I’ll give you that there is no real difference between being addicted to vicodin and alcohol with one major exception: alcohol is all around you and legal so that makes it harder to escape.
From your definition: plenty oof people that are not actively using still fit
Sorry, hit the wrong key.
I’ll give you that there is no real difference between being addicted to vicodin and alcohol with one major exception: alcohol is all around you and legal so that makes it harder to escape.
From your definition: plenty of people that are not actively using still fit the definition of “occupying” oneself habitually or compulsively. Their mind still focuses on the substance and craves it unlike a non-addict does.
The main point however, is that “former addict” implies that the person is back to normal and at the state that people that never used are. That is simply not true. It took me a couple of years to go from heavy drinker to alcoholic. It is in remission now. It would only take me one night to go directly back to where I was. There is a permanent change that occurs when someone becomes addicted to a substance. Terminolgy needs to reflect that permanent change and not simply look at it like a problem that has been overcome.
If she was a former addict she would be able to drink in moderation rather than having to abstain from drinking at all. That seems to be the stumbling block you’re not getting.
I disagree. Thinking about using, but resisting it, may make you preoccupied with it, but you simply cannot be addicted to something if you aren’t doing it. It’s impossible.
Kalhoun, it would really be best if you refrained from pronouncing what I look like, what I am, what I’ve overcome, and what I’ve learned. You really know nothing about it.
I am an addict and an alcoholic. I’ve also studied addiction medicine at the highest levels, with top international experts in the field. I’ve de-toxed hundreds of patients, launched them into treatment, and seen many fail and many succeed, eventually.
To cite Dictionary.com to argue your point is not a helpful proposition. Would you tell a cardiologist he’s wrong in his discussion about heart failure because what the cardiologist says about it doesn’t agree with what Dictionary.com says about it?
My addiction is active, but I manage it daily. Just as I do my diabetes. Or do you also claim that I’m not a diabetic because my blood sugar has been normal for quite some time?
Kalhoun, there are two types of addicts: active and recovering. Both groups are addicted.
An example of why I’m still an addict:
My days of using drugs and drinking alcohol took a lot from me, damaged my health, nearly lost me my family, took my profession away from me for a time, cost me over a quarter of a million dollars, and made my life a living hell for large chunks of time, which only more drugs and alcohol could stupify me into not feeling the pain and fear.
Now over 15 years into recovery, things are great. The family is doing well, I have a challenging job I enjoy, I live in a lovely home, I’m happy most all of the time, and I’m set for retirement. And I can keep all these things going if I don’t drink or use again. Because I know that if I use again, all that’s going down the crapper.
Even so, when gazing out over Lake Michigan today seeing the sun shining on it, my brain had a brief thought: “This is great, but you’d feel even better if you took some hydrocodone too!”
That’s how I know I’m still an addict.
I’m not going to make any statements regarding who is/is not an addict, because I’m not a doctor or addiction specialist and I’ll admit that my knowledge on the subject isn’t much. But isn’t it possible that labeling someone as an addict or alcoholic for the rest of their lives does more harm than good, no matter how correct the terminology is? Labels are very powerful for some people, and if you know that you are never going to be able to escape your label, might that not make some people give up trying to quit drinking or drugs entirely? “Oh, what’s the point, I’ll always be an alcoholic.”
It’s basically the same argument that some psychologists have about labeling people as mentally ill after they return to a more normal level of functionality. True, someone who used to be depressed has a greater chance of falling back into it, but if you tell someone “oh, you’re depressed, you’ll always be depressed,” isn’t that, well, a little depressing?
Maybe you can explain to me how not doing something qualifies you as being addicted to it. I simply used the Dictionary.com as a definition to work with. There are people in this thread that have said they drank in massive quantities for years, and no longer do, and no longer want to. My husband hasn’t had a drop in over seven years, and has no desire to, even though he drank a fifth and a 12-pack every day for the better part of 20 years. He was simply done with it. I know people who quit in earnest and fell off the wagon. I know people who tried to quit because someone else told them to, failed miserably, and drank themselves to death. But there are many others who stopped drinking and aren’t struggling with it at all.
As to comparing your former drinking problem to diabetes, the difference is that no matter how hard you try, you can’t stop having diabetes. You can, as you and many others have proven, stop drinking. Many, many people lose the urge to drink. You may not be one of them, but obviously your urge to stay sober is stronger. That’s good and I’m happy for your success.
l agree that the preoccupation to drink can plunge many people back into the habit. But if you aren’t compulsively using alcohol, I cannot see how you can call yourself an addict.
