Most people now accept the model of drug and alcoholism as a disease, but others still fiercely oppose this view. Let’s consider some of the points that go both for and against the argument for the disease model of addiction:
* The disease model may not be entirely accurate in terms of actual medical definition, but it is still fairly useful in terms of diagnosing and treatment. In other words, even if it really is NOT a disease, who cares? Labeling it as such and treating it as such still produces better results than other approaches (for now at least). Before the disease model, addiction and alcoholism were considered a moral failing rather than a chemical dependency.
When you treat addiction as a moral failing, you don’t really offer much help or hope to the addict. You are basically dismissing it as being a problem based on their being selfish and evil, rather than having a medical problem. So you sort of write off the idea that they can get help or learn how to change.
When you address addiction as a disease, then you open the door a bit more to treatment options. Now it is a medical condition and now you can try to treat it. There are various treatments out there and the addict can try them and find something that works for them. You have 12 step groups, outpatient therapy, counseling, and medications that are designed to help control cravings, and so on. You can combine these treatments as well.
* There are people who argue that addiction is a choice, rather than a disease. Surprise, surprise, the people who argue this way are not drug addicts themselves. A very strong argument against the idea that addiction is a choice can be found by simply measuring the intelligence of the recovering community. There are thousands of recovering drug addicts who are actually smarter than the people who are ranting and raving that “addiction is a choice.” What does that tell you? I personally used to believe that it must be a choice as well, or that addicts were just lazy, hedonistic people, and then I became an addict–without ever giving my permission. This is all the evidence that I ever needed that addiction was NOT a choice.
* So it does not make a lot of sense to argue against the disease model, because it seems to work a lot better in terms of describing addiction and also in terms of treating it. But what about all the drug addicts who use it as an excuse, and use the disease theory to justify relapse or continued drug abuse?
Well there is not much you can do about that, other than to try and put the responsibility back into their lap. You do not get to choose if you are an addict or not, but you do get to choose recovery. The mantra should become “recovery is a choice,” rather than addiction being a choice. Because that is the truth as near as I can tell. Every addict has had at least some exposure to the idea that help IS available. Every addict has heard of 12 step meetings and drug rehabs and so on. Every addict knows that if they are desperate enough, that they could ask for help and continue to seek guidance and help until they get the treatment that they need.
Many addicts believe that they are trapped in addiction and that drug rehab would never work for them. But even if they feel this way, they still know that they could try to get clean, if they wanted too. They could give rehab a chance, if they were willing too. And that is why recovery is a choice. Anyone can choose to give it a chance; to give it a try.
