Yes, it is.
Because one beer is unhealthy for infants; one beer is not unhealthy for adults, even if they drink it for the buzz. Has nothing to do with addiction.
Because your overly broad definition renders the term useless for realistic solutions to true addiction. Reminds me of Nancy Reagan’s ‘just say no’ campaign.
I don’t; haven’t had a drink since 1997.
Given my extensive responses to yours, line by line, that is patently untrue.
It’s not a definition; what I dislike is your use of the word without coming up with a definition of it.
Okay, that’s a definition, but it doesn’t match your usage above. If I play Settlers of Catan for entertainment, am I dependant on Settlers of Catan? Obviously not; but you seem to be saying that if I use a drug for entertainment, I’m dependant on the drug. Why would this be true? Where is your evidence?
I’m not saying that. I’ve seen what appears to me to be a very irrational attitude toward drugs in your posts, and I’ve seen an irrational condemnation of people that use drugs, and I’ve seen shoddy use of language, but I’ve not seen a superiority.
No: milk is not psychoactive, through the use of a toxin. That’s the primary reason I wouldn’t give beer to an infant: their little brains don’t need psychoactive toxins added to them. The potential to become addicted to alcohol would be a distant secondary concern. The idea that a single use would constitute addiction matches neither mainstream definitions of the word “addiction” or your own definition, as quoted above.
Good grief–you’re like an anti-mindreader. Please don’t attempt to tell me what I’m thinking again: you’re absolutely lousy at it.
Because I care about language, and you’re trampling it by using words inconsistently.
Daniel
Not all drugs are addictive.
Alcohol is addictive.
I have not mentioned abusing antibiotics. It is a serious threat to our society, but it has nothing to do with addiction. I mention lemonade, and milk, because we drink them, as we drink alcohol. But we don’t consider them to be the same.
Most people are getting the effects of the drug, (alcohol) without suffering the serious social and health consequences of addiction. But they are experiencing the exact same metabolic changes that everyone does when they use alcohol, and that includes the changes that become addiction. Why is it so dangerous to look at that fact? Why deny that addiction is a process of small steps, and the steps are each one taking a drink?
I’m not advocating anything other than facing the facts of body chemistry. In fact, I actually don’t care what you believe. I don’t want you to change your behavior. But I have seen nothing to convince me that the first, or tenth, or sixtieth, or seven thousandth incidence of alcohol use are qualitatively different.
Is there some specific benefit I would gain from deciding that there is a non-specific undefined number of drinks that are entirely without risk of addiction? Any thoughts on how to determine the specific number? Is the number the same for each person? Does it vary by body weight, or value of the person to society?
I think there is no such thing as a risk free drug. I think you get the benefit, and you take the risk. But enjoying the benefit a whole lot doesn’t make the risk less. That’s all.
Tris
Here we have an instance of simple disagreement on matters of specific fact. I don’t think that assertion is correct. How is beer unhealthy for children, and yet not for adults? Assuming body weight variable dosages, in what way is an infant more harmed than an adult by ingesting alcohol?
My answer is that an adult is harmed by alcohol, even in small amounts, but is entitled to decide that matter for himself or herself. Babies should not be allowed to drink alcohol, because the risk is not warranted, and their choices not informed. But I don’t wish to manufacture a false description of the effects of alcohol on adults to justify my choice. I drink because I decide to take the risk, and enjoy the benefit. The risk still exists. You may wish to quibble over the extent of risk, I don’t think it is important. Actually, unless the behavior begins to violate the law, I don’t think any of it is important.
I still don’t understand the passion. It’s just a choice. You make yours, I make mine. I think your assessment of risk is faulty, but you don’t. Why is it important that I accept your understanding of the nature of addiction?
Tris
Okay, but what does that mean? You’ve defined “addiction” as “dependency upon a drug, however slight, or mild”; what do you mean by “addictive”?
Please entertain, for the purposes of this conversation, that your ideas aren’t dangerous: that they’re being debated on their merits, and they may be incorrect. From my perspective, I’m not denying that addiction is a series of small steps; I’m denying that each drink is a small step on the path to addiction for everyone.
