Addiction affects over 20 million Americans, none of whom “deserve” to struggle against a brain condition that sends their life into a downward spiral. Yet to effectively treat most of the country’s affected population and properly address the dangers of addiction, we need a mindset shift. Accepting addiction is important, and addiction must become something else than what it is in the eyes of the public – it must become a condition.
It’s okay to be in a wheelchair after an accident. It’s okay to take time off after the loss of a loved one to grieve and go through your thoughts properly. It’s okay to be injured in sports. Addiction is a disease, and an injury, and a temporary medical condition. It is not a damnation, not a curse, not a moral sentencing of any one individual. By treating addicts as deserving of their fate and “unclean” in a moral sense, we dehumanize millions of Americans based on their misfortune and terrible circumstances, rather than accepting addiction, sympathizing with them, and having the basic compassion and common decency to fight for their treatment.
We’re also ignoring the fact that at 20 million, many people personally know an addict. Be it alcoholism, opioid addiction or even chain smoking, most addicts aren’t bad people. There is a correlation between addiction and childhood trauma, and some addicts get high, lose their inhibitions and become violent individuals. Some – but not anywhere near most. Being sober won’t automatically change their disposition and make them pleasant, but the addiction isn’t what turned them violent – their past is.
But when it comes to addiction itself, we need to look at it as a debilitation, a downtime disease often linked to times of severe depression or anxiety, a symptom of a greater psychological issue. We need to be “okay” with accepting addiction and recognize that those struggling with addiction are part of society, people we sometimes know and care for, people who need our help to get themselves the proper treatment they need.
Addiction As A Disease
Addiction is commonly perceived either as a brain disease that changes the fundamental way in which pleasure is perceived, so a patient lacks the ability to feel any meaningful joy while still hooked on the drug, or it’s perceived as a developmental issue, one in which teens turn to drugs as a radical short-term solution for their lack of emotional development, eventually naturally getting off drugs in their later years to focus on life.
There is validity and research to back both theories up, yet they don’t necessarily contradict each other. While addiction may or may not be a chronic brain disease, it does exhibit many of the same symptoms. And while not every teenage addict gets clean all their own, most people struggling with sobriety manage the leap to clean living within a few years. Both sides recognize that addiction is a pervasive issue that requires the support and help of others in the community to solve, and accepting addiction as a struggle people go through makes it easier for those people to kick the habit since they aren’t being stigmatized.
Understanding Addiction As A Symptom
People take drugs not just to feel great or to party and forego all responsibility, but to hide something. To hide pain. Regardless of whether you see addiction as a developmental issue or as brain disease, the earliest factors for getting addiction typically correlate to emotional or long-term physical pain.
Yes, genes play a role in how addictive a substance can be – but the initial “abuse” usually comes from depression, anxiety, peer pressure or social insecurity, a lack of belonging and a lack of connection to people around you. In other words, when something fundamental is “lacking”, many people turn to drugs as a straightforward way to forget and to overwhelm that part of their thought process with as many “positive” emotions as possible, even if they’re coming from a very dangerous source.
Where there’s smoke, worry about fire. While it’s not true for every case, addiction is typically tied to a deeper issue, even if it isn’t a case of anxiety or depression. Feeling left out of society and deeply misunderstood can be enough for teens to make the misguided last steps into a drug addiction, and it can take years to mature into adults, recognize the issue, and end up accepting addiction treatment. The loss of a career due to an accident and the subsequent stress of being immobilized or even in chronic pain is often a cause of opioid addiction, as it not only takes the edge off the physical pain but it helps with combating all the emotional pain as well.
Accepting Addiction – Everyone Needs To Help
We need to recognize our society’s mental health issues more clearly, and make convincing steps towards creating programs and policies that will address them. It’s all fine and dandy if you personally made your way through life and managed to avoid every pitfall, even in times of severe stress and grieving. This isn’t the case for everyone. Instead of elbowing each other on the path to success and letting society decay into a state of continuing emotional havoc for a misguided argument of “personal responsibility”, we need to recognize that everyone’s situation is complex and that ignoring the problem won’t fix it – and it needs to be fixed.
That means we all must pitch in to help improve society, even if that just means changing your mindset. It’s in your best interest to help your neighbor feel better and work better – only if most of the country is healthy can a country properly function. By tearing at others for things largely out of their control such as mental health issues, addiction, or even poverty, far too many people are simply perpetuating the growth of inequality, anxiety, depression and dependence.
Some people can get out of an addiction alone, and get back on track in life. For most people, however, support is necessary. They need treatment plans, solutions, medical advice and continued therapy to help them work through the underlying issues in an addiction and get to what it really is that drives them to their drug or drugs of choice.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, then don’t give up. Don’t give up helping them, and don’t give up on yourself. Staying sober is about more than just resisting a drug, it’s about finding a good set of reasons to do so.