If you stop thinking of yourself as an addict, you’d start thinking you could take “one or two drinks.” Or a pill. Or something. And you’d be back on the treadmill. It can be self-labelling, but I thnk it’s just facing reality as much as a diabetic has to: I cannot drink and/or do drugs without getting very drunk and/or stoned and having enormous problems stopping. If I got drunk today, I’m still not sure I could get sober again.
As I stated above, I haven’t had a drink since February 29, 1988. One day at work this week was so bad that I had to walk home in a roundabout route to avoid passing the local liquor store. And I dreamt about drinking wine that night.
What if someone has not been drinking for one day straight after a history of heavy drinking for 10 years? Based on your definition this person is not an addict because he is not using at the moment.
AA gives you credit for every minute, hour, day that you don’t drink. It should hold true even for those who don’t buy into the “addiction” definition. Some say you’re in recovery from the date you stop drinking, others say you’re not addicted when you stop using. You gotta stop somewhere!
Kalhoun - you normally grab my attention with your posts and I like reading what you have to say. May I suggest in this situation that you do not fully understand what people like Qadgop and Annie and myself are saying by once and alcoholic/addict always an alcoholic/addict. I’d like to recommend to you that you pick up The Big Book - aka the AA Bible. and read some of the stories therein. Then come back if you do not understand them and continue this discussion. Otherwise - I beg your pardon, but you know not what you say (in this situation).
No – it keeps me from using, because I know I can’t screw around with “one drink” or “one toke” or “one hit.” If I disavow my addiction, that’s the first step to my using again.
twicks, clean and sober 29 years, seven months, and 28 days.
I’m quite familiar with that publication, and I take no more stock in it than I do the bible. For every story about “handing it over” and “having no control” there is at least one where the drunk gives himself credit for stopping the self-inflicted destruction of his or her life. I understand that many drunks and drug abusers are good with the label “addict” for themselves. I’m just saying that it makes no sense to me to continue to label yourself with a word that represents what you used to be and not what you currently are.
Oh, and I like you too, Phlosphr. I’m usually in agreement with what you say as well.
And then there are people like me who AA is anally trying to convince that I am an alcoholic.
My husband and I had a friend who the Navy assigned a certain number of AA meetings due to an accident he had. Being nice, I volunteered to take him to his meetings, as he could not drive. Everybody pushed me to introduce myself, and being pretty easy going, I stood up and did the Hi, I’m Aru, and I brought Vincent to the meeting because he can’t drive.
Immediately, they jump on me - “Come on, you drink, don’t you?” “Go ahead, admit you have a problem” “Everybody here understands what you are going through”
After carefully explaining yet again, I was there to make sure Vin got to his meeting, and that the only alcohol I drink might be a tablespoon or so of brandy or irish whisky in my coffee once or twice a week, and wine in recipes that call for it and champagne for toasting at new years and weddings, they continue pushing me to admit to being an alcoholic. I finally blew my stack at them and told them in no uncertain terms that they had a mental problem in seeing that not everybody who uses alcohol in cooking, or drinks the equivalent of a pint a year is an alcoholic. [and that is literally about what I drink, though I confess to having had a gin and tonic this past 4th of July :eek: ] I then told them they needed to reevaluate their interactions with the rest of the world as they were this close to alienating Vin’s only friend and ride to the meetings. They never backed off, and I never went in to the meeting to keep Vin company.
Alcoholic? Not hardly. I cold turkey’d morphine before they thought I should be tapered off because I didn’t like the feeling of being wrapped in cotton batting. Believe me, it is a wonderful feeling, but you can’t actually do anything except sit there and veg. I needed to get through rehab and back to work before I went insane. Is there some reason candystripers are so fucking cheery at 0700 in the fucking morning?
[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
Maybe you can explain to me how not doing something qualifies you as being addicted to it. I simply used the Dictionary.com as a definition to work with. There are people in this thread that have said they drank in massive quantities for years, and no longer do, and no longer want to. My husband hasn’t had a drop in over seven years, and has no desire to, even though he drank a fifth and a 12-pack every day for the better part of 20 years. He was simply done with it. I know people who quit in earnest and fell off the wagon. I know people who tried to quit because someone else told them to, failed miserably, and drank themselves to death. But there are many others who stopped drinking and aren’t struggling with it at all.
