PSH [Philip Seymour Hoffman] has died; discuss drugs and addiction here

Great Debates
21

You may want to educate yourself a bit. The American Medical Association says:

Link.

The NIH says:

Link.

There are biological differences in the brains of addicts. This is a fact. Educate yourself before you make unfounded and false claims.

Link.

Additionally, researchers are uncovering genetic underpinnings that lead to addiction.

Link.

Additionally, studies show that 40 to 60% of the predisposition to addiction are genetic.

Link.

You may want to believe that addicts and alcoholics are just weak-willed and stupid people. However, the science says you are full of it. Addiction is a complex disease. Believing that it is just a moral failing is stupid and ignores the newest research and also sets back those who may need help in overcoming this disease.

Slee

22

Yeah, addiction is a disease. The WHO says so. The AMA says so… others have links cites so I won’t bother.

Regardless, everyone is responsible for their actions, including the addict. An addict who uses is simply someone who refuses to either do anything about or won’t accept their diagnosis. Assuming PSH was an addict (vs. an “abuser” or casual user - there are such things even in the heroin world), it’s not his fault that he was predisposed to addiction. But it is 100% his fault that he chose to use heroin and whatever other illicit/illegal drugs.

Addiction/alcoholism isn’t fatal. It’s the addict/alcoholic who CHOOSES to continue to use that can be fatal.

23

You can’t be with your child 24/7. You also can never be inside his head. You don’t know he wasn’t traumatized (not necessarily sexually, but traumatized nonetheless) in childhood by a neighbor or babysitter or other family member. Or maybe he had mental health issues that he didn’t/couldn’t express.

My mom thought I had a good childhood, until I was in my mid 20s and she found out that my dad (her ex-husband by then) had sexually abused me on multiple occasions while we all lived in the same house. I never told her as a child, because he said if I told her that we’d all get into serious trouble, and I believed him because he was an abusive asshole and had a habit of raining down trouble wherever he went. Like the midas touch of feces, that man was.

I’m not saying your kid was necessarily compensating for sexual abuse, because I don’t know your kid. But he could have had an unhappy childhood for any of many reasons (or maybe even depression, which doesn’t always have an external cause). You might never have known about it. It’s unknowable what someone else’s life experience is like, even when it comes to your own kid. You can’t trust that they were always honest with you, so don’t take it as a personal failing. But be aware that there was almost certainly something going on (either to him or inside his head) that you could not explain or control.

And I’m very sorry for your loss.

24

Part of what makes addiction so difficult to understand is the nature of “choice.”

You’re right, of course: addicts choose to use, and that choice perpetuates the addiction and ruins lives.

But the fundamental error that most people in the "addiction is merely personal weakness’ camp repeatedly make is assuming that an addict’s choices are somehow rational. They seem to believe that there is some sort of pure rationality that drives “healthy” or “smart” decisionmaking. “Ghod, that’s stupid,” they seem to argue, “Just stop doing it!”

There is simply no such thing as rational decisionmaking in humans in the first place. We may be Homo sapiens, but our sapiens is barely sapient at the best of times. We are animals, driven by impulse, biological imperative, intuition, instinct, habit, and a largely inchoate emotional landscape we don’t even recognize as individuals, let along rationally understand. We all do irrational shit all the time, and don’t even understand why. Arguably, we choose to do irrational shit.

Humans are not rational. We kinda have a general consensus of what constitutes rational behavior, based on our aggregate sanity, and it becomes really easy, based on that consensus, to label those who do not meet those arbitrary standards as defective, stupid, or weak. You ever get a ticket for speeding? Fucking idiot. Do something stupid out of love or lust? Dumbass. Freak out at a spider in the shower? Goddamn, you’re dumb.
Addiction creates a new rationality. It fundamentally changes how a person thinks, reacts, and behaves. It creates a new set of biochemical drivers that make healthy decisionmaking exponentially more difficult. Blaming an addict for acting irrationally makes about as much sense as blaming the sky for being really far away. In the face of addiction, the very word “choice” might as well be in another language.

