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As someone who struggled with cocaine, heroin and prescription opioid addictions throughout my teenage years, this resonates with me quite a bit, but I'm not sure if I agree with the conclusions the author is drawing. I got clean with no help either - and yet, many years later, I still consider myself "in recovery." I view my recovery as a never-ending process; even though I haven't touched the substances themselves…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's explicitly named in Philosophy of Mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_theory_of_mind
Thanks for the link - although I'm referring more to the (potentially false) analogy with present-day digital computers as opposed to the claim that the brain is a type of computational instrument, which is hard to find fault with. It's interesting how different eras apply their own en vogue technologies to understanding the mind. (I.e. Descartes and other late 17th and 18th c. thinkers visualized mental functions as…
Brains aren't computers but some aspects are analogous to computers. Some day we may create new systems that further our understanding of the brain and the mind
I don't dispute the article's thesis, but a significant part of the reason why addiction is skewed so heavily to the young could be because the most severe addicts die from it before reaching an older age. As in, you don't "age out", you "survive".
That doesn't add up. By all estimates there are many millions of people addicted to drugs or alcohol in the US alone (as many as 20+ million). If we are to assume that the article's premise that addictions tend to have a lifespan of about 15-20 years or so is due to the fact that the addicts are dying then that would correspond to something like a million deaths per year. In the sub-45 year old population that would…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. That's why it's a metaphor and not a real demon. It's just as scary as a demon because it feels like you can't control your actions.
Demons don't exist, and their mythical properties are ascribed to real addictions. Addictions may not be incurable, they may not be uncontrollable, they may not require exorcism by an expert, they may not have been induced by sin or fed by it, Jesus may not be the answer, etc. edit: really? Happy to accept the downvotes on this one.
>Moreover, if addiction were truly a progressive disease, the data should show that the odds of quitting get worse over time. In fact, they remain the same on an annual basis, which means that as people get older, a higher and higher percentage wind up in recovery. If your addiction really is “doing push-ups” while you sit in AA meetings, it should get harder, not easier, to quit over time.
Clearly the author is questioning the progressive nature of addiction but not considering the well known issue of defining addiction. Furthermore, to my understanding the "progressive nature" of the disease is not referring to the difficulty in quitting but rather the severity of the abuse of the substance.
FYI: I don't entirely agree with this article. But I posted it in part because I seriously loathe the AA "disease" model. My dad drank heavily when he was in the army. He fought in the front lines of two wars. I think he did it at least in part so he could sleep because alcohol helps suppress dreams (and, thus, also nightmares). About four years after he left the army, he swore off alcohol and basically never touched…
2 glasses of whisky a day is not healthy but it's not alcoholism.
This is a bit tricky to describe but I'll do my best: let's assume you had two US doubles per day. Wikipedia says that 89 ml per drink. Let's round that up to 100 ml each drink. English public health has a concept of "units" to describe drinking amounts.
200 ml * 40 (the ABV of spirits) = 8 units per day.
Recommended safe limits are 3 to 4 units per day (without saving up to binge). You should try to have a couple of drink free days each week.
So, 8 units per day is over that level and increases the risks of harm.
Looking at definitions we see "alcohol misuse" which include "harmful drinking" and "alcohol dependency". http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs11/chapter/development-sou...
> The definition of harmful alcohol use in this quality standard is that of the World Health Organisation (WHO) The International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems (ICD-10): "a pattern of psychoactive substance use that is causing damage to health. The damage may be physical (for example, hepatitis) or mental (for example, depressive episodes secondary to heavy alcohol intake). Harmful use commonly, but not invariably, has adverse social consequences; social consequences in themselves, however, are not sufficient to justify a diagnosis of harmful use".
> In ICD-10 the 'dependence syndrome' is defined as: "a cluster of behavioural, cognitive, and physiological phenomena that develop after repeated substance use and that typically include a strong desire to take the drug, difficulties in controlling its use, persisting in its use despite harmful consequences, a higher priority given to drug use than to other activities and obligations, increased tolerance, and sometimes a physical withdrawal state".
Looking at the English guidelines for treatment we see that medically supervised withdrawal starts when you're drinking 40 units per day - that would be a one liter bottle of 40% whisky every day.
Here's the full guideline:
http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs11/chapter/introduction-an...
And here's the bit for lower end: http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs11/chapter/quality-stateme...
Except for nicotine. That lasts a lifetime.
I take issue with the headline, and I didn't see any support for it in the article -- that people simply grow out of addiction. Treatment or not, we can call that process of reducing one's addictive behaviors growth , but I don't think you can find any addicts -- former or otherwise -- their families, or addiction treatment specialists, who would call that process simple .
I don't think "simple" here means they do it easily, but rather that they do it on their own.
If an addict primarily yields to natural processes, he simply behaves in complete accordance with addiction.