http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html

Well, this would explain a lot in the realm of TSCC. Lots of unhappy, controlled people = lots of addiction.

That's a great article, Dude. It looks like HuffPost has really matured as a source of opinion and news.

Although some of the anecdotes are inadequate as evidence, the principle they suggest seems to be a sound one. People escape into addiction because their lives are unpleasant, futile, or meaningless. In the case of Mormonism, they may even be addicted to the futility and frustration itself. Wouldn't you be desperate to get to the CK if that was the only way you could get the answers you wanted about the system you believed was the only way to get to the CK?

Addiction is a physiological process where the body incorporates the agent into its metabolic processes.

Some hard science and not just some HuffPo huffing...

http://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/directors-page

>Dr. Volkow’s work has been instrumental in demonstrating that drug addiction is a disease of the human brain. As a research psychiatrist and scientist, Dr. Volkow pioneered the use of brain imaging to investigate the toxic effects and addictive properties of abusable drugs. Her studies have documented changes in the dopamine system affecting, among others, the functions of frontal brain regions involved with motivation, drive, and pleasure in addiction. She has also made important contributions to the neurobiology of obesity, ADHD, and aging.

I documented years ago how membership in the LDS Church does have strong psychological elements common to addiction; per Patrick Carnes, "Addiction is a pathological relationship with a mind altering/mood changing experience," but this article is pretty much snake oil fiction. His hypothesis is that since a change in environment can bring about "abstinence" (a doubtful claim itself, since that doesn't happen in most cases; he cherry-picked the post-Vietnam heroin problem), the environment must be the cause of addiction. Typical junk science...

The author is a British tabloid journalist--not a scientist, physician, or clinician--with a history of unethical practices and hyperbolic claims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari

>Johann Eduard Hari (born 21 January 1979) is a British writer and journalist who has written regular columns for The Independent (London) and The Huffington Post and made contributions to several other publications. In 2011, he was suspended from The Independent following multiple charges of plagiarism and was separately accused of making malicious edits of several of his critics' Wikipedia pages under a pseudonym, an allegation he later admitted to.[3] The exposed plagiarism led to his being forced to return his 2008 Orwell Prize and later was a contributing factor in his leaving The Independent.

Now if you want to tell me Johann Hari has a lot in common with testimony-bearing Mormons, I'll concede you have a strong case.

I don't know how you can call it junk science when they actually conducted experiments around it. I don't want to delve into specifics, but I can say from personal experience that it's got some validity to it.

Comparing your personal experience to mine is about like comparing a teen age sandlot quarterback with an NFL starter. Okay, maybe a high schooler... And enough of my "specifics" have been posted here (and there are many who know me personally, and my stories never change) to back up that claim. It's not hubris.

I'm sorry, but your perceptions are that skewed (particularly if you have a history of addiction). Just for starters, you might review the writings of Terence Gorski which puts the timetable for recovery at nine to ten years minimum. Still want to play? I've been in continuous recovery more than three times that long.

And on the subject of perceptions--note I used two of the leading authorities on the disease; I trust mine these days, but I still "reality check" them with people I know to be objective--I recall a great individual in recovery circles who described them as such:

"Guy goes to his sponsor and says, 'The sky is blue!' Sponsor says, 'You idiot, the sky is purple!' Then he gives him a number of "assignments" and recommends some behavior changes...

And lo and behold, one day the sky turns purple.

That's a metaphor, but it's accurate, and the shift is that remarkable despite what doubtless appears as absurd to you. What you're seeing has very little to do with objective understanding of addictive disease; it's largely the product of your own beliefs and doubtless a lot of wishful thinking. And those "experiments" are silly, shallow, and lacking a whole lot of controls that would make their results any kind of evidence for the claims. There's no evaluating whether the rats "developed addiction" (i.e. the very real phenomenon of "withdrawal" is not addressed just for starters). And there's this small matter of "peer pressure"; as far as I know, there's no scientific evidence that rats are capable of that feat; in human culture, it's as subtle as the dynamics of a cocktail party, however.

But of course, you know it's true because you read it on the Internet.

One last item: The author notes, "I fell into a relationship with a heroin addict."

As I said, codependency...

From my days in the rehab, doing internships in family therapy, we realized that codependent denial was far deeper than most addicts, and there's literature out there to prove it. Same with the perceptual distortions...

There's also nonsense from untreated codependents that attempts to "refute it," and trust me, they have a lot in common with LDS apologists.

One should also keep in mind that most of the "research" in addiction is merely cheerleading for 12 steps groups, and the spin dry industry.

