This is why we can't have nice things...
 

And this is why, for so many of us, the idea that "All I have to do is put down the drink" doesn't work.

A friend of mine in AA who's been sober for more than thirty years will sometimes tell people new to sobriety, "Don't drink, go to meetings, and change your whole ******* life around." Works for me. Really.

Is Addiction a Chronic Brain Disease? - Reason.com

The author discusses the implications of describing addiction as a "chronic brain disease" for which, again, there is no ready solution or effective treatment. (The author references a recent article that showed up in multiple threads here.) Isolating the brain from the rest of the organism or tweaking specific parts of the brain in order to change behavior, such as social interactions, diet, environment and personal history, has a long and sometimes colorful history of abject failure. And yes, the author even alludes to Dr. Frankenstein.

For those searching for a "scientific" solution for addictions, there is only more bad news here. Following centuries of scientific inquiry, all that science has to offer is drugs that make us ill when we drink and drugs that reduce or eliminate the pleasurable effects of alcohol. That's it. So, if you want to drink, you don't take the pill.

There is a huge population out there that can readily be transformed into "consumers" of a science-based or medical solution for alcoholism, so it's not like no one is trying. Or paying attention. But those solutions do not exist. The Holy Grail of treatments for addictions. A king's ransom in waiting.

How meta will it be when there are recovery forums for people trying to break their addictions to their anti addiction pills....

Well, when one tries to medicallze a behavior choice the results are bound to be muddled. People drink for as many reasons as there are people. Expecting to find a therapy that will reach them all is tilting at windmills.

Hi.
I just posted this on another thread.

IMO sober is when no alcohol has been consumed for a period of 1 day into a time frame of years.

By just stopping drinking we still have the same individual with the same issues that we drank about. Recovery is the living mentally and emotionally in a healthy manner.

For me it’s being comfortable in my own skin most of the time.

It’s not a snap the finger situation for instant comforts alcohol seemed to provide but requires work and change which takes awhile, but well worth it.

The problem is alcoholics/people in general don’t like change.

BE WELL

For me the dis-ease of life was cured by drinking. Then that dis-ease was trumped by major DIS-EASE from the booze. Now life is just life--Good if I make it so and Bad if I choose. I choose good mostly and of course sober.

I think addiction is psychobiological with social and behavioral components.

but most of all.... it's a choice.

It's a choice to drink, but I don't think it is a choice to be addicted. Who would choose that?

In stopping my drinking I have become addicted to Ginger Beer. Know a good forum to ween me off that?

:bundance

I just mean that - once one is aware that addiction is an issue, it is a choice; continue with addiction, or be free of it.

I know full well that is a huge simplification of how difficult the choice can become.... but at the bottom of it all, that's exactly what it is. We choose to live in addiction or we choose to be free of it.

I can't think of any good reason to wean yourself off Ginger Beer.... it's great.

:)

This is very similar to an explanation of the latest research findings here in NZ by professor Doug Selman who addressed a public meeting a couple of years back. He went a little further, but was very definite about alcoholism being a brain disease.

He also stated that alcohol use disorder is a condition with a very long tail. Most sufferers, if they even consider themselves as sufferers will sort themselves out on their own or with some medical or therapeutic aid. But there is a small group at the bottom end, chronic end stage alcoholics for whom medicine still has no answer.

The solution is of course well known, total abstinence. But with this group it is rarely possible to make any progress with a medical or self help approach. The only thing that seems to work with any degree of reliability is a conversion experience. (He explained at this point that he could not use the word spiritual experience in a scientific talk) and there was no medical way of bringing on such an experience although they have been trying for years. At this point the was some discussion about experimentation with alcoholics and LSD in the 1960s to try and bring on a spiritual experience. Bill W cooperated in this effort.

Professor Selman then stated that AA were the experts in this area and that AA was an excellent organisation for the hopeless chronic cases.

That is a very brief paraphrased summary of a talk given by an expert.

I'm only addicted if I pick it up and THAT starts with a little romance. I don't even speak with her anymore. If she calls I hang up---short version of AVRT EXplained.

I usually stay away from posting on these threads because I am not a doctor or expert in addiction. However, the question of who would choose to become addicted comes up frequently. I don’t think anyone actively chooses to become an alcoholic but I do know that it is possible to choose to get a disease.
Parents introduce their kids to chicken pox. There is a community of people who actively search out HIV infection because they believe it is inevitable. I am sure others are out there; these two just readily come to mind.
Then, I sometimes wonder about the difference between a brain disorder and disease. Is PTSD a disease? Is DID? These are brought on by traumatic events but and have to be monitored.
I personally think of addiction along the lines of a brain disorder that I know I have to monitor. It may just be semantics but it helps me get through the day.
I know I saw drinking problems early and chose not to address them. Could I if I had tried? Would a change of course at an early age made all of the difference? I think so. In my case it doesn't really matter because that ship sailed a long time ago.
I like that science is working on these because it will hopefully help a great many people in the future but when it comes to me it really doesn't matter. I drank a lot and things got really bad. Solution, I don’t drink. I have a plethora of issues I spent 10 plus years of avoiding that I now have to work on. This is where my focus needs to be.
Which one came first, the chicken or the egg? The bottle or the problem?


(I freaking love Ginger beer. Squeeze a little lime in there a couple dashes of (non-alcoholic)bitters so good.)

