It's annoying when a mod uses the fact that they can't be ignored to troll like a jackass.

I'd agree with the bolded part.  Knowing how deadly and addictive heroin is I don't know why anyone would dabble in that shit...that said, I think some people  wired either biochemically or through the result of their upbringing to have addictive personality.

Also, having been given opiates and other pain killers in the past for one injury or another, I don't see why anyone would WANT to take that stuff recreationally.  Side affects (for me anyway) are fucking horrible, itching, nausea, insomnia, etc.  So much so that I'd almost rather just find some other way to deal with the pain.

I've made a perfectly compelling case already in this thread, feel free to go read it.

I suspect no amount of evidence would be sufficient to enlighten you though, I'm not wasting any more of my time discussing anything with you.

Addiction is not a disease. Addicts choose to ingest their drug of choice. Addiction is nothing but a series of poor life choices. You aren't born an addict unless your mother was using drugs while pregnant with you. When you choose to try drugs for the first time you have chosen to take a chance on becoming an addict. I was addicted to cocaine 1987-1989 and no 'disease' made me try coke for the first time, I did so willingly. I was one of the lucky ones and never got caught with it or got in trouble with the law. I could've very easily died, went to prison, or lost my gun rights.

When I had enough of that life I chose to go to an outpatient drug counselor and started attending NA meetings. I had to stop going to the NA meetings after a month because everyone kept repeating over and over how the 'disease' was responsible for their addictions instead of admitting that it was in fact their own fault for using drugs. Hearing those people blaming the 'disease' of addiction instead of themselves made me angry and the program wasn't really needed since I had already chose to not use anymore. No one wants to accept that they alone are responsible for how their lives turn out, not some drug or a 'disease'. I made up my mind that I wasn't going to ruin my life anymore and I quit, period. I have never relapsed or was tempted to relapse.

I was addicted to tobacco for most of my life as well. I smoked cigarettes for 27 years and finally decided that I wasn't going to live like that anymore. Of those 27 years, I smoked 3 packs per day for over half of that time.  I chose to not be dependent on nicotine any longer. I chose to quit and now I choose to remain tobacco free everyday. God gave us this wonderful thing called free will and if you choose wisely, life can be great but if you choose poorly like addicts do then your life will suck. I choose to live my life without drugs or nicotine. The key word here is choice.

I don't think whether it is a disease or not is the main point, at least not for me. Lets accept that it is a disease for a moment. Then it is certainly a 100% preventable disease.

How do you prevent it? By not putting shit into your body that is widely known to lead to the "disease" of drug addiction. This can lead to you mentally and physically valuing whatever your addiction is more than your kids, your family, your career, or life itself.

People choose to partake in actions that they know can lead to this kind of death spiral. I don't have sympathy for that. To me its about facing the consequences of your actions, calling it a disease implies you had no control over it, words have power.

Preventable disease or not, it is a result of a persons actions. I don't feel sorry for people that choose to take that risk, and then get destroyed by it. However I do have sympathy for the people around them, particularly children that get caught up in that persons addiction.

life also slowly kills you, do i suffer from the disease of life? off to the disability line.

They're always an addict. Just a matter of whether they're in recovery or actively using. What the ignorant asses here refuse to open their eyes to is that addicts have brains that react to dopamine differently. Your brain has dopamine receptors. An addicts brain see more dopamine than it can absorb so it will grow more receptors. Hence the progressive nature of the disease. It's why people start off on pills prescribed by a Dr after a major injury and eventually progress to harder things. Addiction also creates some mental health issues which makes it impossible for them to see the insanity of what they're doing. Sure when your head is clear it's easy to see what's wrong. Ever had much luck talking sense to a drunk guy? Multiply that and it's trying to get a heroin addict to see the reality of the life he's living.

