# Demons aren't making you take drugs **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 26, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920 "2010-03-26T19:04:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920/61 "2010-03-29T14:01:30Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > What’s a metaphor? For cows to graze.. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920/62 "2010-03-29T18:05:50Z")
I thought it was fore cause too greys ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920/63 "2010-03-29T18:36:37Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > On the other hand, fighting your personal _Elvis_ is perfectly possible. > > Watch out for him. He’s an evil sumbitch. Your own personal Elvis / Someone to hear your prayers / someone who cares… (Tell me I’m not the only one who got that earworm from the quoted post) ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920/64 "2010-03-29T18:52:13Z")
My understanding is that the metaphor is useful when helping addicts develop coping and resistance skills. It may work better, in other words, to say, “my inner addict wants to kill me.” This allows you to develop a strategy in response, treating your addictive tendencies as though they were a separate, malevolent entity. If it works – and I am open to correction on the point – then it would seem a useful metaphor. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920/65 "2010-03-29T19:50:19Z")
I really don’t get this. First, it’s an obituary, so I don’t think it’s really respectful of the dead to list all the things going wrong in his life. Beside the fact that I don’t think his family and friends want him remembered as a drug addict, as others mentioned, there were other complicating factors. More importantly, I don’t see how it resolves responsibility either. Beside the fact that it’s someone else saying it, not him, doesn’t it being “personal” imply he has some responsibility for it? In fact, I’d say saying he “suffered from drug addiction” would make him appear more like a victim than “struggled with his inner demons” does. To me, it just comes across as a succinct and somewhat nicer way of saying “this guy had a lot of problems”. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920/66 "2010-03-29T20:06:22Z")
I agree with tdn that it isn’t a metaphore at all. It’s a nick name we give our own personal issues and weaknesses. I rather like it, too. Almost poetic, really. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920/67 "2010-03-29T20:11:53Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > To me, it just comes across as a succinct and somewhat nicer way of saying “this guy had a lot of problems”. That’s the way I always read “personal demons”. Not singular issue, but many (often mutually reinforcing) problems that the person constantly struggled with. A lot better than “Corey was a drug addict and a complete douchebag who had burned almost every bridge he had and gotten on everyone’s nerves to the point where we all wanted him to just go the hell away already. Well good new everyone! He’s dead, so he most certainly has ‘gone away’ and won’t be coming back!” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920/68 "2010-03-29T20:58:25Z")
> [@](#): > > A lot better than “Corey was a drug addict and a complete douchebag who had burned almost every bridge he had and gotten on everyone’s nerves to the point where we all wanted him to just go the hell away already. Well good new everyone! He’s dead, so he most certainly has ‘gone away’ and won’t be coming back!” Why do people keep making up stuff like this? Where did I say that drug addicts are bad people and we should call them names? Addiction is a dangerous condition like cancer or diabetes. But it shouldn’t be any more of a social stigma than cancer or diabetes are. Avoiding the term with euphemisms reinforces the belief that addiction is something shameful. > [@](#): > > My understanding is that the metaphor is useful when helping addicts develop coping and resistance skills. It may work better, in other words, to say, “my inner addict wants to kill me.” This allows you to develop a strategy in response, treating your addictive tendencies as though they were a separate, malevolent entity. > > If it works – and I am open to correction on the point – then it would seem a useful metaphor. This is what I am talking about. I personally feel (and I do have experience working in drug treatment programs) that demons as a metaphor does hinder drug treatment. By externalizing the addiction, it allow addicts to treat their addiction by trying to change their external environment rather than change themselves. An addict can’t seperate himself from his addicition, he has to learn to control it. ---
**Author:** ![i\_am\_a\_scientist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f07891/32.png) [@i\_am\_a\_scientist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/i_am_a_scientist)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920/69 "2010-03-29T21:26:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I was reading an obituary of Corey Haim yesterday and there were three seperate uses of the phrase “fighting his personal demons”. > > Corey Haim was not fighting demons. He had a drug addiction. I understand that the people who talk about his demons are using it a metaphor and don’t really mean he was being attacked by some supernatural beings. But I dislike the implication of the metaphor - that Haim’s addiction was somehow something external to him that he could block out. Which is ridiculous - the addiction is inside the addict and needs to be fixed internally not externally. this is kind of a bizarre pitting. If you really want to pit the ways in which addiction is described and treated, don’t pit a freaking obit from (where? [CoreyHaim.net](http://CoreyHaim.net)?). Read the literature of AA, NA, CA or any one of a million drug treatment facilities in the world (and if you find any references to “personal demons” or “mistakes being made” please, please post them.) To say the 12 steps are big on personal responsibility would be an understatement. It’s an obituary, it used euphemism and a trite metaphor, it’s not the language of treatment. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920/70 "2010-03-29T21:51:19Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I personally feel (and I do have experience working in drug treatment programs) that demons as a metaphor does hinder drug treatment. By externalizing the addiction, it allow addicts to treat their addiction by trying to change their external environment rather than change themselves. And if the metaphor was “external demons” you’d have a valid point. But it’s “personal demons” which to most people reading or hearing it implies an internal source. I think your anger is misplaced. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920/71 "2010-03-29T22:27:08Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Why do people keep making up stuff like this? Where did I say that drug addicts are bad people and we should call them names? Confused. Wasn’t saying you said anything. YOU iddn’t enter into what I was saying. Wasn’t saying he was a bad person because he was a drug addict. I don’t think the drugs turned him into a Douchebag. More likely the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920/72 "2010-03-30T07:37:11Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Confused. Wasn’t saying you said anything. YOU iddn’t enter into what I was saying. > > Wasn’t saying he was a bad person because he was a drug addict. I don’t think the drugs turned him into a Douchebag. More likely the other way around. What, the douchebag turned him on to drugs? Maybe he frolicked with his own personal demons, and chased his own personal dragons? and yeah, **Tom Scud** , I got that damn Depeche Mode song stuck in my head too. Martin Gore spent a few years playing with personal demons. And most of Rock & Roll. Johnny Cash. Elvis too. thankyouverymuch. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920/73 "2010-04-01T15:35:22Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I think you’re misinterpreting the phrase. Personal demons are not external, they are your issues. I don’t know what he was fighting, but it may have been a poor self-image, or some sort of unresolved conflict, or mental illness, or any one of a number of things. Including, of course, addiction. > > As Inigo Montoya would say… “I’m not left-handed!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/demons-arent-making-you-take-drugs/533920.md?page=3)