Addiction; Disease or Not?

[SunsetBengal]

(08-30-2019, 05:35 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: I don't particularly care for calling it a disease.

I know there are people who are genetically predisposed to be easier to become addicted, but I think it gives some people a bit too much sympathy/too much of an out by calling it a disease. It makes it seem like drunks can't help but beat their family because it's a disease, gambling addicts can't help but become massively in debt because it's a disease.

AA, NA, etc don't give you some kind of miracle cure. It's a matter of desire, willpower, and structure to be "cured". You can't willpower and structure away cancer or ALS. Those are proper diseases.

To your bolded, that is why I also do not feel like addiction is a disease, as much as a choice.  The only known cure is to choose not to use, and rely on the support of other individuals in times of weakness.  People with actual diseases have no choice in the matter (most cases, STDs and addiction related body failings not withstanding).

I'm not just talking out my backside, I know what addiction looks like.  My birth mother was an addict of all sorts, weather it be chemically induced or physical pleasures, she had to have it.  It eventually led to her body failing and early onset of Alzheimer's.  She spent her final 12 years in a lock down unit for Alzheimer's patients.  They did their best to bring her physical health back, but the brain was gone several years prior.  I'm not so certain that her issues were ones of physical dependence, as much as a lack of self worth and emotional emptiness.