I've rambled enough, those dopamine receptors will close up when they get clean, but they never go away. They're always there, as soon as an alcoholic takes a drink again or a crack addicts hits the crack pipe, those receptors pop back open again. They're based in the core of the brain, the same area that drive a human to eat, pro-create, nurture young. So yes, once an addict or alcoholic always an addict or alcoholic.

Yeah, they do.

Still not a disease though. I can choose to not do drugs, I can not choose to not have cancer.

If I watch Porno for Pyros, would that make it Jane's Addiction, not mine?

Non-volitionality is not a prerequisite to something being a disease.

There is no definition of disease that states such.

People can engage in completely voluntary actions that lead to them being in a diseased state.

oh for Christ's sake....

DSM-5 disagrees with you.

Genetic predisposition is not a disease.

Miller Lite.

It's a disease just like shaking baby syndrome.

Having no self control is not a disease

Addiction is a disease...

The simplest definition of disease that I have ever been given was from a very smart man.

He said this, "Disease is the absence of health."

Will the day come that a drug company will develop a series of pills or a drug that cancels out the drug they're taking and they won't physically be able to even get high? This can be an implant. I say a series because it can be for alcohol or coke or weed or whatever....

The day will probably soon come that gene editing will make the proclivity to addiction a thing of the past.

We're already there.  

Chantix blocks nicotine receptors.

Vivitrol blocks opioid receptors.

I'm sure there's others.

You're right, it's a predisposition to getting one.

I wish it was that easy.  The mental part of it, I was born with. I didn't know I had it. I drank, like most do, and never had a problem with it. Until one day I did. Eventually the drink didn't effect my brain enough. I tried drugs. Eventually drugs didn't effect my brain enoght.  There is a chemical imbalance in my brain.  To say "it's a choice" is correct.  Nobody made me do it. To not make that choice is impossible for any length of time when your brain continues to tell you it's ok this time. One cannot understand this because they don't have the imbalance. So it easier for them to judge what they've never experienced because they apply it to what they would do if they had it. Something like a internet badass who is convinced he will be able to kill if he had to telling someone who's done it how easy it would be.  

Imagine you have a dozen voices in your head that never shut up. You are constantly thinking. Constantly having a conversation in your head with yourself. It never stops. The only way to turn the volume down is take a drink or a drug.  It's a temporary release and thus you want more.  Some have it less than others and can function at a very high level.  Some are people who end up on the streets like the stereotypes on TV portray.

Once your life starts to spin out of control as you loose everything around you, you start to do more to turn off the brain.

Stoping is easy.  You stop.  You deal with the physical withdrawals. Dealing with the brain is hard. It's takes time and effort. Most don't understand this and relapse even though they've been clean and sober for a while. The ones that get it and stay clean and sober accept it and understand that as long as they don't take the first one they can deal with the mental side of it over time.

After years you learn what you can and can't do. It gets easier and you end up having a decent life.

It's hard work to live drunk and high. I personally took the drive that I used to live that life and applied it to a different life.  By the world's material standards I'm VERY successful. So what.  By the happiness meter I found that I could be happy in my own skin.  My voices no longer rule my actions.

For the sake of argument what is the 'agent' in Lou Gherig's Disease (ALS)? What is the 'agent' in Alzheimer's Disease? Are there pictures of such agents?

Is there a difference between a communicable disease, which may think of shorthand as a 'disease' and what is classified as a disease more generally?

For instance Oxford's English Dictionary defines disease with first uses of the word going back to 1393 well before certain mechanisms/agents were known at all as "A condition of the body, or of some part or organ of the body, in which its functions are disturbed or deranged; a morbid physical condition; 'a departure from the state of health, especially when caused by a structural change.'"

I don't contest you won't find a "organism, parasite, virus, bacteria, or microbe" for addiction beyond genetics, genes, and brain chemistry. Here is a picture of some addiction genes if it helps. It is like heart disease, partly due to genes and predispositions, partly due to poor lifestyle choices. In any individual case you can blame one more than another. Heck, its part of the heart disease epidemic, doctors treat the symptoms/problems, but never treat the underlying behavior leading to or exacerbating the disease in the first place, so heart doctors keep doing bypasses on the same people over and over at times.


