Addiciton: Disease or sickness or choice?
Tiredtraveler
Solo PL
Choice means you choose to be stoned
Sickness could conceivably apply to an addict because his body reacts to no having the drug
A disease? definitely not!! the do gooders and bureaucrats want to say addiction is a disease that way they can force another burden on the few taxpayers left(that way they can create another bureaucracy to line their own pocket at our expense. IT IS NOT! a disease is something that you can get without any action on your part. You can get cancer and never have had a cigarette, You can have a heart attack and never eaten a fatty food in your life. You can get the flu from walking next too someone who has it.
You CANNOT become an addict if you never take a drink of alcohol, smoke crack, mainline heroin or snort Coke. Some conscious act on your part must occur before you become an addict! You ask why the semantic distinction it is because you cannot discharge an employee for a disease he has no control over(cancer etc) but an addiction is a sickness not a disease and if you STOP drinking, shooting, snorting or smoking your drug of choice the illness stops, Therefore all addiction begins with a choice.
I am weary of paying for people who chose to not take care of themselves.
I have managed to party through the late 60's, 70's, 80's etc. still worked full time.
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29 comments
Perhaps they should not be seen as helpless victims; but they should receive help to get better IMO.
Saying it's NOT a disease just because someone choose to try it is like saying, by that logic, lung cancer isn't a disease, it's just a choice, because the person CHOSE to smoke; adult onset diabetes isn't a disease, just a choice, because that person CHOSE to have a poor diet and not exercise. Would you go so far as to say that? It's the same logic.
On a more realistic note, gammanut, you keep making yourself look like a child who is unable to have actual dialogue with a man OR a woman.
Talk to me when you have something relevant to say.
I find mental disorders that are bad habits to be a separate class from a pathogenic disease like autism; people with autism have no choice in the matter while I can choose to not take drugs, fuck lots of women, or even play golf if I'm doing these things to the exclusion of all else.
I hesitate to call an addictive personality a disease though. It's just something to deal with myself.
You can continue to speak on irrelevant things because obviously my paralegal internship makes you mad or you wouldn't have randomly thrown it into a debate. Does the truth hurt you? Sorry. I'll keep winning, you keep hating. And keep the irrelevance coming, you know he easily I can dish you out a verbal shredding.
And PS I already know I'm an ignorant slut before you say that tired phrase for the 100th time so come with something else with that teeny tiny hard-on you have for me.
She says she missed the "comfort" everyday and she went into a depression where she just didn't give a fuck. She got herself into detox again and when I saw her today she was clean again.
Her Dad & her brother are "recovering heroin addicts & her Mom is alcoholic. I suspect there are genetic factors which enter into this equation.
SJG
http://blog.asiantown.net/-/7610/vietnam…
kaos
http://www.biroco.com/kaos/kaos.pdf
Ultimately, that change in the brain lasts, even if one "overcomes" that addiction. Addiction has physical impacts/origins, not simply mental. How anyone can sit here and ignorantly not call it a disease is almost laughable.
Is there some merit to it being a "weakness" as well? I don't think it's ludicrous since the genesis of someones addiction is often rooted in a poor decision that could be avoided, but I think overcoming addiction, even if temporarily is more a of an incredible feat of strength than anything else.
Part of it is just that no people expect to live longer, so they think about such stuff more.
SJG
It can be thought of as a behavioral disease, not dissimilar to obsessive/compulsive disorder and countless other disorders that are tied to mental issues (sometimes inherited and sometimes not).
Not everything has to originate from a restroom doorknob to be considered a disease.
If you have contracted aids or measles or plague you have an infection that you can't cure by stopping a behavior.
If you stop having unprotected sex you will still have aids or is you do not get anymore rat fleas bite you will still have plague.
If you are drunk and stop drinking you will no linger be drunk. If you smoke pot and stop you will no longer test positive for THC.
The same thing goes toward if you ride a motorcycle without a helmet and suffer a head injury why should you expect me to pay for treating your stupidity.
Bottom line is if you never shoot heroin or smoke crack you not become addicted. And their is not one person living in this country that can honestly say that they do not know how addictive those drugs are.
Will you admit to needing to take ED medicines even though you are only in your 40s. Maybe you're not completely "ruined" but that's pretty bad.
Just an idea. But carry on if your goals aren't really to decide the question but rather have some fun having a good debate.
You are probably decades older than me, but you act like a bratty child I would refuse to babysit.
What does that tell you?