DoingWell

I couldn't understand that either until I tried to quit drinking and found I had a problem myself.
For me there are periods that creep up on me and I feel something is missing.. I need something. The dopamine receptors have a demand to be fed anything it remembers as pleasure.
Like I said, I asked addicts that all the time.. how can you go so long and them BAM?
and it just wasn't until I tried to quit drinking that I somewhat understood the line of thinking. I understand it's like watching someone pounding their head against a wall and not being able to understand why they don't understand "IF I keep knocking my head against thsi wall, I'm going to get a concussion!"
My niece (daughter of my sister who is a recovering heroin addict) began to start cutting herself at the age of 12 ..I totally could NOT understand this and came to learn there were so many people who were doing this (self harm)
it's the same part of the brain that screams.. "I Need something here.. give me something to make me feel better" When we finally learn that we do have control over believing that or not we can then continue to make good choices. But we're all human and no one is perfect.
I think every addict has a conversation with their addiction at least once a day <g>

Anna

From the point of view of a recovering alcoholic - I made a choice to take the first drink. But, I did not choose to become an alcoholic. Whether or not that makes sense to you, that's the way it is.

I find it so very sad when people resort to name-calling towards addicts. Trust me, when I tell you I know how much I hurt my family during my 3 years of drinking. Trust me, when I tell you that every single day for the past 7 years since I've been in recovery, I have had to take my feelings of shame and guilt and put them aside in order to be able to move forward. Not a day, probably not even an hour has gone by in those 7 years that I don't think about it.

Your daughter went back to using drugs after being in jail because she is an addict and she wasn't yet ready to get clean.

TrishaV

I didn't mean to name call, i am not here in insult anyone...i just get so d**n frustrated trying to understand that it is driving me nuts. How can a person go from a normal life of 18 years to nothing...I want to thank everyone for their responses to my questions..and...maybe..just maybe..one day I will get it. I guess for now the only thing I can do is accept it for what it is....a problem that tends to be out of the control of the addict ...of course...until they are ready to learn how to control it by getting the help they need.

MsPINKAcres

I am NOT an addict or an alcoholic.

I am a true blue 120 % Al-Anon - I struggled at first with the disease concept if you want to call it that, wondered if you knew that substance would steal your very life - why not do everything you have to do to stay away from it?

Then from the suggestions of my sponsor & some other Al-Anon friends, I started attending open AA meetings. It was a birthday nite - lots of people, A's, spouses, moms, dads, friends, etc. I saw this lovely, elegant elderly lady- probably in her late 60's early 70's - You could tell this woman in her day must have been gorgeous - she is still a very attrative, graceful woman. I thought she must be someone's wife or mom - right?

WRONG - She got up and gave out chips as a sponsor & it was actually her sobriety birthday too - 20 something yrs of sobriety.

I WAS FLOORED.

That's when it hit me - Alcoholism has no boundaries. She shared about how her thought process was not the same as her siblings - how she wished she could have never taken that first drink - but unless she is spiritually fit & truly seeking help thru her program of recovery - she is defenseless against that pull of alcohol.

I sit at this computer with tears in my eyes - If you had heard her speak about how she really, really wanted NOT to drink - but did not have the mental ability to stop the obsession. With Alcoholics Anonymous, her HP and the other tools of the program she has been able to stop that pull.

So, yes I still get angry & frustrated when my loved ones relapse - it breaks my heart - but I know that there is a pull beyond their control and unless they are seeking the solution for their disease they are walking a dangerous path.

Just my opinion - please take what you like & leave the rest.

I'm a critic who by God's grace was able to have my mind opened to another way of thinking - truly has made my life filled with more HEALTHY COMPASSION for everyone.

