Is Addiction A Disease or A Choice?

Is addiction a disease or a choice?

  • Disease

    Votes: 4 26.7%

  • Choice

    Votes: 2 13.3%

  • Both

    Votes: 9 60.0%
  • Total voters
    15
SacredWarrior

SacredWarrior

Umbra Witch
Since drug addiction/substance abuse is becoming a serious issue in many countries, one debate that has come up is whether or not addiction is a disease or a choice. While most people will say addiction is one or the other and leave it at that, I think it's much bigger than that.

I think addiction starts out as a choice and turns into a disease. Most (if not all) people choose to use substances but we can't choose how our body reacts to them. The main reason people get addicted to things is because of the brain's reward system and the rush of dopamine we get whenever we do something that feels good. Quitting cold turkey is very difficult if not impossible for drug/substance addicts not just because of this but because of withdrawal which can kill a person if severe enough.

These are basically my thoughts on whether addiction is a disease or a choice. I think it's both and should be handled as such.
 
I agree with you. I also believe that an addiction starts as a choice. One always has a choice to do anything. It is when we don't have the willpower to quit the thing we start is when it can become a disease.
 
I agree with both of you. If you didn't make that first choice, that first decision to begin, then the addiction wouldn't have followed.
 
I would say that in some cases it starts as a choice. Smoking because family and friends smoke and you want to also is a choice. But this is not always the case. Especially when you get into non substance abuse related addictions.

Also, many people use products right off the shelf of their grocery store without ever being consciously aware of the possibility of serious addiction. Millions of people drink caffeine, not everyone develops full blown addictions to it complete with physical withdrawal when they try to stop. Caffeine addiction is just something to joke about. Many people drink it sparingly and have no issues or simply don't drink it to a level where it actually effects their health (yes people have managed to OD on caffeine). So the people with caffeine addictions beyond the norm chose to take caffeine but many other people do as well and don't have addiction problems. Something else sets the people apart who become addicted.

This is the same of psychological addiction. Video game addiction is becoming a recognized thing, with full blown withdrawal symptoms experienced for those suffering from it. I can play video games or not, doesn't really effect me one way or the other. Most people can pause a game and go have dinner or take a break for family time, or to go to work/school. For others though, they just can't stop. It dominates their life in ways it just doesn't for normal people. I had a sibling that was this way. He would get so hooked into games that required you to be online to play/benefit, and have full blown emotional meltdowns if he had to log out for even just a few hours. We both chose to play video games, but something else factored into why they effected him differently than me (and most other people).

Other people become addicted to controlled substances through perfectly legitimate medical reasons in which they did choose to take a medication, but it was at the direction of a doctor. Millions of other people take the same medication and ween back off it just fine. Something else sets apart the people that got addicted and developed a substance abuse problem.

So on a technical level, all addictions have to start with a choice. A choice to drink coffee, a choice to play a video game, a choice to take a prescribed medication, a choice to take illegal drugs, a choice to leave your house in the morning and potentially encounter addictive substances. But the choice isn't necessarily what makes them fall victim to those choices. Obviously some choices in that list are worse than others, but at its core, what makes a person most vulnerable to addiction isn't found in the choice. And in many cases, drives people to make bad choices vs ordinary every day choices rather than the other way around.
 
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Going to get innately personal here and if that bothers anyone, feel free to ignore my post entirely. The last thing I want is to make someone uncomfortable on a topic as widespread and as close to home to perhaps some people as addiction. To start I'd have to go waaaaay back to when I was born actually. My parents were drug addicts and were constantly in trouble. My mother, bless her, made the overall smart decision to give me up for adoption.

I like to think I turned out pretty ok but the side effects and or repercussions of my mom's affiliation with drugs and the like has continued to plague me and my family to this very day. I've been lucky to grow up as a bit of a' weenie' I guess you'd say and I was deemed too 'uncool' to hang out with the kids who were doing drugs and the like. Which was fine by me because the stuff I've been around has always smelled terrible. My siblings who still lived with my mother and her boyfriend weren't so lucky and have had to carry heavy burdens as a result of their parent's lifestyle.

Three times my mother has come out of jail after being bailed out and fallen right back off the wagon. It's sad to see and it messes up our family dynamic/gets everyone upset every single time it happens. I'm not a very bright individual, I don't know what to even say half the time but my opinion on this topic is after what I've said that addiction is a lot more complicated than just answering two options on a poll.

