Oprah show on now..

[angelgirl]

I just turned on Oprah, and it's funny, because I rarely watch it,,
but her show today is called Addictions: Why can't they stop? It's on
now. I just started watching it, so I dont know how it will turn out,
just wanted to let everyone know it is on...

Love,
Becky

[Done-With-It]

I meant to watch it, and just caught the end, I think the rerun is on tonight. It looked good though. Wha'd ya think?

[Ten Chips Down]

Shucks. One of the TWO or THREE days I actually work in my semi-retirement and she does a damn addiction show. lol

Hey! i get Oxygen maybe it will rerun on that?

[Ten Chips Down]

That's weird i just checked and i guess she doesn't run on "0,2"

oh well

[bee62]

My mother watched the tail end and actually called me to tell me what she had heard. I think she is beginning to "get it"....I think its important for these things to be brought to light, if enough people try and understand the dis=ease of addiction,the "system" might become less punitive and people less judgemental..so tired of the stigma attached to us as addicts, anyone else??

Melissa

[51anna]

I watched some of it and it was really, really good.

Go to oprah.com and you can read all about it from the main page.

[Ten Chips Down]

Thanks Anna!

Resisting drugs or alcohol is a daily struggle for most addicts, but Rick says there's one thing that's even more difficult than staying clean. "Even harder than quitting the drug, getting off the drug, is forgiving yourself," Rick says. "I'm almost eight years clean, and I still loathe myself at times because of what I did years ago. I may be out helping kids every day and speaking at schools. … But I still go home at night and say, 'It's not enough. I don't forgive myself yet.'"

That is amazing. I don't think I have ever quite heard the self-hatred expressed so clearly before. And yes, self-hatred is a very strong phrase but if you are really honest, one's self-worth just plummets along with one's addiction. It really does. But that's about all I got out of the encapsulation of the show, as the substance is nothing I haven't heard or lived before and the teaser "cure" is still just a media buzz-word. Years away and no closer than 'Prometa (Has anyone ever heard of Prometa?)', I'm afraid.


Melissa, I can't really go down that road. I am a benzo-addict and very much an advanced alcoholic, completely clean & sober at last now.

But ya know, I gotta kinda side with ol' Dr. Dean Edell there, on the status of addiction-as-disease.

He and I think closely alike. lol! So, he must be good and vice-versa! lol

He just answered a call about this a couple of weeks ago, stating his position that, at best, alcoholism fits a "soft" definition of disease and went on to give an example of abstention in the Islamic religion:

Where is alcoholism among devout Muslims? he queried on the air. Acknowledging its existence to a small degree, Edell nonetheless used this population to demonstrate that alcoholism, or any addiction, simply cannot exist without the afflicted feeding it.

... And to me, it is a huge intellectual leap to claim addiction fits the strictest medical model of disease. There is simply too much will involved--or lack of will, at different stages.

And the stigma of addiction? Oh, very natural, indeed. Look:

• We addicts lie, cheat, steal.
• We become just as cunning & conniving as the god-forsaken "addictive voice" in our heads. We become our addiction.
• There is a morality attached to our actions in the world. God forbid society ever stops judging bad behavior - right?

We gotta try and separate the addict from his addiction, but golly. We can only take the passage so far. Addiction is a very complex behavioral and medical syndrome, meaning it encompasses many challenges. As it is closely tied with human decision-making... well, I doubt there will ever be a 100%-effective vaccine to prevent us from indulging hedonic impulses.

Ten