Alcoholism: Do you think or feel alcoholism and substance abuse is a weakness or

[biohazard]

With all due respect, I highlighted the important bits. [MENTION=219]Metamorphosis[/MENTION] is right. It is neither exclusively "caused by an external force", and not all diseases are incurable.

I find it ad nauseam to argue the definition when I already clarified and posted it. The Guyton-Hall Medical Physiology books I have define diseases as generally incurable, disorders as generally curable.

 

[magpie]

I don't think it's either and I don't think that something is either weakness or disease is a useful duality to believe in.

 

[Yuurei]

I have issues with calling alcoholism a disease. Substance abuse is not a disease. As someone above stated, it actually often ends up being more of a SYMPTOM of something else rather than a disease of its own. But in essence, doing something like this is a CHOICE...So to me, alcoholism is more of a choice. Now whether you are in the rational mindset to decide about that choice fully varies from person to person. I do also think addictive personalities come into play (which is why I am not ever going to drink alcohol. Alcoholism runs in my family, I have an addictive personality, and I have anxiety with depression so it is an all around bad idea considering I had former self-harm issues which is an addiction of its own.) But in essence to call it a disease to me insults people with a real disease. They didn't choose to have a disease, or they cannot easily cure theirs. Addiction is not a disease. To become addicted to something you made the choice to partake, and whether you like it or not you have to take responsibility for your choices.

I constantly hear tha5 it “ isn’t always a choice,” Granted. I may not know 100% what got them there but you know what IS a chiice? Getting clean-or not.

And sometging is a weakness when you decide not to do something about it when it is well-within your ability.

 

[The Cat]

I figure addiction is a bit like chronic pain. If you've you've never experienced it personally, you don't have the whole picture. You can sympathize, and damned sure be effected by it. But I'm always leery when anyone who's never touched a drink or a smoke, or gambled, etc, and then says its this or that....I begin to wonder...

But I figure in this life everyone struggles with something that someone else won't think is a thing. At least once...

 

[Peter Deadpan]

I figure addiction is a bit like chronic pain. If you've you've never experienced it personally, you don't have the whole picture. You can sympathize, and damned sure be effected by it. But I'm always leery when anyone who's never touched a drink or a smoke, or gambled, etc, and then says its this or that....I begin to wonder...

But I figure in this life everyone struggles with something that someone else won't think is a thing. At least once...

Yes. This.

Addiction is not a choice. I find this perspective to be extremely insulting to basically my entire childhood and my mother's struggles.

She is almost 11 years sober. She has fought demons many will never understand, and for that, she is my hero.

 

[Poki]

Weakness, but weakness is a relative term so take it with a grain of salt

 

[Tomb1]

I don't even arrive at the question of whether it's an addiction or a weakness because acting out on either one still comes down to a choice. Nobody would ever get sober if it wasn't ultimately a choice. Regardless of how you package it, they choose to be sober just like they chose not to be sober. Just because it's a struggle doesn't change the fact it's still a choice and that they and they alone are personally responsible for. So the real question is does the person want to put the strength into overcoming it or not. I can't stand the weak, self-indulgent mindset that says if something is hard to overcome, then the person is somehow not at fault for choosing to do it. like life is supposed to be easy.

I never had any sympathy for the "no choice" argument or "they can't help themselves." Enabling behaviors are disgusting and disempowering and only reinforce self-pity. Enabling does just that...it enables the user and creates a situation of co-dependency. I think of it as demeaning to people that genuinely didn't choose to be in the harsh struggles they find themselves in (like crack babies, those born with blindness, etc). it's the sober person behind the wheel of car killed by a scumbag drunk driver that didn't have the choice.

