Addiction Is a Choice
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Addiction Is a Choice
Narrated by:
James Killavey
Buy Now for £14.99
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Narrated by:
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James Killavey
About this listen
Written for both lay and professional listeners, this book offers new approaches to understanding addiction and the public policies necessary to successfully battle its detrimental effects on society. The author explains why current policies are ineffective and how they fail to cure the "problem". He argues that they actually encourage addiction by allowing people to feel blameless for the consequences of their choices.
©2000 Carus Publishing Company (P)2016 Redwood AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"Addiction Is a Choice is a powerful antidote against the twin poisons of anti-drug propaganda and drug prohibition. (Thomas Szasz, M.D., SUNY Health Science Center)
"Schaler's... suggestions for changes in public policy and for individual change demand consideration." ( Kirkus Reviews)
A unique, masterly work. The reader can learn how the controversial area of addiction can be looked at and understood in a new light. (Morris Chafetz, M.D., National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism)
some interesting points
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Great listen for anyone in or around addiction
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Personally, I just don't agree with a lot of the rationale used to support the authors view. The current definition of addiction is continued use (compulsive) of a substance despite negative consequences. The author uses a centuries old definition in an attempt to refute the disease model of addiction.
The author also doesn't differentiate between addiction and physical dependence thus blurring an important distinction.
In the narrative, full focus is the the missing physiological signs of addiction without acknowledgement that the brain is part of physiology. Plenty of brain scans shows differences in the "addicted" brain. Dopamine pathways are especially prone to modification in those with addiction compared with recreational users of the same substance.
The narrative claims many people use recreationally then stop without issue, It doesn't mention that for any given substance of addiction, around 10% of people are genetically predisposed towards developing an addiction. The author states that addiction doesn't cause the person to initially take the substance which is obvious but doesn't refute the disease model. The person's upbringing, experiences, environment, modelling and peer groups all interact with personal genetics to potentially "spark"an addiction.
An unhappy person who grows up with an alcoholic as a parent who lives in a poverty stricken area where drugs are normalised and even encouraged is far more likely to try various substances to which should there be a predisposition towards addiction to a particular substance then that recreational use becomes compulsive through neural manipulation in multiple areas of the brain.
According to the author's free will notion, it would appear there is a massively disproportionate amount of weak willed individuals in poverty stricken areas, people of questionable morals rather than acknowledge that the increased exposure to multiple substances interacting with personal genetics and a bad environment create a greater chance of producing addicted individuals.
The author quotes a study of nearly 1000 veterans returning from Vietnam having used opiates to cope but only 14% carried on using when returning which while the author says it shows even hard drugs like heroin aren't really addictive but I argue it fits in with the figure given of +/-10% of individuals likely to have a genetical vulnerability to developing an addiction perfectly.
Furthermore, the author uses the fact that because there is no physiological evidence for the disease of addiction, it can't exist. Discounting the brain scan argument, there are other diseases that have no obvious physiological signs yet clearly exist. Depression for example, is that a choice? or a disease? Even Schizophrenia is mainly diagnosed via "category diagnosis", very little physiological evidence but it certainly exists! Clearly not all diseases can be identified via blood work and the like.
The author also argues that an addict can use reason and planning to obtain a goal so not under a spell where they have lost control, they remain capable of choice. I believe that addiction is a conscious choice in so far as a person uses intention and planning to obtain a sometimes difficult goal but the powerful internal forces such as increased motivations and an overpowering psychological need inform that choice to the degree that the choice is all but made for the individual.
There is evidence that drugs trick the addicted brain into believing the "reward" of the desired substance is needed for it's very survival and will pull out all of the stops to obtain that reward at the expense of most of the other life goals and despite massive negative consequences.
The author also states that the disease model removes personal responsibility which is incorrect. It is simply an explanation. Only the addicted individual can learn to regain control over that which he or she has lost, a psychological process to overcome a physiological change
My view is that addiction thus is the culminating of genetics, experience and the wider environment interacting to potentially create an environment where substance exposure can cause in genetically vulnerable people neuronal changes that massively increase drug related motivation and a powerful psychological need while decreasing self control and personal agency via manipulation of various reward pathways and reducing the input of the prefrontal cortex. Addicts rarely take drugs for hedonistic reasons. Few enjoy being addicted. If it were simply choice, most would happily stop. The choice is removed by powerful internal motivations that can cause mothers to abandon their children, a motivation can override the most powerful of human instincts, maternal love.
Anyway, I doubt this will get posted due it's length but suffice to say, I didn't like most of this book, apparently a product of last centuries thinking and not really helpful in any sense
Shockingly biased narrative informed by multiple "facts" taken out of context!
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