by Joshua Simmet

Created on: November 20, 2009

Claiming that addiction is a disease is a cop out. This is coming from a current and former addict. For a large part of my younger years, from the ages of about 12 to the age of 17 I was an addict of caffeine. Some people may not find that to be as big of a deal as a crack or heroin addiction, but it is just as real and, in some ways just as harmful. I have also developed an addiction to chewing tobacco as well as to smoking. However at no point in my life have I, nor will I ever claim that my problems are because of a disease.

Addiction is caused by the addict. There are no other factors. People claim that there are genetic factors that influence addiction, make people more prone to becoming addicted. However addiction is a choice, first and always. The addicted decides that the price paid for his drug of choice is worth more than the health and friends that they could otherwise have.

I know that in my own addictions my social and personal life has been harmed extensively. When I began chewing a number of friends, close friends that I counted on, stopped being as close. They found the activity disgusting, repulsive. And I can't help but agree with them. But as a college student I find myself under a tremendous amount of pressure, and tobacco helps me to unwind. I have even been able to repair the relationships with those friends; I refrain from participating in the activities they find unseemly when together.

Alcohol is the same story. I have not developed alcohol dependence, but I can see in some of the people around me such a dependence forming. But I can also see that it is a choice they are consciously making. When they go out partying every weekend, and sometimes during the week, getting completely tanked to the point of incomprehension, they are deciding that drinking is more important to them then their grades, or their friendships with their friends who don't drink.

A disease, to me at least and I am in no way any sort of medical expert, is an inherent or transmitted factor that negatively affects your health through no actions on your part. The operative part of that would be the end. Addiction takes a large amount of effort for someone to keep it going. As well as a choice made early on that says they are willing to go through with it, that choice is often not a conscience decision. That decision is what makes addiction not a disease.

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