by John K. Wilson

Created on: January 22, 2009   Last Updated: June 29, 2009

What defines drug addiction? It's a topic of heated debate among the scientific and medical communities, and among those who suffer from problems with drugs. It really boils down to personal philosophy. There are a vast number of people suffering from problems with drugs today. Many people would call them all addicts. I respectfully disagree.

To call someone an addict, you have to look at the nature of the drug problem. There are those who use drugs socially to have a good time. For example, say you are a 23 year old administrative assistant for a mechanical contractor. You work 40 hours a week and on Fridays, sometimes Saturdays as well, you go out with the gang and get drunk until you pass out. On the other 5 days of the week, you are sober. You are not an addict. That does not mean you don't have a problem. You are recklessly endangering yourself and others and you should try to get help with that. But you are not an addict.

Through various ethnic, genetic, and environmental factors, your body may be of the type that easily facilitates dependency with a certain drug. Pain killers are the best example here. Say you're a 38 year old horse riding instructor who has broken her back after falling from an unruly horse. You will need up to a year or more to fully heal and your unbearable pain may not subside until then. You have taken prescription pain killers the entire time and your body has begun to use them for processes it once made its own chemicals for. You are chemically dependent on these pain killers, but you are not an addict. Your doctor can prescribe a tapering schedule whereby you feel no ill effects from removing the drugs and you go on about your life. Some people in this category end up with chronic pain and will spend the rest of their lives on pain killers. They are still not addicts. Those who did have pain, but lie about continuing to have pain so they may gain access to more pain killers are addicts. These people typically have several different doctors oblivious to the others because the user needs more and more of the drug to continue feeling the euphoria. These people are addicts and there's a good chance they will eventually graduate to heroin and die before their time.

Many times, someone suffering from an accident like the one our riding instructor suffered had a minor pre existing anxiety disorder stemming from childhood neglect. Until now he has simply dealt with the anxiety. He grew up in a well founded community with no exposure to

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