Originally Posted by Clancy46
Jazz...Just my thought, I do think Drugs are different than alcohol.
Yep, here's an example, at 15 I started smoking pot on a daily for 6 or 7 years, (I forget how long exactly 
). I quit cold turkey, no help, no program, no support. To me Pot was something I just outgrew. I didn't have any withdrawal symptoms or DTs, just had a hard time sleeping for about a week. The cocaine habit was MUCH different! I absolutely had major physical and physiological withdrawal symptoms. While attending a family program at the last rehab my ex attended we were shown a video about cocaine addiction, (among many other drug type educational videos). The study showed that it takes two years for serotonin level to return to normal after abstinence from cocaine. For alcohol it takes 6 months for the brain chemistry to return to normal levels. Quitting Coke was BITCH let me tell you. All though it's harder to get and a lot less socially acceptable than alcohol too. My point is unless you have experienced and licked chemical dependency for yourself you will have a very hard time relating to what an addicted spouse, mate or family member is going through. When was 20 something I worked as a Field Engineer for a computer networking company. All my clients were in downtown DC and I spent a lot of time walking around the city. During that time I saw plenty of street personnel, the real down & out folks w/ no place to live except under a bridge. Sometimes I would get an extra hot dog from a street vendor and give it to one of the street folks I would see regularly. I knew that if I gave them money they would NOT use it for food. I would give them food and cigarettes but would never give them money. I guess it's because I was at one time not to far from being in the position that I could have been living in the streets and thinking to my self... this isn't so bad! This kinda goes back to my very 1st post here at SR. Why was I able to quit my life threatening addiction and my ex was/is not? Equus was the 1st to respond to my 1st post and here's her ES&H (should be a sticky IMO).
Originally Posted by equus
I guess because addicts are still individuals. They remain people first and formost and the difference between your and your wife's choices demonstrate that. Multiply that difference to all the variety of hitting bottom that can be seen, then multiply it again by all the different ways and length of time each one recovers or doesn't, and then multiply it once more by how they recover ther LIFE. And there's more.... your 'facts' aren't so set in stone, these differences and surprises pop up over and over again.
Diseases have symptoms but once you define people by disease it's tempting to over simplify, it's tempting to loose sight of individual differences that have led you to your final question.
Did you know that possibly one of the biggest factors effecting motivation is the confidence to believe we can achieve? Without believing I am capable of doing 'X' all the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in the world is going to be reason enough to try.
My answer is just based on what I've seen and read - in years to come we'll all know more but I think it's unlikely that any group of people will become as easy to define as a disease, even a baffling one.
So... if you REALLY know an individual, your gut will be telling you something.... Don't ignore it if it's telling you
red flags! (fool me once...) So after months of analysis and help from the good folks here at SR, it was decided that my self esteem was low enough to get into the drug scene but high enough to NOT let it destroy my life. Self esteem would be a great indicator of potential relapse risk, and that's a very individual thing.