Since not all drinkers are dependant on alcohol, by your definition of addiction not all drinkers are addicted. That means that some people have zero addiction to alcohol. That means that each drink is not a step on the road to addiction for those people.
This is so bizarre I don’t even know where to begin. First, are you telling me that there is no qualitative difference between the guy that drinks a martini once a week and the guy that drinks a bottle of vodka every night?
Second, I’m not saying that there’s a “number of drinks that are entirely without risk of addiction.” I’m saying that, by your definition, addiction resides in a person, not in the substance. For some people, two or three drinks every night carries no risk of addiction for them; for others, one single drink carries a very high risk of addiction. Your suggestion that this varies by the “value of the person to society” demonstrates the contemptibly bankrupt depths to which you’re sinking in order to villainize your debate opponents.
Daniel
Perhaps the same metabolic changes, but the mind of the typical alcoholic, after that first sip or two, moves into “more” mode. If I were to go to the corner store and buy a beer right now – just one – and tell myself I was just going to have the one, I can guarantee you that a third of the way through the beer, I’d be making plans to go back to the store (or in my case, a different one, because my M.O. was to alternate stores so that no one clerk would think I was coming back for more – but who was I kidding?) to buy more. I’ll just have two more. Then after those two, I’d say “Fuck it” and go buy a six-pack. After that, who knows? I’d probably get as loaded as ever.
Now, before anyone says, “Go try it, scott, go have a beer, just one, and report back,” there is no way I’m going to jeopardize my sobriety. And having one drink, or even a few sips of a drink, will do that.
I can’t even use anything like NyQuil® for a cold, because that little switch in my brain will flip. I’ll start rationalizing: “Well, I’ve technically just had a drink of alcohol by taking the NyQuil®, so I guess that’s the same as having a drink, so I guess I can have another swig, or maybe a beer, after all, it’s all the same chemical, and I’ve already have some of it, so why not more?” I know from more than enough experience that I’m capable of incredible gymnastics of thought process in order to justify why I can or should drink and/or keep drinking. And I know from the same experience that it all starts with the first drink. The key here – and the problem that I and other alcoholics have – is the uncontrollable “more.”
I don’t believe a non-alcoholic becomes so completely and overwhelmingly consumed with the idea of having a drink and then taken over by the big “more” – more at any price, screw the consequences – the same way as I used to be, and would be if I were to have a drink right now.
Triskadecamus, are your views on addiction your own or can you back them up with anything at all from recognized and reputable experts on addiction?
Didn’t the aliens in Alien Nation get a buzz off sour milk?
How I operate with regards to anything potentially addictive is this: If [whatever] looks like it might make my life unmanageable, I do something about it.
I concur. Every drinking session brought me closer to full-blown alcoholism. I do believe I hastened the process by a) moving out on my own, where I could drink without my parents saying anything, and b) moving to a province where beer and wine are sold in corner stores, as opposed to other provinces where you have to go to a government-run outlet (e.g. the LCBO or Beer Store in Ontario) to buy alcoholic beverages. Both factors made it that much easier to drink, and I was an all-out drunk by the age of 24.
Yes, it was a process for me to go from occasional drinking binges (and they would almost always be binges) to being loaded 24/7 and having alcoholic hepatitis, an enlarged spleen, and esophageal hemorrhaging from puking all the time. But if I ever needed proof that I was an alcoholic from the get-go, I think back to that first drink and how it consumed me and drove me to have a second, a third, and so on, and how I was able to rationalize why it would be okay to do so, and how my parents wouldn’t notice the levels going down on their bottles of booze. The alcoholic part of my mind immediately knew how to play tricks on the rational, logical part. That’s scary for a 13-year-old, but definitely indicative of a future problem.
The alcoholic (or addict) is an expert at this kind of almost unconscious rationalization and justification. I really don’t think non-alcoholics do that kind of thing.
This is unsupportable by any scientific study. On the other hand, I can provide evidence that drinking one beer has a beneficial health effect
The passion has nothing to do with whether you or I choose to drink or not. The passion is generated when you use intellectually dishonest methods to support your view. You have presented personal opinion as fact and truth; it is neither.