Wishing you Serenity & Joy,
Rita

TrishaV

I guess maybe that is what I should do...this may help me understand all of this so much better. I think another part of my problem is ...is that I feel the need to analyze everything. I never have been one to accept things for what they are. I guess since never dealing with addiction myself, it makes it that much harder to understand...i don't know...but..i wish there were an "overnight" answer. I sit and read all these post and see family after family being ripped apart because of this..and...it is just something I am unable to understand. After raising 3 of my 5 children, and one being a addict..if it is resonable to say that this problem may be inherited...I want a test ran on my two youngest children. Although I know this can't be done...i know that I don't want to deal with the heartache of this ever again!

cinderellawkids

I believe its a disease much like depression and other mental illnesses. SOme people cognitive therapy help, some need further treatment, some can function some can not.

Much of it is based on brain chemicals, wave lengths brain synopsis ect and genetics

Ann

I am one who agrees that if the AMA believes it is a disease, it is a disease.

I also believe that it doesn't matter (except for those who research the treatment and cure). If alcohol or drugs or any substance is destroying the life of someone I love, or my own life, then we all have a problem.

AA, NA, Naranon, Alanon, CoDA and other 12-step programs are not about the substance and whether or not it is a disease, they are programs that help each of us deal with life on life's terms. Working these programs has saved millions of addicted people and probably 4 times that of those who love them. Saved them from the disease? Nope, saved us all from the underlying problems and behaviours that have caused havoc in our lives.

The question no longer offends me. Thinking that the answer is relevant to how we work our recovery does.

And, Trisha, this does not mean you offend me, you don't. This question has been asked a million times and the answer is always the same, if you think you have a problem with substance and it is disrupting your health and your life...you do have a problem, whatever you choose to call it.

Hugs

BrokenBridges24

I think your heart is in the right place Trisha. You are a mother looking for an answer for her child. (((HUGS)))

I do not think there is one. I do think addiction is a disease. The first try at it was a choice but I have not ever sat with my addicts and ever heard them say they wanted to say the way they were. They wanted to stop. They just never wanted it bad enough to actually quit.

You are a concerned parent who loves her daughter. I read your posts and can clearly see that. You are frustrated and hurt. Your heart is breaking for the daughter you love so very much. Your heart is breaking for those children she has left behind, that you now are taking care of. But you have to separate her now from what you knew her to be as a child. That is really the only way for me to deal with my addicts. The children I love that were sweet, kind, loving have taken a very long road trip. I have no idea if those people are ever coming back. What I see that looks like someone I used to know so well… well that person is gone. What stands before me is almost a monster in my children’s flesh. You never stop loving the person. You always love them. But they are really two different people. I do not believe there are any magical answers that will define this. Those that have been addicts that are now in recovery are probably the best teachers for us all. They are the survivors. Someone once said that even then it is like the monster lays beneath the surface. They pray it never awakes again but can say ‘just for today the monster slept, have no idea what will happen tomorrow.” It is one day at a time for them, just like for us. But I truly believe they are our greatest teachers in this fight to find our loved ones.

That is my opinion. I am not a doctor. Who knows… only the HP.

Keep the faith…
Broken

cmc

Trish,
As some have said there is an element of choice, but once the choice is made either for that first try at the substance or during the onset of a relapse.
The way it was described to me is that the disease has four components:
biological
psychological
social
spiritual
As a codependent, the only reason I wanted to solve this issue in my mind was to find some way to make sense of it that did NOT involve helplessness. I wasn't aware of it but much of the researching and defining this subject was a way for me to avoid facing what I eventually learned to be true. (insert whatever drug, codependence or other activity that applies)
Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable.

DoingWell

I think this is where acceptance comes into play.
I know for me I had to know what made me tick.. but I cannot assume it is the same for everyone, different set of circumstances for different addicts/addictions.

All I can say is that I think every addict does experience a time when they think they need or can control an addictor because something is missing. At least for me that's what happens. WHEN that happens I have to quickly remember to NOT believe that thought, if I do NOT drink I will be ok. If I do not take a benzo, I'll get through whatever it is I need to get through. Sometimes there is an argument that goes on in my head and I can only say that today I will win that argument with addiction.

