Was having a conversation with a friend from work today and they had the opinion that addiction is more a choice than a disease - dont want to offend anyone with this. Curious to hear everyone elses opinions?
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Lol.
I never choose to be an addict.
I tried hard to believe I wasn’t and that it was indeed juste a question of choice.
But the experience of trying to moderate proved me wrong.
I guess if I could choose of course I would choose to be a guy who doesn’t care much about booze and can just handle drinking some times. But that’s not the case I can check.
The only choice I have is to drink or to stay sober. And that’s 2 different life ahead of me. Ones shorter than the other.
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This was my thoughts aswell, i explained nobody really chooses to be dependant and that it is disease of the mind and body,but they was quite adamant it was choice that led people down the path
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I don’t have the expertise or experience of Gabor Mate so I will quote him here:
“All addictions are attempts to escape the deep pain of the hurt child, attempts temporarily soothing but ultimately futile. … It is time to realize, then, addiction is neither a choice nor an inherited disease, but a psychological and physiological response to painful life experiences.”
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For addicts, The choice is to drink or not to drink.
There’s also the choice of being miserable or not.
An addict can drink all his life and feeling miserable about it. Or choose not to drink and not feeling miserable.
This saying represent it well: when you enjoy it, do you control it? And if you control it, do you enjoy it?
If not, then drinking will make life miserable.
It might be easy in a non-addict perspective, but not if you are, I think.
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Thats a very intellegent and well put together response to this could have used it earlier
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Idk I definitely chose to start drinking. I chose to try all the drugs. Nobody in my family suffered with this. All I know is it kept ruining my life bc I couldn’t stop, I know through the alcohol and drugs you can get many diseases. Idk I’m 307 days sober, I don’t have any thought or struggle with wanting to drink. I finally chose sobriety, I can see now alot of it was definitely a thinking problem. So idk what to call it. Just glad I’m done with it
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Yeah it seems to be a subjective debate i can see where your comin from, good job on makin 307 days
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I follow the opinions of the medical community. It’s a disease. Sure it starts with a choice, but many diseases do. However, the majority of people who pick up a drink, don’t become alcoholics.
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It’s a disease. I don’t know of anyone who started out choosing to be addicted.
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I choose to pick up the first drink, but what happens after I don’t choose, I desperately want to drink sensibly but I just can’t. The very first time I drank I blacked out, and any time I did moderate was because of external forces. I truly cannot understand normies like my husband anymore than I could understand if he flew in the sky.
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From the outside looking in, I can see a non-alcoholics perspective that it is a choice. However, there came a point where the disease took over. The moment I decided to get sober…I had a choice…fight of let the disease take over
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My brother feels the same way. And this is what I told him; substance abuse disorders are like many other mental health disorders, in that they make some choices much more difficult. For instance, someone with obsessive compulsive disorder has a choice to make as to whether or not he is going to indulge his compulsion to wash his hands over and over. Because he has OCD, he CAN choose not to compulsively wash - but that decision is EXTREMELY difficult for him to make because of his obsessive compulsive disorder.
In much the same way, people with substance abuse disorder CAN choose to not do drugs and give in to their cravings - it’s just extremely difficult, especially if they have little to no learned coping skills to help them.
That’s just my opinion. I’m no professional. Just lots of experience. Lol.
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I chose to take my first hit.
I didnt choose to become addicted, but I was hooked from my first hit
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Addiction is both a terribly self-destructive coping strategy (but a coping strategy nontheless, usually in response to some emotional pain or trauma) and a neurophysiological disease (https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-addiction-a-brain-disease-201603119260). One reasonably would stop doing something that destroys them, but addiction makes it very hard to be reasonable. However, ultimately, we can always choose change!
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I believe addiction is a choice. However, this is not to say that it is an easy one.
There is so much that goes into why someone begins substance abuse to begin with. Nevertheless, the fact that we are making the choice to not participate in the life anymore further proves this.
I believe the reason why it is so difficult to hear that addiction is a choice is because it feels invalidating. We are comfortable being victims, and when it isnt your fault you victimize your future. If you relapse, it isnt your fault; you’re a victim. When we accept the responsibility we become survivors, and then we begin the sober life.
This isnt to discount how difficult it is to stay clean. When you are only thinking about your next fix, it feels like there isnt much choice.
However, there is…
Otherwise, what is the purpose of hope if addiction is hopeless?
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Body,mind and soul man.
My experience shows that I react to alchohol difrently than most. I get thirstier when I drink.
Even when I honestly wanted to stop and stay stopped ( having pretty compelling reasons !! ) I couldn’t. Insanity of the mind.
And dude most of all being dry doesn’t feel right.
If alchohol was the problem I would’ve stopped long time ago. If alchohol was the problem everyone who drank would be an alcoholic. I know so many people who moderate…
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I honestly really don’t have an opinion. It doesn’t matter for me. I can’t drink sucessfully.
If a tree falls in the forest on to my house and no one is around, I don’t care if it made a sound. I just need to clean up the mess and rebuild.
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Dude please try not to take this the wrong way.
Hear me out please. It would look like this
"Everyone , listen up !! Addiction is a choice. Choose not to do. Close this forum,the hospitals, doctor’s ,rehabs, churches, all the Programs , science and all. Go home enjoy life. "
I’m sorry if this sounds disrespectful to your beliefs but for the sake of discussion.
The choice comes in dealing with or not dealing with the addiction, no one would choose to be an addict. I wouldn’t give any thought to what this person’s view is. They aren’t educated on addiction.
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