From: rdh@Veritas.COM (Robert Hartman)
Newsgroups: alt.recovery
Subject: Re: Addiction a disease?
Date: 29 Jul 92 23:08:34 GMT
Organization: VERITAS Software

In article <Bs466y.3Ks@news.cso.uiuc.edu> met48546@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Marc E. Talbot) writes:
>fullerto@carp.cis.ohio-state.edu (timothy dwight fullerton) writes:
>>	I am of the drug-is-a-drug school of thought. This means that, 
>>according to my experience, it is not the drug alone that is necessarily
>>addictive but my obsessive, compulsiveness in general. This is directly in 
>>line with the disease concept of alcoholism.

I agree with this view.  To me, anyone who is involved in a compulsive
activity is still in denial about something.  And that's OK.  It just
gives me pause to consider how close that person might let me come to
the truth about whatever pain it is that they're masking over.  One
thing that's been left out of the discussion of the disease model is
the recognition that the disease of addiction is a dysfunctional
reaction to pain--chronic, unresolved, emotional pain.  And so, when I
see someone displaying addictive behavior, I recognize that I'm dealing
with a person in pain.

>>	What I am calling you on is that you discount the comparison of
>>quitting smoking with quitting alcohol. I feel they are closer. True, 
>>untreated alcohol withdrawal is more dangerous, but for everyone that I
>>know who has gone through it (myself included), nicotine withdrawal put
>>us through more intense, relentless, and lasting physical and emotional
>>pain.

Different drugs affect people differently.  Nicotine did not numb out
the parts of me that hurt.  So I didn't get addicted to it, even when I
worked as a sales clerk in a tobacco shop.  Alcohol is a water-based
drug.  It's toxic by-products are water based.  They come on quickly.
Tobacco tars are oil based.  Their toxic residues persist in the body
for a much longer period, and while less damaging in the short run,
they are also much more irritating to sensitive tissues when they reach
the blood stream.  Insofar as a nicotine patch retains the calming and
soothing effects of the drug, it in a sense medicates the pain of the
nicotine detox process, which is slow.  Once most of the residue is
gone, there is no need to medicate the withdrawal process.  For those
in whom the preliminary symptoms of withdrawal triggered the
compulsion, it makes quitting that much easier.

The underlying pain is universal.  The compusivity is the same.  The parts
of ourselves that feel the pain are often different.  Our susceptibilities 
to a substance of choice are different.  The toxic side-effects of various
drug-of-choice are different.  So, although each drug entails its own
set of tortures, the overall recovery process is the same:

We acknowledge our denial and stay on the lookout for the distorted
thinking process that long-term denial has produced in us, especially
the illusion of control.  

We learn to be honest with ourselves and with others.

We accept the support we need to get through detox one day at a time.  

We grieve the loss of those aspects of the addiction that we truly enjoyed.

We recognize and grieve those precious things in life that the addiction has
cost us.

As our head clears, we begin to focus on the underlying pain, and we learn
to take better care of ourselves.

We begin to deal directly with our core emotional issues.

We develop a solid relationship with ourselves. 

We begin to clean up the messes we've made of our lives.

We give and receive support in learning to respond in healthy ways to
the inevetable pains of life.

-r
Newsgroups: alt.recovery