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Most people with addiction simply grow out of it (2014)

psmag.com

31–40 of 118 posts

Re: Most people with addiction simply grow out of it (2014)

#31
post #29

Alternately, you just execute people for drug trafficking. A total win in terms of net human suffering.

El Salvador seems to be quite happy these days...

The murder rate of the USA is now almost 3 times higher than that of El Salvadors.

New Zealand now has more murder than El Salvador.

Re: Most people with addiction simply grow out of it (2014)

#32
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

El Salvador seems to be quite happy these days...

The murder rate of the USA is now almost 3 times higher than that of El Salvadors. New Zealand now has more murder than El Salvador.

Sometimes it's really amazing how simple, first-principles solutions are mind-bogglingly effective.

Re: Most people with addiction simply grow out of it (2014)

#35

I don't have a lot of personal experience dealing with addiction in either myself or others, but TFA lays out to me a pretty compelling claim that addiction is a developmental disorder. The current mainstream belief of addiction as disease has always seemed to me like it had a great number of holes; it's main purpose was to make people stop stigmatizing addicts for moral failing. The comparison to ADHD made in the ar…

I've heard the first-time heroin experience described as feeling like "being wrapped in a warm, wet blanket." What else feels like that?

A lot of addiction is trying to get back to the comfort of the womb to escape from early childhood traumas and abuses.

You get a taste of that with the use but never get close to it again after.

Re: Most people with addiction simply grow out of it (2014)

#36
this is a lot more hopeful messaging than I'm used to hearing about addiction but I also think it's worth noting this limitation from the study:

""" institutionalized individuals or those who experienced fatal or severe consequences due to their SUD may have not been sampled """

And also.. the average remission times for these addictions are still very long, e.g. roughly 15 years for heroin or alcohol

Re: Most people with addiction simply grow out of it (2014)

#37

Alternately, you just execute people for drug trafficking. A total win in terms of net human suffering.

In terms of net human suffering we can execute everyone. No people -- no suffering

That would increase total suffering, as people condemned to be executed will under go a great deal of suffering.

Re: Most people with addiction simply grow out of it (2014)

#40

This article confuses drug use with addiction. Addiction is a state where a patient wants to quit a drug, but can't. And that is when you want to intervene as a psychiatrist.

Can you say where the article does this? It seems pretty explicit to me, with the key word being diagnosable: "I quit at around the age when, according to large epidemiological studies, most people who have diagnosable addiction problems do so — without treatment."
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