Poll Do you consider addiction(s) choice or disease?
- Thread starter LUCIEN
- Start date
LUCIEN
I hate getting punched in the head
Interesting perspective. If the cycle starts as a choice, what is it that changes this in your view?
For most addicts it seems they already had an addictive personality and graduated to whatever their hard drug of choice to chase the high or endure withdrawal.
While others can be battling ptsd from an event or poor circumstances of life/upbringing.
So i think its both bc they chose that first hit regardless
While others can be battling ptsd from an event or poor circumstances of life/upbringing.
So i think its both bc they chose that first hit regardless
The Mad Titan
Active Member
I feel its a choice. The addiction part speaks to the physical and mental aspect, but in the end the person still chooses to give in to it.
Its been my experience with substance abusers, that those who want to break free of it, choose to do so and eventually accomplish that. Those who don't, choose to continually give in.
Its been my experience with substance abusers, that those who want to break free of it, choose to do so and eventually accomplish that. Those who don't, choose to continually give in.
Golden
Administrator
when you're no longer choosing it and are doing it because you have to.
LUCIEN
I hate getting punched in the head
Would you guys extend that to all addictions? Caffeine, plastic surgery, facebook likes, and so on?
I don’t think you ever truly breakfree. once an addict, always an addict
Add love to this list and you spot on
If slavery was a choice, addiction definitely is
LUCIEN
I hate getting punched in the head
Except slavery is never a choice; the lack of freedom to choose otherwise is one of the essential characteristics of slavery. Even if it's chosen over the alternative (death/rape/stepping on a piece of lego), it is chosen under coercion and force which negates any real choice.
Which brings me to my view:
If people have no choice over their genetics/epigenetics, immediate environment, parents, country of birth, era in which they are born, socioeconomic status, sexual identity, racial identity, ethnicity, gender, and overall starting place in life, every choice is subtly already influenced for you. Our earliest years and our upbringing are essentially completely out of our control, and they play the biggest part in shaping our values in life. Our values determine our choices. The things that determine what choices we make in life are not even our own creation: they are pushed on us by our environment and those around us.
If the arrow within each everybody's metaphorical compass already leans a certain direction, where we end up isn't really our choice.
Of course, this view also excuses a lot of shitty history...
If the arrow within each everybody's metaphorical compass already leans a certain direction, where we end up isn't really our choice.
Of course, this view also excuses a lot of shitty history...
konceptjones
The one between three and three.
The substances themselves create dependencies which in turn create addictions. However, we all knew this for at least 40 years now. Even crack, meth, and ice were known to be insanely addictive early on. Knowing this, if you take that first hit of any addictive drug everything that comes after that is 100% on you.
LUCIEN
I hate getting punched in the head
Reach. For people suffering from Bipolar, the rate of addiction has been found to be around 60%, while the rates for the general population are like 16-20%. When something like that can make a person 3 times more likely to use/become addicted, saying it's a choice sounds like conservative nonsense.
Playmaker88
G Money is Cash
Choice.
konceptjones
The one between three and three.
It's 100% your choice to take that first hit. What people need to do is to take some responsibility for what they do to themselves. And the "rate of addiction" shit means: Of those individuals that have bipolar disorder (~2.6% of the country), 60 % of those that have tried an addictive drug became addicted. Think about what that actually means for a minute. For the sake of argument, let's say 1,000,000 have bipolar disorder (the number is higher than that, this is just for mathematical purposes). Let's now say that of that 1M, only 100K actually try using an addictive substance. According to the numbers, 60,000 will become addicted.
That's how that works. It's not 60% of the overall bipolar population, it's 60% of those that are, first, bipolar and, second, decided to take a drug. This is a number that will be much smaller than the overall population of people that are bipolar.
Both. You made a choice to do it however many times but once it gets you, you got.
