From: dave@bradley.bradley.edu (David Vessell)
Subject: Re: Partial Legalization
Organization: Bradley University
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 17:29:02 GMT

lamontg@milton.u.washington.edu (Lamont Granquist) writes:
 
> Thats just really really brilliant.  They don't have any kind of psychological
> way to change their behavior.  The only way their going to change their
> behavior is through a chemical mechanism because their problem is entirely
> 100% chemical.  They're going to be alcoholics.  And there is no goddamn
> way they are going to stop giving importance to the beliefs that motivate
> that behavior.  "Anxiety attacks?  Ah, I think they're actually not
> important and not a problem in my life...  so, I think I'll just stop
> using alcohol and have fun with my anxiety attacks..."  Yeah, right.

To be perfectly blunt, you don't know what you're talking about.

Heredity can, at best, provide the body with a strong predisposition
towards particular behaviour.  A child of an alcoholic may be predisposed
towards alcoholism.  But it's no guarantee.  A child born to parents who
are both schizophrenic has only about an 8 percent chance of falling prey to
schizophrenia.  Compared to the 1 percent of the general population, that's
a considerable hereditary influence, but hardly a guarantee.

No one is a slave to their urges.  Having just recently gone through
treatment for moderate clinical depression and acute anxiety attacks, I can
tell you that while physiology plays a part in the illness, the way we
think and act is just as important or more so.  If you tell a person enough
times that he's an alcoholic, that will end up a self-fulfilling prophesy
if you convince him that there's no other possibility.  On the other hand,
he himself made the decision to accept that as a fact, when in reality he
may not be an alcoholic at all.  Someone who might be genetically
predisposed to compulsion, as many alcoholics and drug abusers are, may end
up convinced, by one means or another, that they can't control their
behaviour and thus use that as an excuse to continue the behaviour.  People
who are depressed or anxious may be interpreting their surroundings in a
way that is dischordant to their life philosophies, which might in
themselves be erroneous.  Over a long period of time these psychological
pressures cause changes in the body that produce the classic symptoms of
despression or anxiety.  Now, I may have a genetic predisposition towards
the types of personality traits that encourage depression and anxiety, but
that doesn't mean that I must go around my entire life either completely
miserable, or be a slave to Elavil to keep from offing myself and a slave
to Zantac to keep my insides from dissolving.  The fact is that I still
have control over my actions and the way I think.  Cognitive methods can be
very powerful and zillions of clinical studies have proven cognitive
therapy to be the quickest and most effective treatment for depression and
anxiety with the lowest relapse rates, even better than drug therapy.

I think that says something for the power of psychological strategies.
And it should suggest that depression and anxiety aren't the only areas
where psychological strategies can be put to good use.  I'm not saying that
physiology is irrelevant but it certainly isn't all-powerful as you seem to
suggest.
-- 
=========*davE*.....making the world safe for intelligent dance music.=========
               Andre Marrou -- Libertarian for President 1992
--(David Vessell)--(Bradley University Computing Services)-(dave@bradley.edu)--
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs