haqihana,
Doctors have done very little to find a cure for drug addiction specifically. However if you look at the various programs AA, NA, CA and you are familiar with the various areas of Psychology, cognitive, humanistic etc you'll see that as groups the self help groups have cherry picked the best ideas, albeit metaphorically.
As for addiction being a disease, you may or may not be aware of the double blind studies made on genetically identical twins, which to me prove the validity of addiction as a condition that is heavily influenced by genetics.
This is comparable to diabetes, which can be brought on by poor eating habits and lack of exercise. Alcoholics have a genetic propensity for the disease. This does not mean they will become alcoholics, it just means that they are in greater danger of becoming addicted, just as someone with a family history of diabetes has a higher danger of contracting diabetes.
I don't know any addicts who expected society to take care of them. Most addicts know that society doesn't take care of anyone except a few welfare chiselers who've made a career out of the system. Most of the addicts I know (and I know a lot) have gotten clean without any help with the exception of AA and NA or CA. Unlike Rush who will probably have his blood replaced. The easy way out which, IMHO makes recovery less likely. Although in Rush's case I'd bet on him.
You know one attitude that bugs me about recovered alcoholics or addicts is when they assume that because they had a problem with dope or booze it should be illegal or is immoral to use. I find that hypocritical. I know a lot of people who use and aren't addicts and aren't subsidized by society. Even if they may be less productive so is a McDonalds eating non exerciser.
In Rush's case if he goes to AA or NA he'll be in a group where the fact that his addiction came because his source to get stoned were originally prescribed. (Certainly his later sources were not prescribed, he had to score just like any other addict.)
Again, the main thing that bugs me about this is that while white collar people lay into blue collar or no collar addicts, they'll hypocritically defend a white collar addict. That's HYPOCRITICALLY in big letters. If you want to understand violent crime all you have to do is understand this attitude. White collar prisons and blue collar prisons. White collar slap on the wrist and heavy ugly prisons for blue collar criminals. |
