by Garrett Anderson

Created on: October 16, 2009

Quite simply, it doesn't matter whether drug or alcohol addiction is a disease or not. The term "disease" is a label and that's all it is. A subjective word with no agreed upon and universally precise definition. That's why some 40 people think addiction is a disease and 40 think that it is not. Every one of those opinions is correct. Perception is truly reality, and how you perceive the world becomes your truth. Let's examine that label for just a moment.

We may not agree whether or not alcohol or drug addiction is a disease. We don't have to. But we may agree that alcohol and drug addiction are problems, serious problems that lead to criminal behavior, injury, and death.

So why would we debate such a seemingly trivial thing such as this? Do we take comfort in labeling things before we treat them? Does calling drug and alcoholism a disease create the distortion that addicts somehow have acquired something that they are not responsible for? Of course it does and therein lies the truth. Addicts and alcoholics thus become emotionally enabled to escape personal responsibility for their behavior if they simply say they have a disease. They can blame the disease. Their behavior is not their fault.

That's part of it. But there is another part. That other part may be the most operative part. It is emotional preparedness and the extent to which that is taught or not taught.

Addicts and alcoholics have never acquired the tools to resolve their problems in a healthy way. Very often, they are the products of a broken and disabled learning system with bad teachers. Bad teachers in this context- are unprepared and unconscious parents that simply lack the appropriate parenting skills. Perhaps the parents are virtually children themselves. Perhaps those parents engage in alcohol and drug abuse, have a volatile and angry relationship, perhaps they subject everyone around them to verbal or physical abuse. For the children of parents who lack parenting skills, there is no escape. Children are in no position to argue, in no position to leave. In that sense, those children are captives. They don't get second opinions from non custodial professionals nor do they get to pick a new set of parents. Forced to deal with a situation and perhaps a life that they have little or no control over, they develop coping mechanisms. Some runaway, some act out or become angry, some turn to alcohol and drugs, and some die. Those that don't die will have children of their own. The cycle, this inability

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>