From: pwh@bradley.bradley.edu (Pete Hartman)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs,alt.drugs,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Partial Legalization
Date: 27 Jul 92 23:33:16 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Bradley University

In <d5lm9!l.rcain@netcom.com> rcain@netcom.com (Robert Cain) writes:
>pwh@bradley.bradley.edu (Pete Hartman) writes:
>: Belief does not make it so.  Even the fact that belief can act to
>: help in some cases does not make it so--belief in God can be beneficial
>: as well, but the existence of said God is not required for those
>: benefits to exist.
>Now, now just because I am honest enough to admit argument from belief,
>as you are doing also, don't attempt to dismiss it because it is belief.

That wasn't my intent--I'm more trying to find the basis for your belief.

>It is more than belief,

But you just said.... :-)

>			it is the observations of an intelligent man who
>has spent time in recovery treatment and post-treatment programs and who
>has lots of friends in low places.  I spent nearly two years hanging around
>the blues musician scene on the Gulf coast and there was a lot of room for
>observing this phenomena close up from many people practicing.  So my
>"why" is a good education on the topic and a lot of in situ "research."

Ok.  I've also observed a few alcoholics, though from a different
position.  I've also danced in the penumbra of abuse myself, and
tend to relate a lot of that to my general opinions.

>: Don't tell them "it's the drug" because it isn't that simple.
>Why?  It often is not that simple, but I contend that most often it is.

And I contend the opposite, and here we stand. :-)

I've been amazed by some things I've learned over the past year, both
from friends' experience and from _The Case for Legalizing Drugs_.
Before that time, I would have agreed with you wholeheartedly.  But
there are numerous studies of users/abusers quoted repeatedly in
the last book that indicate to me that in general, anyone who
wants to shake a dependancy can--it may not be a simple matter of
willpower, but it certainly isn't "just the drug", because if it was
the drug, there wouldn't be nearly so many cases of "maturing out"
or whathaveyou.  Alcohol is perhaps not a good drug to generalize
because it is the only drug aside from the opiates that I'm aware of
that a person can become physically resonant with.  That ends up involving
the drug pretty heavily, if you abuse it to the point to reach resonance.

>Many times intervention is used and used succesfully because the
>user no longer has the will to "do anything about it".  I may have
>mentioned this in an earlier post but one seems to have come up vacuous
>(a'right, a'right I mean with no words at all in it.)  AA and NA do
>teach that it is the substance itself that is the cause and to be blamed.

Which I think doesn't help the user as much as helping them gain mastery
over the drug (instead of effectively saying "live in fear of this drug").
Not to say this is always possible, but I'd say it's usually possible.

>It can be argued that this is merely a useful paridigm for recovery. Based
>on lotsa years of observation I don't think so, I think it is accurate.

I'd say that I agree with the paradigm argument, and that's why I made
my point about religion.  But there you go.
-- 
Pete Hartman		       Bradley University	pwh@bradley.bradley.edu
                 Practical Ego Annihilation for the Zen Novice
        1) bang head against wall in a steady shuffle rhythm for 8 hours
Xref: sparky talk.politics.drugs:5318 alt.drugs:13485