Addiction in Society

How about if we hang Kramer in effigy from a loop of anti-depressants melted and fused together? To paraphrase Robert Mitchum in "Out of the Past," "I wonder if he'll ever know what a bad guy he really was."

interesting...i write my little rant on your page(twice!) and then i go type in "addiction is not a disease" at my favorite search engine and "Stanton Peele" is the first thing to come up. So here's number 3:

I say thank you, kind sir.

As a child and later as an adult I have been blessed with an undying curiosity. This has led me to question everything and anything. This also led to a great distaste of bullshit, whether on my tongue because it is being fed to me or because I am about to speak it. I do not question any particular side, but all sides, even my own.

This combined with the last several years of my young life spent abusing opiates has led me to become in awe of my nation's view of drug abuse-whether a legal view, or moral, cultural, etc. I keep being told that I have a disease. “Dis-ease,” as in, “not at ease?” Why, yes, I am not at ease with the situation. But “disease” as we have come to define it, I find that to be bullshit.

First, I KNOW that most of my problems with opiates are because they cost so incredibly much, why else does methadone work? Amazingly, being addicted physically and mentally is really not much of a problem if the drugs can be afforded. If it were a disease, being physically and mentally addicted alone would cause the problems. Most of the problems in my life with drugs are related to the drugs costing so much (or having to spend all my time and resources in the pursuit of happiness...err, drugs.)

When someone is ill-content, trying to find a path to their contentation is actually quiet normal; any thought otherwise is (AHEM!) ill-conceived. Again, it is the repercussions of the method chosen to achieve happiness (because of the way things are set up) that is the real problem. Touching on a sociological side to this debate is that it is most often best when one is able to make a living off of the things in life that give them a purpose, great satisfaction, or happiness. Having something that does this greatly reduces potential for drug abuse. If you ask any person who uses drugs too much, they will tell you that when they are working or busy they tend to use drugs less often. This demonstrates the aspect that drug abuse is not a disease, rather a symptom of a greater problem. When working, or busy, the reason for this lapse of abuse is that temporary satisfaction, or temporarily a thing that makes us happy, has been found. People commonly ask, "What do you do?" And when unable to reply, "Oh, I am an ironworker, or a nutritionist, etc..." those people are truly the at-risk. As a child I knew I was not actively in pursuit of my definition. End result being I do not feel satisfied in life or am not able to be happy through normal means (things that do not provide a jolt of happiness, but make one happy in small yet consistent amounts over time.) I have used drugs because they work to get happy and I have been longing for happy for a long time. Basically, what I am getting at is when someone does not build life around the things that make them happy; when they find drugs make them feel happy, most likely they keep using drugs. To me this says drug abuse is not so much the problem itself, but a perfectly normal response to a real underlying problem which is the real disease.

Now I am not a doctor, ironworker or nutritionist, but I find my stance unique enough to skeptically view the spectacle that is my nation’s drug abuse. Please if you need information or anything that can't be found but from someone like me, please contact me at "qrlos@yahoo.com". Anything I could do to help change things which would help not only myself but many others would be most satisfactory. For the only other way I have been harmed more than by my own hand ‘depends on drug policy, cultural and otherwise.’

Not being treated for ADHD - it's a sin and a travesty. And Ibet a lot of Haitians aren't being treated for anorexia. And people in Darfur for depression. Here's my idea - let's start a group - instead of dropping food and trying to end wars, will drop in Concerta and Zoloft! What do you say?

I FORBID you to read any of my blogs! (Did you see Peter Gray's recent one about the monumental jump in depression among young people in the U.S.? If only we can get to the rest of the world, they'll be as depressed as we are - compassionate depression I call it.