No one chooses to become an addict. We choose to do stupid things that could lead to addiction, certainly. I think using heroin in the first place is fucking dumb as hell. And I’m fine with saying PSH made some fucking dumb as hell choices when he began using. He did. And his use became addiction, and his brain and mind were deeply altered, and no amount of “just don’t use, you dumbass” will change the fact that purely rational decisionmaking, an illusion at the best of times, was completely out the window.

Anyone who says that PSH should have just made better decisions, should have simply *chosen *not to spike, should have just manned up and chosen not to be addicted, well…I’d suggest that person doesn’t have the first fucking clue what addiction is.
.

25

Well-said. I think it’s more accurate to say that, rather than choosing to use, an addict fails to choose not to use. It’s a fine distinction, perhaps, but an important one. Using becomes “the default” very easily, and you have to actively choose to break out of it.

26

Absodamnlutely.

And choosing to break out of it is not in any sense the same intellectual or emotional process as choosing to use for the first time. Same word, very different beasts.

27

Factually, PSH wasn’t stupid. He was actually very smart. In fact, it would be amazing if he was both: 1. Stupid, and 2. One of the most talented actors of his generation.

If he wasn’t stupid, is it possible there’s something wrong with your whole thesis?

Like, for example, that it’s just an intellectually lazy way of covering your own callousness?

28

I think it’s more of a “Just World” thought process. I’ve encountered it a lot (the poor are there because they are dumb and make bad choices / drug users die because they are dumb and make bad choices). It’s basically a doctrine that the world isn’t unfair, you are just lazy, dishonest, or otherwise trying to game the system when you seek sympathy or help for your situation.

It’s common because most people desperately want to live in a naturally fair world.

29

I’m a smoker. I have given up a number of times, the longest period being for three years, the shortest being three weeks. Last time I started again was when my dad was in his final decline.

As people have said, being abstinent with regards to an addiction is to be in a continual state of resistance. It is stressful. It seems I cope with that stress well enough when there isn’t too much else on my plate but, add more stress and letting go of abstinence is the easiest way to reduce some of the load. Next time I give up I’m going to see if that revelation works for me…

I had never paid any attention to Philip Seymour Hoffman before his death made his life hit the headlines. However from what I gather he relapsed after his marriage broke up and I can totally see how that could have happened.

30

Ahh, if addiction was that simple there wouldn’t be any addicts.

Want to have an idea of what addiction and quitting is like? Stop breathing. Seriously, just stop.

When you are addicted, whether to booze or heroin, quitting is much more complicated and difficult than just saying ‘Oh, I quit’. Additionally there are physical aspects. The craving for your fix is as strong as your craving for your next breath. It isn’t ‘Oh, I really want to get lit’. It is ‘If I don’t get a drink/fix, I am gonna die’. I know from personal experience, I will have 10 years clean and sober in March. Add in the physical craving on top of the emotional craving and you have one ugly fucking beast on your back.

The science is pretty damned clear that addiction has a large genetic component. The science is also pretty damned clear that there is, at this point, no really effective treatment. The best treatments, for alcoholism at least, are effective about 10% of the time. Afaik, this is true for drug addiction as well.

You are correct that it is 100% on the addict to get clean. However the science and experience of millions of addicts show that it is a damned hard thing to do and most addicts fail.

Slee

31

Addiction is a sad terrible thing. But at the end of the day, you only become an addict if you try something once. Now with alcohol that’s a bummer, because lots of people can use alcohol responsibly and socially, so there’s not a huge social stigma against people trying to drink. I don’t think alcohol addiction should ever be blamed on the individual.

Similarly, someone who gets addicted to pain killers after being prescribed them, or any other prescription drugs, are relatively blameless. They were following a professional’s advice and were doing what would help them.