ETA: Also here is a study that puts a bacteria (one of the agents you listed) as a cause for Alcoholism, does that settle alcoholism is a disease? (Yes I know alcoholism is not the same as opioid or other drug addictions, just trying to see if we can nail down any common ground on what we call a "disease". Frankly, I fall in the category where it does pain me to hear addicts and others call it a disease, because it is definitely NOT the same circumstances/causes/etc. that result or lead to  other things commonly called diseases. But I'm not sure that means the definition of disease doesn't apply).

Refreshing, a big picture thinker, good luck with these nitwits

lol, I'm victimized with the gun addiction, how many days can I get off work??

IMHO, addiction is a personality trait.  ( except maybe in cases where a doc gave you powerful meds for legit reasons, and your now chemically addicted, vs you taking this stuff on your own, illegally, for fun. )

the type of person who is likely to be a drug addict.... would also be the kind of person to be a gambling addict, or a alcoholic, or a shopping addict, etc. if they were not druggies, it would be booze, gambling, etc.. they just got to drug addict first. there are a lot of people who are not mentally prepared to deal with life, so, they find ways to hide from it, or help them cope with it. illegal drugs, drinking, valium, mental health drugs, gambling, shopaholics, etc.

I am also a firm believer that your better off totally removing those people from your life, before they steal your shit, gamble away your house, or kill you in a accident while drunk, etc.  mentally ill people fall in this category as well... it might not be their fault that they are " broken"... but I'm not going to have a hell on earth life, trying to coddle / deal with any of this bullshit.

I subscribe to the "if you can not find the physiological cause, it ain't a disease" camp.

Just excuses and a way to get insurance money.

And I'm opposite of HK45's opinion, so I feel good about myself.

I agree with op. Its like saying using tobacco is a disease. Its not its a choice and just because the user doesnt have the will power to stop doesn't mean its a disease. IDGAF what anybody says.

The term "disease" in this context is using a pretty wide and generous brush.

"Addiction" should just stand on it's own...sex addiction, alcohol addiction, drug addiction, porn addiction.....it's a mental weakness that gets you started. With alcohol and drugs, your weakness eventually turns physical. There is no denying that after a time, drug addicts and drunks physically NEED their poison. At best, the original weakness is a mental disorder.

Classifying it as a "disease" puts it in the "not my fault" category.

Having several alcoholics and drug addicts in my extended family, I have zero sympathy for them.

So if addiction isn't a disease, is adult onset diabetes?  Obesity?  Homosexuality?

The leap you make from his statement to the blanket "So you believe that pedophiles, drug users and alcoholics all have brain tumors" is indeed "Unfucking believable!!"

Good Lord, this kind of thinking and excuse making is what's fucked this country up!!!

(Hint:  I think he was providing some data that medical conditions can sometimes affect behavior.)

This comes across as sneery.  Maybe I'm reading it wrong?  I hope so.

I have known people who wanted to go clean but didn't get it done the first time.  Whether they misjudged something, had a blind spot, whatever.  So they went back, because they wanted to be clean.  I don't know that it was brave, but it wasn't something worthy of disrespect.

Good post.  So far in my life I have been fortunate enough not to ever have to use pain killers.  That's not to say I haven't been seriously injured several times and the doctor has offered a prescription which I turned down.  Becoming an addict would be detestable to me so I avoid that which I could become addicted to and would rather just suffer with the pain.  I use NSAID's sparingly as well so that when I do need them they work very well.  If and when I truly need pain killers (like if I have a severed limb or something serious) then I will use them and pray that I discontinue their use at the earliest possible outset.  If people want to call addiction a disease, fine.  It is a self-imposed disease - not unlike lung cancer that smokers get.  It isn't at all like a genetic disease where the person was born with it and had zero choice in the matter.  I get it, once the drug has been consumed the user may contract said disease because they were born with that tendency.  But the fact remains that the addiction did not exist until they put the drug in their body.

