Strangely enough, this is also true of religious cults.
Most People with Addiction Simply Grow Out of It
161–166 of 166 posts
Re: Most People with Addiction Simply Grow Out of It
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can be addicted to marijuana? It's the first time I read this. Or is it just something I interpret into your comment?
Is this an honest question? I mean, really? I'm as pro-legalization as they come, but it is well documented (and well known) that yes marijuana is addictive. For example, you could start at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_dependence , then http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=marijuana+addictio... , and work your way through 5 decades of research from there.
It's shocking that everybody talks about legalizing but nobody talks about that. Thanks!
Re: Most People with Addiction Simply Grow Out of It
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
How Americans die: http://www.bloomberg.com/dataview/2014-04-17/how-americans-d... This shows drug deaths as comparable to motor vehicle accidents. (This includes both legal and illegal drugs, and poisoning from prescribed medicine, but I doubt that the rise in recent years is due to worsening quality of healthcare.)
The numbers still don't add up. Remember that mortality among 25-44 year olds is still incredibly low, and even so drug deaths are only one among several causes of death, not the majority cause of death. If you dig into the data you see that around 15k people die a year from drug related deaths in that age range. That's a big number but orders of magnitude too low to explain where the addicts seem to go as people get older.
According to the mortality data there would need to be much fewer than 1 million addicts in the 25-44 age range in the US for a majority of them to be dying before they get out of that age group, or even a sizable minority. And everything we know on addiction statistics puts that number much higher, at 10-20 million or more.
The data just isn't there. Addicts aren't going away because they are dying, period.
Re: Most People with Addiction Simply Grow Out of It
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment resonates with me quite a bit. During my high school years, I suffered a bad accident. My right forearm was pretty much shattered, almost amputated. For about a week after all the surgeries, I was on Vicodin 24/7. Just from that, I was addicted. The withdrawal was miserable, and obviously came at the worst possible time. That one week with Vicodin continues to have profound effects on my life, even now t…
Okay, I have long wanted to know this about alcoholics and alcohol relapse sufferers: Do one-time alcoholics - functional or otherwise - who have sought treatment and then completely quit drinking for a fair number of years, ever manage to go back to moderate & responsible alcohol consumption? or Is it pretty much a life of teetotalism, for them, after that? Do you know of any friends or family who have recovered and…
Even if we assume that most alcoholics are capable of going back to alcohol in moderation I would expect most of them to be cautious enough to not try it. The advantages of alcohol consumption are small while the detriments of relapsing are high so one must be extremely certain that they can handle it before trying alcohol again is a rational choice.
Re: Most People with Addiction Simply Grow Out of It
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment resonates with me quite a bit. During my high school years, I suffered a bad accident. My right forearm was pretty much shattered, almost amputated. For about a week after all the surgeries, I was on Vicodin 24/7. Just from that, I was addicted. The withdrawal was miserable, and obviously came at the worst possible time. That one week with Vicodin continues to have profound effects on my life, even now t…
Okay, I have long wanted to know this about alcoholics and alcohol relapse sufferers: Do one-time alcoholics - functional or otherwise - who have sought treatment and then completely quit drinking for a fair number of years, ever manage to go back to moderate & responsible alcohol consumption? or Is it pretty much a life of teetotalism, for them, after that? Do you know of any friends or family who have recovered and…
I don't think there is an easy answer to this... It depends so much on the individual and their life. However, I think there are some general guidelines that work in a "most people, most of the time" kind-of-way.
With that said, I think that most severe alcoholics can never go back to drinking. The damage has been done, and they will always have that vulnerability. They may be able to control it for a while, even a surprisingly long time, but, if they go back to drinking or using then they will be thoroughly screwed.
There are people who may have issues that look like alcoholism, but are really different, like ADHD or depression. As those other issues get better, then the alcoholism will become less of a problem. For example, people with ADHD tend to have problems with impulse control. As people live their lives they learn that poor impulse control is, indeed, a real problem and they learn how to get it under control more-or-less on their own. That same lack of impulse control is disastrous when combined with alcohol. But, as their impulse control gets better, their problems with alcohol get easier, too.
Some people simply have had a crappy childhood, and, as they get more distance and grow out of those issues, then their tendency to addiction gets less.
Re: Most People with Addiction Simply Grow Out of It
#166I don't know if I'm the only one experiencing blurry font, but it distracts me from reading anything said.
it's a hack because web-font support still sucks in many browsers. Sadly it makes things much worse in firefox..
It shall smooth out the edges which sometimes are aliased