical imbalance in the brain (the chemical imbalance itself causes sympotoms of anxiety, clinical depression, etc...)

  • Report
  

  by MeMySelfAnEye on August 4th, 2008

• Like the instances of people going through rehab, are totally clean for months, then decide to use again. It wasn't the drug that had them, it's the psychological issue. As you say, an imbalance or a desire to self medicate.

  • Report
  

  by Jeztyr - whispering in the ears of kings on August 4th, 2008

Comments

Comments

• Good point! While I was surfing the 'net the other day, I saw an ad for a 7-day inpatient smoking-cessation program, like drug detox. That's the only one of it's kind I've ever seen or heard of -but literally millions of people ae nicotine addicts (myself included, unfortunately.) How come we don't treat addiction to nicotine like other drug addictions?

  • Report
  

  by MeMySelfAnEye on August 4th, 2008

• Seems to me, if what you saw on the net about in-patient treatment for smoking is a reality, then they are beginning to treat it like other drug addictions.It's been a long time in the making. Quiting smoking is very difficult. I smoked for 10 years,and quit cold turkey. That was 22 years ago. However, my husband has had two heart attacks, and was only able to quit for 7 months. So I know first hand it is not that easy for everyone.Hope you will be free from them someday.

  • Report
  

  by marsha in n.s. on August 4th, 2008

Comments

Comments

• Exactly. If it's a disease, why do we treat its victims as criminals? Would you lock someone up for having the crime of cancer? Doesn't make any sense.

  • Report
  

  by MeMySelfAnEye on August 3rd, 2008

• well said!

  • Report
  

  by DrMcNasty on August 3rd, 2008

• Thank you.

  • Report
  

  by MeMySelfAnEye on August 3rd, 2008

Comments

• Thanks. :)

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on March 25th, 2008

Comments

• Thanks for the answer. :)

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on March 14th, 2008

Comments

• I disagree, but thanks for the answer.
  Welcome to AB!

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on March 13th, 2008

Comments

• Obviously, you don't know anyone with alcoholism. I guess you think people with Aids deserve that too, becuase they chose to have sex. Anyone can become an alcoholic, and once it has a hold on your brain, your brain actually believes it is dying if it doesn't have alcohol. Alcoholism is a learned behavior, almost contagious, as it passes through a family like a plague. Instead of helping people we condemn them for being weak and out of control, Alcoholics cannot cure themselves, they need outside help from trained medical professionals and years of rehabilitaion. Shame on you for being so ignorant.

  • Report
  

  by Lil Confused on July 17th, 2008

Comments

Comments

• I don't necessarily agree, but I'll give you points for your opinion. Thanks for posting!

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on March 21st, 2007

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

• I'm not an alcoholic and I'm not obese, but you provoked some thoughts: what do you say to the millions of obese people who do exercise regularly? And what of willpower? Isn't it possible that there is a physiological reason why some people have limitless quantities and others none?

  • Report
  

  by Little Miss Dangerous on February 19th, 2007

• Yeah, the implication that obesity is caused by being too lazy to exercise is immature, irresponsible, and remedial to say the least. Thyroid and metabolism disorders, to name a couple, are uncontrollable forces which can "refuse to let you lose weight". Depression is a disease of the mind, schizophrenia is a disease of the mind. You can't just tell someone ....Hey stop being depressed, it's just a matter of will power you weak minded fool. It doesn't work that way and neither does addiction.

  • Report
  

  by hershey_squirter_ on February 21st, 2007

• i agree with you 100% i think if you look through at the answers the ones that say its a disease are from people who havent claimed to have suffered from it and the ones that have say its all about will power. i dotn know why you got down rated...

  • Report
  

  by gone on March 13th, 2008

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

• Stopping is not 'curing'.

  • Report
  

  by Little Miss Dangerous on February 19th, 2007

Comments

Comments

• Will power can control the disease, not sure it. it can be argued that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic; the disease is only in a state of remission. It's been shown that addiction actually alters the brain's chemistry, which is why it's classified as a a disease by the American Medical Association.

  • Report
  

  by Gideon on February 9th, 2007

Comments

Comments

• Disease doesn't necessarily mean contagious. You can't "catch" cancer for example. And you can have mental diseases.

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on February 22nd, 2007

• An interruption, cessation, or disorder of body functions, systems, or organs.
  Synonym: illness, morbus, sickness.
  A morbid entity characterized usually by at least two of these criteria: recognized etiologic agent(s), identifiable group of signs and symptoms, or consistent anatomical alterations.
  See also: syndrome.
  Literally, dis-ease, the opposite of ease, when something is wrong with a bodily function (Dirckx, 1997). So much seems to concentrate on the body and not the mind. I view them as seperate. Also its worth pointing out that alchoholism and drug addictions are defined by their symptoms and not by anything testable or noticable. If you have cancer they find the cancerous cells and test them. If I have AIDs they can take a sample of my body fluids and find the virus. But no amount of testing is going to find alcoholism in someone other then by the symptoms of alcoholism (drinking). But for consistancy is depression a disease in your opinion.

  • Report
  

  by Valparaiso on February 22nd, 2007

• There are different types of depression. Sometimes there's a chemical imbalance that requires medication in order to fix things. Other times it's just a thought process that needs to be corrected. I'm really on the fence about these things... Both depression and alcholism.

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on February 22nd, 2007

• I wonder which one I have. I'm guessing its just my thought processes. I havn't been sad for no apparent reason since I was a kid.

  • Report
  

  by Valparaiso on February 22nd, 2007

• I can't tell if that was an honest question or if that was sarcastic. I hate conversations in text!

  • Report
  

  by Penny The Wise on February 22nd, 2007

• No thats an honest question, I really do struggle with depression sometimes. Its quite mild though, I've never taken anti-depressents.

  • Report
  

  by Valparaiso on February 22nd, 2007

Comments

• I think your statements are unreasonable. If you had alcoholism in your own family, maybe you would not be able to prevent yourself from touching the stuff. To be honest I don't know much about alcoholism but it occurs to me this is one of those times that we should not pass judgements unless you have experienced it and understand it. Not a challenge, just a difference of opinion.

  • Report
  

  by CatLover-The Original is Proudly Canadian on May 28th, 2009

Comments

Comments

Comments