[quote]
I currently am not physiologically addicted to opiates or alcohol. But I still have the disease/disorder known generally as addiction, or chemical dependency.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop drinking or using either. Until I got appropriate treatment for it. I couldn’t stop running high blood sugars either, until I got appropriate treatment for it. I still suffer from both diseases, addiction and diabetes, but they are being treated. I don’t go around saying I’m not a diabetic, nor do I say I’m not an addict. Both are important facts for my doctor to know, for one thing. If I need surgery I’ll likely need higher doses of anesthesia and pain-killers than patients without a history of addiction, even though I haven’t taken alcohol or drugs in ages. I’ll also need dietary adjustments, even though my blood sugar has been good.
Even if a person is not currently in heart failure, they still have a cardiac disease. Even if a diabetic’s blood sugars are normal with diet, exercise and the right medication, they’re still a diabetic.
So why is it so hard for you to grasp that even if an addict/alcoholic achieves continuing sobriety thru appropriate treatment (mutual help group, psychiatry, religion, medication, whatever works for them), they are still an addict/alcoholic?
Well, in part because I don’t necessarily buy into the “disease” thing for alcoholism. It’s a huge debate, and there are, in fact, diseases that you CAN be cured of. As a curable disease, I suppose I can go with that definition. You know that many, MANY people stop drinking with no treatment at all. That in itself makes it hard for me to accept that it is a disease.
QTM, I respect your position as a doctor and all the studying and research that you’ve done in your quest to make sense of this mysterious thing. I appreciate the struggle you face (and win) every day. And I’m certainly not going to deny that treatment works for some people. But surely you can see that for as many kinds of drunks and drug abusers there are out there, there are also many paths to sobriety, long- or short-term. Lots of people stop drinking and never look back. For them, it’s not a daily struggle, but simply a part of their life that is in the past.
Kalhoun
Well, the disease model makes the most sense on a physiological level, as it explains the persistant differences between non-using addicts/alcoholics and “normies”. If you dismiss that, and attribute the behavior to a character defect or moral weakness, then you lack an explanation for the physiologic differences that persist despite the long-term absence of the addictive substance.
Besides, you talk about the disease being “cured”. But if it was truly cured, then the individual would be able to drink and use normally. This is not the case for over 99% of people with primary substance abuse problems. Return to “normal” drinking or using is seen with those who used substances to excess as a result of other situations in their life or other disease processes, but not in the primary alcoholic/addict.
So it seems that we come down to semantics. I use the term “addict” to describe anyone with the primary condition of substance abuse/addiction/alcoholism, regardless of their current drug intake. Most professionals in the addiction field recognize and use this too, although we use plenty of modifiers, such as “recovering addict”, “non-drinking alcoholic”, “addict in forced remission” (popular in describing the incarcerated patient), “abstinent alcoholic”, etc. Most recovering addicts continue to describe themselves as addicts as well.
You use the term addict solely to describe someone who is currently using, and currently dependent on their drug, although I’m not sure if you consider both physiological dependency and psychological dependency to be necessary or not. Your definition is one way to view it, but it is not in the mainstream for treating professionals or for the recovering population.
That’s where we differ, it seems. No biggie. But understand that chemical dependency is not only a very complex field of study, but also a condition which is extremely painful not only to the individual patient but to many of those around them, and often ends with the patient either in jail, institutionalized, or dead. Unless they find a way to stay clean and sober. As such, it’s fraught with a lot of emotions for the people trying to find their way and trying to stay sober.
[End of hijack about Courtney Love.] I’ve got about 50 people coming over today for a barbeque on the beach. Gotta get to work.
Have a great day
Thanks. I appreciate you not kicking my ass around the block! 
Well, I know you can’t come back to discuss this now, but I hope you’ll come back after your party to clarify something for me.
Particularly: "If you dismiss that, and attribute the behavior to a character defect or moral weakness, then you lack an explanation for the physiologic differences that persist despite the long-term absence of the addictive substance."
Are you saying that there are physiological differences between people who don’t drink (and never have) but are, say, children of people who have rampant alcoholism running in their families and those who don’t have a problem? I know that it is probably passed down through the generations (one look at my husband’s family and you’d have to believe that the inability to drink like a normal person is a family trait). So I am asking if there is something you can see in a child or an adult who never drank that runs parallel to an active or former drunk in that family?
Also, can anyone develop alcoholism? People who have no history of it in their family? If so, is there a physiological change (aside from the obvious deterioration that goes with long-term alcohol abuse)?
If anyone else knows the answer to this, feel free to chime in.