Once you live a good chunk of your life doing the stuff and yet are aware of the effects it's having on you and your family, it's not as easy as just saying 'ok i'm done.' Members of my family have tried doing just that and it never works. We hope that they can get the help they need now and finally overcome this but if I had to choose, I'd say both really. It's a disease in that it's repercussions and aftereffects spread outwards and effect not just the person using said drugs or whatever their addiction may be, my family's was just unfortunate enough to be drugs, and it's an addiction that no matter how much you may want to, how much you see your family suffers because of your actions(police knocking on the door, knocking said door _down_, traumatic event that was)you can't just get up one day and say 'i quit.'

It's complicated all around and I wish nothing for the best to those suffering from addiction because it doesn't jsut affect you, it affects those around you. I'm glad this thread was made even if it took me a while to scrounge up the confidence to post here.

Thank you @SacredWarrior
 
Addiction always starts as a choice. You don't start because you feel like you need to, you start because you want to. After that, it depends on you choosing to continue with using whatever thing you started to use, but then, if you continue, it becomes a disease.
 
I have many loved ones who struggle with addiction. It does start off as a choice of course, but then it becomes a disease. Its not a traditional disease which it why I believe a lot of people don't understand it.

The thing that comes with addiction is that it effects you physically as well as mentally. For example ,a good friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) as a smoking addiction, they've been trying to stop for years. The thing is it physically hurts them not to smoke. They say they can go a day without a cigarette but any longer their chest hurts so bad it almost feels like they're having a heart attack, and they have trouble breathing deeply because of it. But once they have that cigarette, the pain goes away. They say its so unbearable and terrifying.

That sounds like a disease to me. Even if its in they're head, they're still FEELING that pain. It's really not good.

(also just an FYI they moved to recently vaping which is helping them cut down actual smoking a whole lot which it good <3)
 
I'd voice my opinion and thoughts on how it starts as a choice and turns into a disease, but I wouldn't be able to do it better than the people who already have, so I'll just say I agree with them.
 
It's always a choice. You put yourself into a bad situation, then all of the consequences are your fault. If you drive recklessly, go off the road and wreck your car, that was your decision. Refusing to repair or replace the car so you can get on with your life is also your choice. Maybe you're not able to fix it yourself, most people can't, but you can find others to help you do it. If the family you have isn't enough motivation to fix what you've done, or if all the harm done to you isn't enough, then it's also your choice to value them and yourself so poorly.
 
I agree with addiction being a choice UNLESS there was a forced situation involved. Such as a pregnant woman doing drugs that then leads to an addictive baby. As @Kaos said, the person in question most likely had the mental capacity to make a decision. They chose to take actions and/or intentions that lead to negative consequences.
 
Disease.

The assumption that it's a choice comes first from the assumption that all persons are inherently rational actors. One observation of the world at large shatters that theory like a glasshouse in an avalanche. If a person is raised to normalize (or worse, idolize) liquor, tobacco, LSD, et cetera, you can't be surprised by the end result. The numbers agree with this assessment: One of the symptoms of growing up in a household with substance abuse is more substance abuse. We have laws barring children from accessing facilities for gambling because we know that, even if they are taught about the addictiveness of gambling, they literally can't help themselves in the face of so many shiny, Pavlovian devices. This isn't hyperbole either, just ask people for their opinions on loot boxes and the majority will heel face turn into making wholly different arguments than choice.

There's a reason why the vices of man are often compared to demons. Addiction is something that occurs when a person has broken down and is trying to fill a void of some kind. In children, it's often a desire to belong that is so potent that it overrides their critical thinking and causes them to make terrible choices. In adults, it's usually as a result of emotional damage or normalization to the point of dismissing the inherent danger involved in the activity.

Now, I'm not a puritan. I drink liquor and enjoy a good gamble once in a while. I've always been aware of what they can do to a person. When I was younger and lived in a troubled household, I often retreated deep into the world of video games and fantasy to cope with the suffering. I spent thousands of dollars on new games, or downloadable content, or cosmetic items, or--yes--loot boxes. The thrill of new things and the risk of failure gave me short term joy that replaced the dearth of it in my life at the time.

I pulled out of that self-destructive cycle and became a productive person, and that sort of addiction was entirely a mental one--no physical consequences like alcohol, or drugs.

Not everybody can pull out of it like that. You don't turn to addictions because you want to fuck up your life, you turn to addictions because your life is already fucked up and it's providing destructive relief for you.
 
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