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Matesa wrote:The definition, a result of a four-year process involving more than 80 leading experts in addiction and neurology, emphasizes that addiction is a primary illness—in other words, it’s not caused by mental health issues such as mood or personality disorders, putting to rest the popular notion that addictive behaviors are a form of "self-medication" to, say, ease the pain of depression or anxiety.
Indeed, the new neurologically focused definition debunks, in whole or in part, a host of common conceptions about addiction. Addiction, the statement declares, is a “bio-psycho-socio-spiritual” illness characterized by (a) damaged decision-making (affecting learning, perception, and judgment) and by (b) persistent risk and/or recurrence of relapse; the unambiguous implications are that (a) addicts have no control over their addictive behaviors and (b) total abstinence is, for some addicts, an unrealistic goal of effective treatment.
Matesa wrote:The most an addict can do is choose not to use the substance or engage in the behavior that reinforces the entire self-destructive reward-circuitry loop.
Dr. Raju Haleja wrote:It doesn’t matter what cranks your brain in that direction, once it has changed direction, you’re vulnerable to all addiction.
American Dream wrote:The thread on Gabor Mate' on addiction also has material relevant to the issues concerned here...
Simulist wrote:One of the unmentionable causes of addiction (which needs to be mentioned — and often!) is the terrible toxicity of our entire culture, something many people feel the need to anesthetize themselves from in order simply to face it, day in and day out.
Project Willow wrote:Matesa wrote:The definition, a result of a four-year process involving more than 80 leading experts in addiction and neurology, emphasizes that addiction is a primary illness—in other words, it’s not caused by mental health issues such as mood or personality disorders, putting to rest the popular notion that addictive behaviors are a form of "self-medication" to, say, ease the pain of depression or anxiety.
Indeed, the new neurologically focused definition debunks, in whole or in part, a host of common conceptions about addiction. Addiction, the statement declares, is a “bio-psycho-socio-spiritual” illness characterized by (a) damaged decision-making (affecting learning, perception, and judgment) and by (b) persistent risk and/or recurrence of relapse; the unambiguous implications are that (a) addicts have no control over their addictive behaviors and (b) total abstinence is, for some addicts, an unrealistic goal of effective treatment.
This seems to me like an distinction without an explained difference. Where does the psycho, socio, and spiritual come in if not in answer to pain?Matesa wrote:The most an addict can do is choose not to use the substance or engage in the behavior that reinforces the entire self-destructive reward-circuitry loop.
So this disease corrupts the reward circuitry loop on its own without the need for some kind of activator process? Isn't the reward the dulling of pain? What have I missed here?
I know stats show a high incidence of childhood abuse, trauma, and depression amongst addicts. I also know that, predilection or no, I use various mind and body altering substances to manage my own emotional and somatic pain.
The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit [Paperback]
Bruce Alexander
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Globalization-A ... 0199588716
Review
Alexander's watershed study could not be more timely. Mainstream commentators, who are now grasping for explanations for an epidemic of dangerous addictions, will find it indispensible. (Catholic Herald )
This immensely important and original book will completely reframe your understanding of the wider social, historical, economic and cultural context of addiction (The Scientific and Medical Network )
This is, without a doubt, the most intriguing and painstaking book on addiction I have read for some time..."The Globalisation of Addiction" is scholarly, meticulously researched, passionately critical of the free-market economy, biased, speculative, selective, and quite wonderful...highly recommended...this is one of the most remarkable addiction texts of the decade. (John B. Davies, Addiction Research and Theory )
This fascinating and unique book explores the problem of addiction using a nontraditional approach...a refreshing look at an age-old problem. (Doody's Notes )
Product Description
'The Globalization of Addiction' presents a radical rethink about the nature of addiction. Scientific medicine has failed when it comes to addiction. There are no reliable methods to cure it, prevent it, or take the pain out of it. There is no durable consensus on what addiction is, what causes it, or what should be done about it. Meanwhile, it continues to increase around the world. This book argues that the cause of this failure to control addiction is that the conventional wisdom of the 19th and 20th centuries focused too single-mindedly on the afflicted individual addict. Although addiction obviously manifests itself in individual cases, its prevalence differs dramatically between societies. For example, it can be quite rare in a society for centuries, and then become common when a tribal culture is destroyed or a highly developed civilization collapses. When addiction becomes commonplace in a society, people become addicted not only to alcohol and drugs, but to a thousand other destructive pursuits: money, power, dysfunctional relationships, or video games. A social perspective on addiction does not deny individual differences in vulnerability to addiction, but it removes them from the foreground of attention, because social determinants are more powerful. This book shows that the social circumstances that spread addiction in a conquered tribe or a falling civilisation are also built into today's globalizing free-market society. A free-market society is magnificently productive, but it subjects people to irresistible pressures towards individualism and competition, tearing rich and poor alike from the close social and spiritual ties that normally constitute human life. People adapt to their dislocation by finding the best substitutes for a sustaining social and spiritual life that they can, and addiction serves this function all too well. The book argues that the most effective response to a growing addiction problem is a social and political one, rather than an individual one. Such a solution would not put the doctors, psychologists, social workers, policemen, and priests out of work, but it would incorporate their practices in a larger social project. The project is to reshape society with enough force and imagination to enable people to find social integration and meaning in everyday life. Then great numbers of them would not need to fill their inner void with addictions.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Globalization-A ... =pd_sim_b6
American Dream wrote:defining addiction as a chronic neurological disorder involving many brain functions, most notably a devastating imbalance in the so-called reward circuitry.
Wombaticus Rex wrote:Damn, talk about sprinting in the wrong direction. Addiction is a learning pattern malfunctioning and I was figuring they'd expand the definition to recognize how prevalent and amorphous it really is....wow, was I being naive.
And word to this:Simulist wrote:One of the unmentionable causes of addiction (which needs to be mentioned — and often!) is the terrible toxicity of our entire culture, something many people feel the need to anesthetize themselves from in order simply to face it, day in and day out.
Haleja was fucking up on a lot of levels with that quote. Quick to slap himself on the back for recognizing a pattern but too slow to ask himself where that pattern really starts and why it's there.
Great thread. I'd like to see critics of neuroscience focus more on the neurochemical paradigm and how fucking absurd it is -- like trying to control a vehicle via the exhaust system. There is a STEERING WHEEL and shit.
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