Interesting article on addiction, NY Times
 

Here's an interesting article from the NY Times:
An Anti-Addiction Pill?

By BENOIT DENIZET-LEWIS
Published: June 25, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/ma...ddiction.html?
pagewanted=1&ei=5087%0A&en=e908fdb6a369d28a&ex=115 1380800

It discusses the various scientific explanations of addiction and whether you can treat addiction with a pill. This is, in some ways, the contiuation of a discussion that has been going on since the early 1900s, when cocaine was offered as a treatment for alcoholism. I'm of the opinion that while medications may be helpful in treating some aspects of addiction, the ultimate solution must be spiritual. The last time I checked, you can't get spirituality from a pill: you need to have a belief that you have a connection to a higher power that can help you with life. Below is the concluding part of the story,, "An Addicts Perspective."

An Addict's Perspective

What do addicts think about all this focus on their brains? William C. Moyers, a recovery advocate (and the son of the journalist Bill Moyers) who for 12 years has been free of crack and alcohol, was invited to speak at the M.I.T. conference. In a room full of scientists and addiction researchers obsessed with the intricacies of the human brain, Moyers read a lecture that reminded them that treating addiction might be even more complicated than they thought.

"I have an illness with origins in the brain. . .but I also suffered with the other component of this illness," he told the gathered researchers and scientists, some of whom dutifully took notes. "I was born with what I like to call a hole in my soul.. . .A pain that came from the reality that I just wasn't good enough. That I wasn't deserving enough. That you weren't paying attention to me all the time. That maybe you didn't like me enough."

The conference room was as quiet as it had been all day. "For us addicts," he continued, "recovery is more than just taking a pill or maybe getting a shot.. . .Recovery is also about the spirit, about dealing with that hole in the soul."