 

[miss fortune]

I'm guessing that not many people here have had a first hand experience with alcoholism...

it starts so innocently... you try your first drink and realize that it lets you escape being yourself for a while... it shuts your brain up so that you can be a normal person and enjoy yourself

another opportunity arises to drink, so you take it... you want to feel that again

this happens a couple of times and you have to drink more to get to that feeling again... to relax and feel good for once

you start to drink more often... you realize it lets you escape for a while from the pressures of being yourself... in my case I'd been an overachiever... full scholarship kid, national merit scholar and triple major... I needed to relax

you start caring less about the other stuff because you're finally happy... you fit in for once, you aren't stressing about whether you'll get into a good grad school for once

it gets worse

soon problems start piling up, and by this point you've learned that the easiest way to escape problems is to drink... so you drink some more... all of your friends by this point are heavy drinkers as well, so every time you spend time with them you'll be drinking heavily

you reassure yourself that you're not an alcoholic... you're not drinking alone and you don't go into withdrawal if you skip a day of drinking

your work performance and personal relationships start to suffer because you're usually drunk or hungover... by this point you don't know any better way to deal with the stress so you drink more

you get defensive about your drinking... you're not an alcoholic, only a heavy drinker... you can stop whenever you want but you just don't want to yet... you're young and still living your life


alcoholics rarely think that they're alcoholics until something bad happens, be it arrest or divorce or getting fired, and even at that some never realize it... it sneaks up on you and if your family is the type to sweep things under the rug you might not even realize that you come from a long line of alcoholics and were predisposed in the first place... to paraphrase Good Omens, it's not that you fall from grace so much as you saunter vaguely downward until you hit a certain point where you realize that you have so little control over things... you're at the bottom of a greased pit before you realize that something's happened at all

there are a lot of factors that can contribute to someone taking up drinking and some can drink heavily without ever becoming an alcoholic... some of us lost the genetic lottery and can't


just had to put this here because there seem to be a lot of misconceptions as to how alcoholism works in this thread... I'm almost 7 years sober and it still isn't easy... there are times that I NEED a drink because my mind still thinks that it's a vacation or a means of celebration... drinking is easy, it's the quitting that's fucking hard

 

[Unkindloving]

Imo, the part of it that strikes me as a choice or any degree of weakness is the bit that is driven purely by "I'll just have one" or "I'll just drink at this event" or "I'll stop tomorrow". Beyond that one part, it's disease territory. A general nagging desire for it also fits in the disease territory to me too.
I'm sure it varies from person to person, but I've witnessed the type of behavior above with my Dad. He's usually okay until he can give himself an excuse, and then it's months or better of non-stop belligerent drink-til-you-pass-out everyday behavior. My Mom said he went years without drinking at a point, and then the "You know what.. I want a martini" struck.

 

[á´…eparted]

I think there are times where I become addicted to weed. Each time I have gone on a binge, I will smoke every day, sometimes twice a day for several months straight. It will be all I want to do, and sometimes it feels like it is the only think I can do that will "scratch the itch". At times, I won't want to smoke, but I will remember that I always love it when it happens, and force myself to do it anyway because it will make me feel better.

It does adversely effect my daily functioning. Mostly it kills my will/motivation to do things, and if I end up in a situation where I have to be motivated I will experience an intense amount of stress. This can feedback loop on itself. After three major binges (Nov 2015 - Mar 2016, then Jan 2017 - April 2017, then Oct 2017 - Dec 2017) I can pretty cleanly state that my mental health has been at its worst in the thick of those time periods, although there were awful periods outside of those windows two that were just as bad. I can't prove it effects me poorly, but it evidence suggests it is.

I do wonder how significant the addiction is though, because at the end of those periods something clicks in my brain that goes "mmm time to stop" and I stop with no problem whatsowever. It's not fun in the following weeks, but I survive it fine.

 

[Maou]

Not a weakness, but more like mental illness/disease.

People have a predisposition coming from alcoholc (and abusive) families, by having no one knowing or teaching them coping mechanisms to deal with stress. Usually resulting in family dysfunction, It results in people coping by using escapism, and dopamine abuse (gambling, drugs etc). This usually upgrades overtime from simple escapism, to drugs and alcohol. This is also known as an "addictive personality". I personally have always observed this behavior in my own family, and other families as well.

I am a severe alcoholic. While I agree it is on me to truly quit, it is not easy. I know, I just did it recently. Alcohol, is more physically addictive than some of the hardest drugs (heroin etc). It is among the few that will literally kill you if you try to quit due to the physical addiction. I got a taste of Delerium tremens once, and it is not fun.

As I seen earlier in this thread, it is seemingly a cure all happy pill. There were times when I thought I was only happy while drinking. Since I already experience anhedonia quite often. I grew up in an abusive household and embraced the addiction to alcohol willingly. There is a saying, "Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic". This saying is scarily true. No matter how long ago you have quit, you will never truly stop thinking of it. It rewires your brain.

