On 2005-04-02 13:03:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Execpt you are forgetting one thing. Drug addiction and alcoholism are not a rationally based thing. They are if anything completely irrational things in themselves. It is as Ive said a mental and physical addiciton. You can comprehend the physical addiction, but understanding the mental addiction is alot harder. Yes everyone uses their brains to make decisions. Your still not understanding my point. And that is that like it or not, AA works for alot of people. Oh sure you can critisize it as much as you want. You can call it stupid or say it dosnt work but the fact is that it does. Not for all but for the ones it does good for them I say. What do you say to the rest of the post? I think it makes alot of sense to join AA if it works for that person. And you wont know unless you try. Wuold yo take away everything that a sober person in AA has worked for and their happiness and their sobriety just because you dont like AA?
I think I have a good example that makes sense to me. It isnt entirely the same but I think youll see the point.
Say we get the same food for dinner. YOu try it and say it is horrible. I try it and say it is the best thing Ive ever had. Whos wrong? I think no one is wrong in that situation. Just because I like it and you dont dosnt mean Im going to say you are wrong for liking it because we have a different palate. I would say the same for this. Just because it isnt nesessarily what you would do if you were in the same position dosnt mean its wrong for me.
I am not a person who looks at things from only an intellectual point of view, I can also look at the emotional side of it. I think it is very unbalanced to go too far one way or the other. I am glad rationalizing works so well for you but it dosnt work for everyone. "
Of course drug addiction and alcoholism are rationally based things. They are based on concrete physical causes---or rather, I believe the available evidence is leading that way---that they are genetic predispositions that are waiting to be triggered in the people vulnerable to them.
They aren't based on the intellectual choice of the alcholic or the addict *but* they are based on the physical realities of his/her body and brain.
In this case, I'm not talking about the physical behavior of drinking or drugging not being a choice. I'm talking about the craving, once it's triggered, not being a choice. I believe it is absolutely true that an alcoholic or addict, at this time, is powerless over the fact that he craves alcohol or some other drug(s).
I also believe that it is only a matter of time before there are medicines that will effectively treat the addiction, and, eventually, treatments that will cure the damage in the brain to, as it were, *un*trigger it. Eventually, I believe we will have gene therapies to remove the time bomb waiting to be triggered in someone genetically predisposed to crave alcohol or other drugs to the point of compulsion.
I am bipolar. I have firsthand, personal experience with compulsive and obsessive cravings for excess. So many bipolars become alcoholic that some researchers believe some of the genes that predispose an individual towards bipolar disorder are some of the *same* genes that predispose individuals for alcoholism.
One of the differences is that it is probable that bipolar disorder is not caused by a single gene, but by an accumulation of the effects of several. On the other hand, there are plenty of alcoholics that don't appear to be bipolar. It may be more accurate to class alcoholism or other drug addiction as one of the many lesser diseases that cluster around bipolar disorder in the families of bipolars---where various family members may have enough of the genes (or a gene) to trigger one of the related problems, but not enough of the genes to predispose towards full blown bipolar disorder.
In any case, alcoholism is often comorbid with bipolar disorder.
Manic bipolars have one thing in common with each other. Excess. Their excess may be sexual, or financial, or chemical, or food, or some bizarre thing all their own. But excess is a common thread, and the excess stops when you control the mania. Alcoholism and drug addiction are, of course, more difficult to stop.
But in our manias, we all find outlets for that drive to excess.
Knowing the drive to excess can be chemically curbed in some of its forms convinces me that it's only a matter of time before we find a chemical curb for stubborn outlets for excess like intoxicating drugs.
If people walk around thinking AA is "the answer," they don't search as far for other treatments--treatments that would ultimately have a greater success rate than a placebo. AA is a placebo. Unfortunately, too many have mistaken a metaphorical sugar pill for a real treatment.
As for people court ordered to AA being able to daydream and not participate, if I was court ordered to attend a Baptist Church I'd be able to daydream and not participate, too, but it would still be a coercion, an offense, and a serious violation of my individual rights.
Some people don't give a rip about these kinds of right of other people. They ignore the truth that for many of the people violated in this way that it's a very big deal. That's the problem with using your heart as an excuse to do unto others. It often involves running roughshod over *their* hearts.
Would I deprive people benefitting from the placebo effect of their chosen placebo?
No, not directly.
But if telling them it's a placebo---if shouting that from the metaphorical rooftops---would lead to research that will provide *effective*, medical treatments, then for sure I'd do it. And it might, so I will and am.
I come from a bipolar family. Alcoholism is a risk for us. That gives me a personal stake for my child, and her children, and her children's children and on down the generations in someone developing those effective treatments and ultimate cure.
Your emotions are real things to you. Others' emotions are real things to them, but yours aren't real things (neither are theirs) once any of you get outside your own head.
There's no excuse for using your emotions to decide things for others. And even if it happens at second or third hand, we each have a moral obligation to at least *try* to keep it from happening.
AA is your moral and religious position. Classical liberalism combined with logical empiricism is mine. You're preaching your gospel. Basically all I'm doing is responding in kind.
I think you're foolish. You quite obviously think I'm cold. Oh, well.
Timoclea