Yeah, like SR. I need a self help group for that :)

Okay seriously... I definitely carry a bias here since research on addiction is what I do for living, so I won't take this apart too deeply. Like usually, these media articles tend to transform reality quite a bit and exaggerate things to fit the author's point of view. For example, the idea that addiction (or recovery) cannot be "told" based on a brain scan. True, but there are clearly differences in those scans that show up between people (or animals) with and without active addiction. Brain imaging is actually an interesting method to follow someone's changes during recovery and see what sort of processes do change.

It's certainly true that the brain cannot be isolated from the rest of an individual, and is not modular in it's structure the way as once it was thought to be, but it is where our decision making processes take place and our choices are made, of course in interaction with the rest of the body and with the environment. There is ample evidence that manipulating parts of the brain can have profound effect on behavior, including addictive behavior and other mental health issues, exactly because everything is connected. It's just not typically available as treatment for humans at the moment. It is also true that there isn't and it's unlikely that there will ever be a one size fits all approach as a cure because of the myriad of individual differences we have.

So, how do recovery programs work? How does social support help us? How does spirituality contribute? I don't think these are mystical even though some people benefit from the idea of perceiving them that way. They affect us via influencing the processes in our nervous system, and that is how our behavior changes. Of course the first step, quitting, is not something that can be induced just anytime, it's action based on a conscious decision. But staying quit and the process of recovery is heavily influenced on the level of our brains. If the simple decision to quit were enough, this board, AA, and the other therapies would not exist.

Also, regarding the "choice" of becoming an addict -- well we don't tend to like the idea of freedom as limited, but in reality, it is limited. Not everyone who tried alcohol or drugs get addicted to them, and I don't think anyone would choose to become an addict. There are biological predispositions, and many of the underlying phenomena can be and have been identified as organic features. The idea about treatment development nowadays is to target these organic features on an individual basis.

I do think that debating disease, disorder, affliction etc is semantics... just like the many ways the DSM has described mental health problems. I think the semantics can be useful subjectively though, if terms help someone get in peace with their condition.

"If the simple decision to quit were enough, this board, AA, and the other therapies would not exist."

I said it was a choice.... I didn't say it was a simple one to follow through with.

My experience has been that when I was in the throes of my worst abuses of alcohol - it always began with my choice to drink.

As I have continued to progress through stages of recovery.... it has always been my CHOICE to pursue and continue sobriety.

AA, this board, spirituality, work I do at the hospital, counseling.... all of these are methods, modes and tools that help support my choice.

Every day, when I wake up, I am presented once again with the choice; do I continue supporting my sobriety - or do I throw it away?


I maintain that CHOICE is the most critical ingredient.

"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable" - we had to choose to do that.

"We came to believe......" Choice.

"We made a decision...." Choice.

"We made a list...." Choice......

It all rests upon our making a choice.

Definitely, FreeOwl. But what made it possible for you to make these choices? And why now, that you are using the methods your are using? We obviously did not make those good choices before or could not maintain them.

To me, and I repeat to me, the origin of this is how the methods alter the processes in us. The "transformation" happens without our being aware of what happens and how it happens, most of the time. The choice is actually when we become aware of the decision that is very often already made in us. There is a lot of fascinating research on this regarding how most decisions that we make are done unconsciously, and then we become aware of it. This has an important function in survival and is absolutely not inconsistent with the idea of free will, it's still us doing all these things, just a lot of it without awareness at least initially. For example, there is something behind the fact that we are willing to work the steps, or post on SR, processes that drive us to these decisions and precede them. Similar to the concept of how relapse is preceded by thought and emotional processes and often also behaviors. In recovery, we learn to recognize these more consciously. I guess what I am saying is not doubting the idea of choice, I'm just saying it's not always conscious and many of the choices would not be made without changes and processes leading up to the choices, which can be manipulated. I think therapy does just that (manipulation), for example. Or mindfulness practices.

OK I stop here because I don't want to hijack the thread with more ramble :)

I don't think the two can be separated.... the choice and the tools....

I just mean to highlight that without that choice - there can be no recovery.

We can throw AA, Detox, God, anti-addiction meds, SR.... all kinds of tools at a person - but if they do not make the choice to recover and to continue supporting sobriety - none of those tools will work.

the choice to try and use the tools then influences the choice to continue using them.

even the stories of the "hopeless" ones in detox who suddenly have a revelation from God and are never again troubled by drink.... well, they had that revelation and then followed it with their choice.

sure, being in detox may not have been their choice. Maybe they were brought there in restraints. But when they walked back out the doors, they faced choice, every day.

Just like the first time I turned up in AA I was not there by choice. Nor did I CHOOSE then to get sober..... but being exposed to those tools influenced my later choice to finally pick the tools up.

Well, from my recent readings, the genetic predisposition for addiction isn't really a choice, and responding to the structural brain changes alcohol and drugs make to the brain by drinking and drugging can't be simply chalked up to choice and free will, either.

Reading of studies addressing genetics and structural brain changes in addicts has slowly chipped away at my old thinking that challenged the disease of addiction.

And there actually are some medications that can successfully treat some aspects of addiction, and I'm not just talking about drugs that make you sick if you drink or methadone for opiate addiction. There are scientists that are actually working on addiction vaccines (cocaine, meth, opiates, but not pot or booze)!

I'm 100 percent behind the White Light conversion aspect for recovery, but I'm also learning a lot more about the science of addiction, which helps in my recovery (shame, moral failing).

My reading is leading me to appreciate that the AA Dr.'s Opinion of an alcohol allergy is metaphor while the science of addiction makes the Dr.'s Opinion of the 1930s a really, really great metaphor not to askance of today's science.