It really comes down to how we deal with certain situations and choices.

Selah

I have trouble with this as well, but I do take note that I don't tend to have compulsive behaviors so I can respect an addicts choice to believe it's an addiction. When you stated above that " the dopamine receptors have a demand to be fed anything it remembers as pleasure." How come they don't remember the pain? the struggle? Or how come they remember anything at all, afterall most do describe addicts as "numb" or "incapable of feeling for others." The other receptors don't work?
I don't know, I just feel like anything can be conquered by the way you change your thinking...anything. I believe it's tough,VERY tough, I hate running, I hate fish, I hate confrontation, but you better believe if I was sick and hurting people to the point of suicide everyday I'd at least try, I'd at least go to a meeting to learn how to stop, I'd at the very least read a book or talk about it.
I don't understand how it's a disease, I do believe it's self-inflicted.
I think it's a contradictory message to tell addicts "they have a disease that they are powerless" and then turn around and tell them to control their actions etc...????
powerless vs. taking control?
I also believe that most of the time peoples actions -addict or not - are much deeper than their genetic/scientific makeup.
There's always the other side the whole dysfunctional family story as well -- and this I have first hand experience on. I never want to be like my father so I am very careful of my social drinking, my brother & sister however aren't.

GiveLove

I'm in this camp as well.

I have a brother who is paranoid schizophrenic. It's a disorder, a disease. He didn't ask for it and didn't expect it to happen. It can be completely controlled by medication, but never cured (much as addiction can be controlled, but never cured)

He is a sweet man when under proper care. If HE chooses to stop taking his medication, he becomes a very dangerous person to himself and to others.

He has a disease. It is treatable. But he has to do his part, or he will be locked up and forced to do it. He didn't ask for his disorder...but having it does not absolve him of the responsibility of doing whatever it takes to keep it from destroying his life and the lives of others. And if he will not take that responsibility, then he has free choice to destroy himself, but I hope he chooses to do it in a way that doesn't take the rest of us to hell with him. (sounds harsh, I know)

That's basically how *I* see addiction:

A disorder that is unfortunate, unpredictable, heartbreaking, but treatable
Some need more treatment than others
Addicts must be willing participants in their own healing, for their ENTIRE life
Loved ones need their own kind of healing (i.e. NarAnon) to learn to cope with the helplessness and frustration of watching all of this happen.

Just my two cents, as someone who has battled with the behavior of addicts for most of my life. It's a volatile subject, for sure...as I'm sure you're discovering....

Trisha, I'm so so sorry about your daughter.

Hugs,
GL

cookconfay

I'm confused, are you saying that you would have that much power over someone that you could push someone to the point of suicide? That would be a "choice" in my book.

dopelesshope

I prefer to call it a Dis-ease. A dis-ease with life. I have always felt like a circle in a square.

BigSis

This poem helped me see things from another point of view....


DRUNKS

for my father, and the people who almost saved his life

We died of pneumonia in furnished rooms
where they found us three days later
when somebody complained about the smell
we died against bridge abutments
and nobody knew if it was suicide
and we probably didn't know either
except in the sense that it was always suicide
we died in hospitals
our stomachs huge, distended
and there was nothing they could do
we died in cells
never knowing whether we were guilty or not.