I personally think that drugs in general are way over used.  There is a damned drug for everything.  It amazes me that people continue to believe that there is a pill for the slightest discomfort that may beset them.  I would rather go through life with that discomfort than end up like an addict.

ETA - I was just at a convenience store.  Above the tobacco products was a sign that said "Warning: Tobacco products are addictive".  Would the resulting addiction be because those who use them have a disease, or because they put the shit in their body to begin with?  I am going to have to go with the latter.  Personal responsibility and all that crazy conservative stuff I believe in.

100% preventable - don't put crap in your body.

100% curable - stop putting crap in your body.

Doesn't sound like any disease I know of.

My dad is an alcoholic. He just went through rehab. Says he is never touching it again. That's what he said 2 years ago.

He lost his source of income, he is about to lose his place to live, he has no money, no assets, and is probably not healthy (physically or mentally) enough to work. I have no idea what he is going to do, but I don't have the means to support him, nor do I really want to.

From what I have seen I would call it a mental illness.

So killing them is your 100% cure??

Actually, no, how about personal responsibility.

Cancer, Lupus, ALS, MS, malaria, typhoid, cholera, small pox, ebola,    -  disease

stoned, drunk, wasted  - not disease.

Disease my ass, go die somewhere else.  Fucking junkies.

You caught it form a toilet seat?

A disease has been defined for decades, look it up. Drug use like obesity may cause a disease but it is not a disease by itself.

Someone that gets cervical cancer from HPV may well have got it from putting a questionable dick in their body.  Is it still a disease? 

MS risk and progression is linked to a number of preventable causes (Vitamin D status, smoking, etc).  Still a disease?

I have a coworker that got Malaria because they didn't take prophylactic drugs.  Is that still a disease?

a

with ya there...

Putting a questionable dick in your body is now a disease?

Has nothing to do with disease not disease.

You say it's 100% curable by stop putting shit in their bodies. Good way to kill someone. 

OP is on his way to eliminating disease.  Add these whose victims made poor choices:

smoking induced lung cancer
diet related heart disease
type II diabetes
MVA injuries due to driver error
skin cancer in sun worshipers
shin splints in runners
tennis elbow
choking in children who purposely mouth small objects

This list can go on, but I suspect OP is already in line for a Nobel prize in medicine.

So someone held all the addicts down and injected them with heron over and over until they were hooked?  BULLSHIT - they made the choice to shoot up the first time and every time after that.

Had to check and see if this was another ABadIdea post.  Is not, but still delivers.

I am curious what the "not a disease" crowd thinks about antidepressants and their ilk.

As diabetes medication provides assistance to a body that cannot without help get its functioning back into normal healthy parameters,
so SSRIs, etc., assist in getting brain chemistry back into a normal range.  A lot of addiction material talks about "self-medication" by addicts. Is that a poor coping mechanism?  Well, yeah.  But let's go back to that coping word.  They're coping with something.  Poorly, to be sure.

Does the "not a disease" crowd think there is no physical/medical basis for mental illness?  That's not unusual, actually.  A long time ago, I thought physical medical conditions were real, and deserving of sympathy, and that mental illnesses were neither.  That they had no physical basis.  I was wrong.

Could active addiction be avoided by never using the substance (heroin, nicotine, ethanol, ...)?  Yep.
Do different people have different susceptibilities to getting addicted to various substances?  Yep.
But I never knew any 8th graders with a sophisticated enough understanding of neuroscience to put that all together and operate accordingly and with caution.

Global warming is real and addiction is a disease BECAUSE SCIENCE AGREES ON IT guys

I think ending welfare and all entitlements is the cure for drug disease.