I would like to get your opinion. Do you believe addiction is a choice or diseas!


Question: I would like to get your opinion. Do you believe addiction is a choice or disease?
What makes you feel that addiction is a choice/disease. I am writing a paper for an english class and would like to have a few opinions from other people.

Answers:

My husband thinks it is a choice, because initially you made a choice to take a drug. Some inadvertent addictions, such as to pain meds, he doesn't think is a choice.

I don't agree with his viewpoint. I think it is neither a choice nor a disease (except for the physical part of addiction that certain drugs can cause). i think psychological addiction is learned behavior that is so rewarding initially, that a person has major trouble unlearning the behavior. If you want to call learning a disease, then so be it, but I don't think there is any disease process going on. Some things we learn in life end up being a source of dysfunction later. For example, people who live in concentration camps for years end up with some learned behaviors that are a serious problem later. they were good behaviors given the horrid situation they were in, but no longer a good coping skill when they get out. but how to unlearn the behaviors? very hard.

when I intermittently reinforce my cats (Look up "intermittent reinforcement") by occasionally giving them treats when they beg for them, which giving a reward only sometimes is a better training tool than giving a reward every time, counter intuitively, is this a disease that they keep bugging me when they want a treat? Is it a disease when your kids beg you for a candy bar when you are in the checkout lane? I think gambling and drug addictions are this kind of thing, but a much more damaging result.

It is true that some drugs are physically addicting, and this part of the issue would be a disease in my opinion.

It seems clear that personality is partly heritable, and so i think this is why addiction can run in families. Like in my family, people get off on intellectual pursuits, which drug or alcohol use interferes with that, thus we have no addiction problems, fortunately.

My opinion that psychological addiction is a learned behavior doesn't mean that I think treatment and funding for treatment is unimportant. and it's difficult to treat, and people ought not to get into the blame game, anymore than it is right to be blaming my cats because they beg for treats.



Addiction is never a choice. It is a choice to start, but not a choice to become addicted. Becoming addicted is what your body does. You can go years and years smoking and not get addicted, and stop whenever you want, and then some people are addicted after one puff. Same with Alcoholism and with illegal drugs. The only way an addict will quit is if they think it's time.

Common sense



both. u chose to get the disease.




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