We went to priests
they gave us pledges
they told us to pray
they told us to go and sin no more, but go
we tried and we died

we died of overdoses
we died in bed (but usually not the Big Bed)
we died in straitjackets
in the DTs seeing God knows what
creeping skittering slithering
shuffling things

And you know what the worst thing was?
The worst thing was that
nobody ever believed how hard we tried

We went to doctors and they gave us stuff to take
that would make us sick when we drank
on the principle of so crazy, it just might work, I guess
or maybe they just shook their heads
and sent us places like Dropkick Murphy's
and when we got out we were hooked on paraldehyde
or maybe we lied to the doctors
and they told us not to drink so much
just drink like me
and we tried
and we died

we drowned in our own vomit
or choked on it
our broken jaws wired shut
we died playing Russian roulette
and people thought we'd lost
but we knew better
we died under the hoofs of horses
under the wheels of vehicles
under the knives and bootheels of our brother drunks
we died in shame

And you know what was even worse?
was that we couldn't believe it ourselves
that we had tried
we figured we just thought we tried
and we died believing that we hadn't tried
believing that we didn't know what it meant to try

When we were desperate enough
or hopeful or deluded or embattled enough to go for help
we went to people with letters after their names
and prayed that they might have read the right books
that had the right words in them
never suspecting the terrifying truth
that the right words, as simple as they were
had not been written yet

We died falling off girders on high buildings
because of course ironworkers drink
of course they do
we died with a shotgun in our mouth
or jumping off a bridge
and everybody knew it was suicide
we died under the Southeast Expressway
with our hands tied behind us
and a bullet in the back of our head
because this time the people that we disappointed
were the wrong people
we died in convulsions, or of "insult to the brain"
we died incontinent, and in disgrace, abandoned
if we were women, we died degraded,
because women have so much more to live up to
we tried and we died and nobody cried

And the very worst thing
was that for every one of us that died
there were another hundred of us, or another thousand
who wished that we could die
who went to sleep praying we would not have to wake up
because what we were enduring was intolerable
and we knew in our hearts
it wasn't ever gonna change

One day in a hospital room in New York City
one of us had what the books call
a transforming spiritual experience
and he said to himself

I've got it
(no you haven't you've only got part of it)

and I have to share it
(now you've ALMOST got it)

and he kept trying to give it away
but we couldn't hear it
the transmission line wasn't open yet
we tried to hear it
we tried and we died

we died of one last cigarette
the comfort of its glowing in the dark
we passed out and the bed caught fire
they said we suffocated before our body burned
they said we never felt a thing
that was the best way maybe that we died
except sometimes we took our family with us

And the man in New York was so sure he had it
he tried to love us into sobriety
but that didn't work either, love confuses drunks
and he tried and still we died
one after another we got his hopes up
and we broke his heart
because that's what we do

And the worst thing was that every time
we thought we knew what the worst thing was
something happened that was worse

Until a day came in a hotel lobby
and it wasn't in Rome, or Jerusalem, or Mecca
or even Dublin, or South Boston
it was in Akron, Ohio, for Christ's sake

a day came when the man said I have to find a drunk
because I need him as much as he needs me
(NOW
you've got it)

and the transmission line
after all those years
was open
the transmission line was open

And now we don't go to priests
and we don't go to doctors
and people with letters after their names
we come to people who have been there
we come to each other
and we try
and we don't have to die ----

Jack McCarthy

DoingWell

I think that we would all agree that no ONE, not any addict wakes up and says, "Gee I think I'll be a drug addict starting today".

Trust me, I've been in the shoes where I wondered WHY the hell my xhb couldn't just STOP.. like I said it wasn't until I tried to quit drinking that the lightbulb went on.

Whether you believe it's a disease or not, I think we can agree that no addict wished, asked or decided to be this way. PERIOD>

MsPINKAcres

With tearfilled eyes,
Thanks BigSis

cookconfay

Thanks Big Sis....that's awesome!

BrokenBridges24

(((Anvilhead))) Gosh you got me all teary. Thanks for the reality check. But especially thank you for explaining it.

(((Big hugs)))
Broken

Selah

no not at all. I am saying that if my choices were hurting myself and others repeatedly it's important to ask for help to change them. I am saying people that live with addicts often become codependent and feel suicidal as well as the addict themselves. I certainly believe it's their choice in the end, but I would hope I wouldn't influence that choice by my abusive behavior.