(from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/imagepages/17020.htm)
This is a medical definition of alcoholism. The National Library of Medicine’s page on Compulsive Gambling points out the interesting fact that it’s best treated with the same approach that is used to treat drug addiction (and this is true of other addictive behaviors as well.) If you don’t believe me, look around on Medline or any other medical resource - you’ll see that part of every definition of addiction, no matter what the substance or behavior in question, is the fact that addiction involves continued use in spite of negative consequences.
So what’s your response to my post? You are aware that people demonstrate addiction to things that aren’t substances at all, correct? And interestingly, people who have a genetic predisposition to addiction to alcohol are also predisposed to become addicted to shopping, or gambling, or sex. When people give up an addictive substance without treatment, they often end up replacing it with a behavior like the ones above. People can become addicted to just about anything - so does that mean going shopping is “addictive behavior”? Or having sex?
That’s not true. Comparing the experience of non-alcoholics to that of alcoholics is wrong because non-alcoholics don’t destroy their lives by drinking. One drink can lead an alcoholic to relapse, but in a non-alcoholic, it doesn’t necessarily lead to any problems at all. So your definition of addiction has a scope so wide that it can’t usefully distinguish between problem use and non-problematic use.
Well, according to doctors who specialize in addiction, yes, it is untrue. A little common sense can tell you that it’s untrue, as well, since many people use drugs recreationally without becoming addicted. So how is behavior that doesn’t cause any personal problems, and that doesn’t lead to addiction, “addictive behavior”? If you define a term to have a scope so wide it can apply to just about anyone, then it’s not a useful term. So what do you call people who have a true problem with alcohol? Comparing my drinking to what scott evil did before he got into recovery is clearly wrong in a qualitative way - I have not suffered adverse life effects from alcohol, while he did. That difference is not a matter of degree.
No one cares about whether you drink to excess or are the most abstemious person in existence. People have figured out that you’re smugly superior, but not about alcohol usage. You have the smug superiority of someone who considers himself to be correct despite all evidence.
So why are you so scared to address people who get addicted to things that are not, in your definition, addictive?
The problem is that this is not the definition of addiction. That’s not what the word refers to, and either you’re defining addiction so widely as to make the term useless as a descriptor, or you’re seeing pathology where it doesn’t exist. Either way, that is not the definition of addiction.
Get over the persecution complex, buddy. Again, no one cares about your personal habits. The smug superiority is in your continual statements that “that’s the way it is” when, in reality, that’s not the way it is.
Do you ever read lekatt’s threads in Great Debates? The furor you’re seeing is the same furor that gets directed at him. He makes blanket statements that are counterfactual, cannot defend his claims, and subscribes to a whacked-out worldview that simply doesn’t reflect reality. He refuses to discuss the issues honestly, and clings to them in spite of contrary evidence. People are not upset with you because we feel defensive about our drinking. We’re upset because you’ve decided, instead of discussing these issues in a meaningful way, to cling to an arbitrary, incorrect, and frankly bizarre view, you’ve ignored arguments to the contrary, and you are using the time-honored technique of simply stating that something is fact and that’s that - when in reality these things are not facts at all.
Oh, and by the way. There’s plenty of things we don’t share with infants because it would be unhealthy. Honey is unhealthy for babies below a year of age. Is that because it’s addictive? Sex isn’t healthy for children either. Is that because sex is addictive? No, of course not (though sex is addictive for some people, of course) - it’s because exposing children to certain things is harmful to them, even when adults can handle them without problems.
We deny it because it is simply not true. People who have the potential to develop addictions (and the genetics in question work equally well on alcohol, tranquilizers, and shoplifting) have completely different brain chemistry from non-addicts, even prior to ever engaging in an addictive process. Their brains respond differently to substances that cause addiction, and they manifest the pattern of use in spite of consequences that defines addiction while people who are not genetically predisposed to addiction don’t. The plain facts of the matter, which you would understand if you spent a little less time running your mouth off and a little more time doing research, simply are not what you’re claiming.
Because there is such a thing as an actual fact, and facts are not relative. If two people have different “points of view” on a factual matter, then at least one is wrong. Your definitions and claims are simply not consonant with the reality of addiction. You might not believe me, but you are simply incorrect. Find citations of experts to confirm your opinion if you can - I did.