AA founder William Griffith Wilson, whose personal life was much like Joe Smiths in the ladies department, stated that alcoholism was NOT a "disease" It is important to remember that the AA bible refers to alcoholism as a "spiritual disease" No major medical or psychological organization recognizes any "spiritual diseases"

A lot of lobbying happened for the AMA to declare alcoholism a so called "disease" The measure did require a hand vote (think about that for a moment) and did not pass on the first vote.

Currently over 80% of US physicians do NOT consider alcoholism to be a "disease" but rather bad behavior.

This is unfortunate, because the faulty "disease" theory is necessary for court leniency in cases such as DUI fatalities.

A disease declaration is also necessary for these rehabs to claim large health insurance billing. The one I was sent to for 28 days kept me for 32, because I have "cadillac" insurance, as well as sending me a bill for $34K on top of my insurance. I should also add in here, this rehab is in Montana, and BUSLOADS of people were shipped in to this place by the Indian Reservations while I was there and probably still are.

I cannot comprehend how much billing that would be. I was there in 2007, and do know most of my fellow inmate/patients are now dead. I fully reject all AA dogma and doctrine and stopped drinking after my time there. I simply choose not to drink.

There are huge problems for having unqualified, AA street evangelists authoritatively diagnose a concocted disease and convince people it is terminal.

Google "suicide and AA"

www.orange-papers.org



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2015 01:01AM by deco.

As Bill W believed so do I with regard to alcoholism being a spiritual disease. I do think that some persons have some medical conditions that may make alcohol use difficult and cause problems when one drinks such as drug interactions or physical changes as the result of surgical procedures.

The spiritual nature of alcoholism was not evident to me until I returned to church after leaving the LDS. People suffer in different ways when they suffer their loss of faith. The LDS robbed me of my security in my belief in God by their betrayal of my trust in the belief that the church was true. I no longer had my support system of similarly believing people around me to reinforce my testimony in the truthfulness. I felt alone in my suffering and so I self medicated.

Thirteen years after leaving the church and several feeble attempts to stop drinking without a real commitment, I felt a spiritual void that I filled by going to a Christian church. After three or four years of filling the void, I was able to recognize that I had a real alcohol problem. It didn't occur to that I'd not be able to keep a promise to God that I would stop drinking during Lent. I did not make it as much as I wanted to keep my promise. This was the epiphany I needed that I was an alcoholic.

AA was the answer in offering a way for me to tackle this problem that I now recognised. I stopped drinking that very day and have relied on the Lord everyday since to keep me centered on staying sober. My faith has grown and I feel fortunate that AA exists. It is a tool to gain sobriety and being sober gives me peace. AA by itself did not get me or keep me sober. I attribute this to spiritual healing I have gone through and God's help.

At the risk of trying to play "one up man's ship" I'll share a few anecdotes/opinions.

I am always suspicious of an article that leads off with a statement such as 'everything you thought you knew about x is wrong.

A statement that a conservative position is that addiction is a moral failing and a liberal position is that addiction is a brain disease is patently absurd. The truth of the matter does not lie in politics.

Employing gambling addiction as an analogy actually makes the opposite point the author wishes to make. There is a plethora of literature on the involved neurotransmitters (primarily dopamine and glutamate) and the neural tracts involved. And we know more about chemical addiction than we do gambling.

I've had the privilege of caring for addicts (both chemical and behavioral) for over 20 years. It is an exciting field of practice and research. There is a huge literature base. Two pioneering physicians, Dole and Nyswander, using their work with heroin addicts in a methadone clinic coined the term "metabolic disease." They turned over the paradigm that "bad behaviors" caused addiction. Rather, untreated addiction causes bad behaviors. I realize methadone remains controversial but the learning point is sound. Nora Volkow, MD, the head of the National Institute of Drug Abuse (see SL Cabbie's excellent post above), is a giant in the field.

I could go on...but I won't.

methadone programs help no-one in the UK - they just sell their methadone and buy heroin, or take it and buy heroin. As long as they desire to take heroin, they will. As long as an addict feels powerless and worthless, they will want to feed their addiction.

Classing some addictions as an illness makes more jobs for health professionals - usually left swinging in politics - more jobs for lawyers (we call them solicitors) and more money for the pharamceutical companies to create new drug treatments and sell said new drug treatments.

Its just a new field of employment that has been created, also a new field of study and academic research, and most importantly a whole new bunch of taxpaying job-holders will forevermore be in employment and paying tax and buying insurance, two camps arguing against each other on the best way to 'treat the problem' and the public with no real information unless involved directly with an addict.

Unfortunately for the academics, if they ever publicly declare the government got it wrong they get sacked. Professor Nutt worked for the UK government and got sacked for doing the same. Google professor nutt drug policy and see the effects of speaking out against the lords and masters.

It seems dissenters in every walk of life are treated in a similar manner.

My TBM mother is reading this in regards to my youngest sibling.... She wanted me to read it... I may check it out..