 

[The Cat]

I think that alcoholism is all in one and substance abuse and weakness.

Gosh really? Would you mind elaborating? Ten points to Hufflepuff if you can do it without adding a link.

 

[Sacrophagus]

Alcoholism or any other form of escapism is a weakness. Calling it a disease is a form of weakness itself to assume that its something out of your control, shifting the blame, and thus kid yourself to feel comfortable.

 

[prplchknz]

Alcoholism or any other form of escapism is a weakness. Calling it a disease is a form of weakness itself to assume that its something out of your control, shifting the blame, and thus kid yourself to feel comfortable.

oh geeze i didn't know having seizures from alcohol withdrawl was simply a sign of weakness

 

[Maou]

Alcoholism or any other form of escapism is a weakness. Calling it a disease is a form of weakness itself to assume that its something out of your control, shifting the blame, and thus kid yourself to feel comfortable.

It is a disease, because it causes physical changes in your body. Just like eating bad food gives your heart disease. While you can choose not to initually engage in such practices. Often times, the disease has already set in long before you think you need help, or it even occured to you you had a problem. By then, it is too late. Doesn't matter how much control or willpower you have. It is like stepping into quicksand, and only realizing that you can't get out after you are already chest deep.

 

[Earl Grey]

Weakness, in the sense that the dependency appears to happen in a state of weakness. It is a disease in the sense that it causes disruption in normal functioning, ideally to be cured from.

 

[Sacrophagus]

It is a disease, because it causes physical changes in your body

Growing up is a disease by that definition. That's not what a disease is.

Doesn't matter how much control or willpower you have.

You're simply telling yourself this to allow yourself to comfortably indulge since you're assuming it is out of your control.
Overcoming is something within your scope, you're just not ready yet to see it. All I'm reading are excuses, regardless of the tribulations that made them took that path of self-destruction. Weakness is human. There's no shame, no stigma.

On the other hand, don't pat me in the back, tell me what I can do to overcome it. Then again, maybe I'm too austere with myself.

Overcoming addiction is your fight, and you will probably find others who will support you if that's something you need. I'll be glad to kick your ass whenever you're thinking about destroying yourself. It all starts with you, however, not with me.

Regardless of how you call it, you better ask for help and forget about other people's judgement if you find yourself struggling with it.

As she said.

Maybe a thread where people are struggling with alcoholism and are adamant to overcome it and share their experience would be a good initiative.

 

[Sacrophagus]

oh geeze i didn't know having seizures from alcohol withdrawl was simply a sign of weakness

*pours a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc on her face*

 

[anticlimatic]

Alcoholism or any other form of escapism is a weakness. Calling it a disease is a form of weakness itself to assume that its something out of your control, shifting the blame, and thus kid yourself to feel comfortable.

Blame and control get murky on the subject. I've noticed, alcoholic or not (genetic wise), there's two types of people. People who drink until they get a buzz going and then think "it's time to stop drinking and wind down," and people who think "I need to drink more to keep this thing going." Both choices occur under the influence, some people just impulsively want to stop and some impulsively want to keep going. It's tough to parse consious control.

 

[Jaguar]

oh geeze i didn't know having seizures from alcohol withdrawl was simply a sign of weakness

Years ago I used to watch a TV show called Dr G: Medical Examiner. I used to compete with myself to see if I could get the answer before she announced it as she called out what she saw in the autopsies. This one particular case interested me since it was a young woman in her 20's found dead on her sofa. As Dr G. moved through her body, she noticed she had pancreatitis which got my attention but I said to myself, "Relevant, but that's not why she died." It was when she said the woman had solid signs of regular alcohol use, that I figured out why she died: Abrupt alcohol withdrawal. When you have pancreatitis it can be painful as hell, and drinking alcohol will make it worse. That can lead a person to suddenly stop drinking to alleviate the pain. In her case, I figured it was too much for the body to take and she died right on her sofa. Later, the medical examiner came to the same conclusion.

I do not recommend suddenly stopping a medication, smoking, or drinking. As for the weakness comment, I tend to see value judgments like that from the willfully ignorant. Stupidity kills.