I’m seeing more smug superiority here. Again, not on matters of abstinence, but instead simply in the way that all the crackpots in Great Debates are. You can continue defending a view that is simply contrary to reality, but it doesn’t make you right.
Triskadecamus, let me approach this from a different direction.
I’ve never been drunk. The only effect I’ve ever noticed from alcohol is that it makes me sleepy. Intensely sleepy. My last drink was sometime around Christmas. My last drink before then was probably, maybe, the Christmas before. In the other thread, I listed some of the reasons I’ve had alcohol despite disliking the taste of almost every drink.
Am I addicted to alcohol?
I say the process of addiction begins with the first iteration of the use of the addictive substance. Everyone else says I am wrong.
OK.
When does it start?
Tris
Yet another post without actually addressing the points others brought up! lekatt has some competition, methinks.
In those who have a predisposition to addiction, then yes, addiction begins the moment they try a substance. Just look at scott evil’s discussions of the first time he drank. In those who don’t have it, it doesn’t ever begin in most cases.
So, my understanding of the nature of addictive substances is evidently flawed.
Sorry to have intruded.
Tris
I’d suggest the first neurological instance of stress, discomfort or feeling of unjust deprivation upon being denied it by circumstances.
First off, I think the bashing that Tris has received in this thread is undeserved. He’s received several personal attacks and inflicted none – that’s a hint.
That said, I do basically disagree with him.
Likewise; just realize that yours is the outlier definition. You’re using the words “alcoholism” and “addiction” in ways that would be confusing to both medical professionals and the population in general. I assume the reason your definitions are not the standard ones is that they are unhelpful. By defining “alcoholism” so widely, it loses it’s value as a description. It’s more useful for that word to distinguish between the man who likes to get tipsy once a month and the man who drinks a liter of vodka every day.
So, again, use the words however you like. Just be ready to point out that you’re using them in an unusual way, and that what you actually mean is (so on and so forth).
That’s an interesting question. Might even have a factual answer.
Vitamin A can be lethally toxic in large amounts, but is actually necessary in small amounts. If you consume a lot of vitamin A, is there a clearly defined point where you hit a “first iteration” of vitamin A poisoning? If you have sufficient vitamin A in your system and you take a supplement, does it inflict some miniscule increment of damage?
Someone who has maintained a certain level of alcohol in their system for sufficient time will experience hallucinations, DTs, and other symptoms on withdrawal. Abrupt withdrawal can even be dangerous.
Clearly some metabolic changes have occurred in such a person. Maybe the first time you drink alcohol gives you a tiny increment towards such a change, the second time increments you further, and so on until you’re in DT territory. But not necessarily, any more than a superfluous vitamin A supplement necessarily inflicts harm. It may be that there’s a use threshold varying from individual to individual, and crossing that is when it starts.
You didn’t intrude at all, but I appreciate that. And if I was attacking you personally, I apologize; I did end up feeling somewhat defensive when you implied that I was basing my decisions off of either my own addiction to alcohol or off of my contempt for people with less social status than myself.
Building on matt’s post, everything is toxic if taken in large enough quantities. Drink too much milk and you’ll die. Too much water will poison you. It’s just that most things are never taken in doses sufficient to cause harm.
Alcohol is the same way. It’s a toxin, just like water, apple seeds, or fugu liver. But, like fugu liver, you can take a nonlethal dose of alcohol and get a buzz from doing so: you don’t really get a buzz from a nonlethal dose of water. Alcohol, of course, has a much small toxic dose than does water: according to my cite, a gallon of water force-fed to a 2-year-old over the course of an hour will probably be lethal, whereas 1/ 1/2 cups vodka will do the same job.
Alcohol is “addictive” in some senses: it has the propensity in some people, if abused, to cause long-term physiological changes that create a physiological dependance on the substance. It does not cause these changes in all its users.
Daniel
Triskadecamus is correct on all statements.
Alcohol is a poison, it kills brain cells, so if you need your brain I wouldn’t use it.
Same goes for pot, meth, extasy, smack, etc., etc.
If you need this stuff to feel comfortable in social situations, you need to build your self confidence.