But I draw the line there. Any other kind of addiction has huge social stigma attached to it. I do not feel sympathy for people who get addicted to hard drugs. Everyone knows how terribly addicting and unrelenting they are. Nobody should ever believe “well I can handle this responsibly” when it comes to drugs.

Same with smoking. At this point it is extremely common knowledge how dangerous and addictive smoking is. I support your right to smoke, but I do not have a bit of sympathy for you if you die from heart or lung failure. As far as medical care costs go, that’s a whole 'nother ball of wax.

In short, I feel bad for addictions that society allows because there’s no huge stigma attached to them. But for the stuff we all know is bad and to avoid from the time we are 5 years old, I have no sympathy for you. I’m sorry, but you made that choice, and you got yourself addicted. Nobody* is born addicted to cocaine or heroin. You have to make that choice to try it once, even just once is enough.

I’ll never be addicted to cocaine or meth or heroin, not because I know for sure whether or not I suffer from the disease of addiction (and I do agree it is a disease), but because I will simply never, ever try them. And that’s what personal responsibility is.

My brother got addicted to meth and permanently screwed up his brain, his whole personality. I will never let that happen to me.

  • I don’t know about babies whose mothers were drug addicts while pregnant.
32

Is there any evidence that Hoffman was an addict?

33

It’s true that people want to live in a just world, and the fact the world isn’t just creates a lot of cognitive dissonance for them. It’s also true that people ascribe their own good fortune to special talent, hard work, or whatever, rather than the dumb luck it often is. And then there’s the blame the victim mentality: whatever happened to him won’t happen to me, because I exercise/eat right/take vitamins/don’t smoke/live in a safe neighborhood/whatever.

And then there’s the fact that people want to believe they’re compassionate when they’re not.

34

Some people have everything they need in their brains to make it from one day to the next. Others don’t. If you don’t, you have to find that chemical, somewhere, to make it through the night.

35

I may be an addict, honestly I may. I might suffer from the disease of addiction.

My mother struggled with addiction to narcotics in her youth. My father is a terrible alcoholic, although he has stopped drinking for a decade now.

My brother was addicted to meth and literally couldn’t stop until he was forced to move in with his Dad outside of where he had all his drug connections.

My sister kind of shows signs of being an alcoholic sometimes.

Sometimes I drink to the point that I’m buzzed, pretty drunk, and I think to myself, “wow this feels pretty awesome! I wish I could feel like this all the time!” But I never allow myself to drink more than a couple times a month, if that. Out of choice. I guess by definition that means I’m not an addict, huh? I don’t know. Maybe not with alcohol.

I may be an addict to other things though. But I’m never going to allow myself to fall into that trap if I can help it.

Now is that me thinking I’m special, different, etc? That what happened to them can’t happen to me? I don’t think so. I think that’s me being vigilant and responsible.

36

Yes.

37

If you ever want to break someone’s brain, tell them to go without caffeine for two weeks. They will suffer. Caffeine, the most ubiquitous stimulant in the US, is a helluva drug. By the middle of day one, you have just about every single participant rationalizing the visit to the coffee pot.

38

Do you have a link?

39

Never mind. I googled some.

40

Being an addict is a little like being a diabetic - or any other disease that requires compliance. I had an aunt who was a non-compliant diabetic, and diabetes killed her young. She didn’t eat right, didn’t exercise, and insulin can only do so much - when she bothered - or even bothered to monitor her blood sugar.

I’m semi compliant with my depression. Which means that when I feel healthy, I try and take ok care of myself, but could do better. And when I start the spiral, I get my butt to the doctor and get back on medication - which I only take for a few months until I feel pretty good again, then sometime, the cycle will happen again. Its possible that at some time it will hit hard enough that I won’t make it to the doctor, that I’ll crash. If I faced up to having to take anti depressants my whole life, maybe I’d increase my chances of that never happening, but I dislike medication.

There are lots of diseases where choice is a factor and your behavior counts in how successful you are in overcoming the disease.