I beat my very bad addiction to heroin and other opiates and have attained years and years of abstinence. I reduced myself, never did a rehab and have never been near a 12 step programme. I'll be fucked if I'm going to sit in a room and declare that I'm an addict... as I'm not. I was a person physically and psychologically addicted to drugs, and now I'm not. That is all.
No, it's not a disease, it's a social maladaptation. If you can't deal with the life you see around you; war, social injustice, living in poverty, living in social poverty, your dad beats up your mom, or vise versa, a person without support, or feeling of community, will be laid bare to loneliness and addiction. It's the 12 step recovery method that leaves people without hope, if you don't subscribe to their threats and ideologies, you are without hope. When all you really want is to just go to a job with meaning for you, and have a family, friends, and belief in the world around you. There is no scientific data to support 12 step programs, it's only anecdotal, and has a pretty dismal success rate.
Correction Peele, smoking is not the hardest addiction to beat, it's the most widespread addiction. This matters because those who do quit smoking on their own do use some form of self treatment - support from others, personal goals & convictions, patches, gums, medication, etc. Another noteworthy point is .. how do we equate smoking with other illicit - prescription drug, or alcohol addiction? Also, don't know of many rehabs that really take in patients who have a smoking habit -nor would their insurances likely have those provisions as they do for the heavier addictions. Try telling some alcoholic in the hospital and doctors working to save them from severe delirium tremors that smoking is the toughest to beat. Smoking is just not in the same category or context. Can't even say quitting smoking on one's own is a good example of how many can do the same with the drugs..come on now, that borders on an irresponsible assumption as far as I'm concerned. Somebody keeps trying to quit drugs on their own - they can really get themselves in trouble.
One of the problems with brain scan presentations that I've seen is that they compare the scans of different individuals rather than the same individual before and after substance abuse. As we've come to find out, different individuals can have radically different looking brain scans for completely non-disease-related reasons. A study of London taxi drivers, for example, shows that engaging in certain types of mental activity over a period of time makes the scan images differ from the "norm."
Being this is in my field as well, no, brain scans don't positively spot an addicted person - any clinician wouldn't buy into that Peele.. Call it a tool, a partial confirmation, or an additional determinate factor, yes. A positive correlation.
Volkow (sp) conducted scans predominantly on addicts who were already deemed so previously. Her research helped in the studies on addiction and patterns involving the brain through the imaging, etc. The work and her purposes were not a matter of some poo poo story line Peele is giving us here whatsoever.. No, we don't use brain scans to determine addiction.
"Brain scan's mean nothing" Oh that was a doosy. He should read up on the predictive power of D2 receptors and addictive behavior. Predictive power - in other words, probabilistic.
Tasi Watson Thanks for your comment. Peele is considered something of a maverick in the field as it is..Nothing that wrong with mavericks per say, but this guy's just off the hook ..in lala land, and to make him worse is he's condescending and disrespectful about things as well.
Since when is probable absolute? Peele is right. To practice guitar till you're fingers blister or bleed could be described as "HARMFULL BEHAVIOR" and needing "TREATMENT". ADDICTION IS QUACKERY.
Honestly, I don't know what is so controversial about thinking that it is useful to take steps towards identifying neural correlates of addiction. Looking at neural correlates on one hand and looking at environmental cues and correlates on the other hand are not mutually exclusive viewpoints, and no serious addiction researcher (Volkow included) would think to discount one or the other.
irwin rommel Addiction isn't quackery ... it's just a word. Observations pertaining to extreme habitual addiction/substance abuse prove a valid point .. when there is such a tremendous problem such as alcoholism, etc it thus becomes an evidence based fact. The only quack around here is Peele. ..
alcoholics anonymous did not come up with the disease concept of alcoholism, it was a dr. who passed it on to the founder of aa who passed the concept on to other alcoholics and it worked and still working today.this misinformation about the disese of alcoholism is 10 yrs old and yet its still here. the ama, cme, employers, insunance companies and many others accept alcoholism is a disease, and alcoholics in recovery accept it as a disease. i dont see any fixation on that.
He's wrong. Hands down, benzos are the most difficult drugs to stop taking. And we're talking folks who took them as directed by their doctors even for relatively short periods of time. Even the slowest taper, which can last up to a year, can be literally a waking nighmare, with little or no help.
Thanks for making the comment about benzos. I have had substance abuse issues off and on for years. I have been in AA for over 30 years and believe that I am in the process of walking away. Not so I can go start getting drunk again but simply because I've always had philosophical and intellectual issues with AA. I always felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. I was hooked on benzos and it was very very unpleasant to kick the habit.
I quit doing opiates and crack after 6 years of abuse, and later quit smoking. I would say opiates were way harder to quit than cigarettes, the only reason cigarettes are “harder” to quit is that they don’t give you tons of immediate consequences like heroin. I didn’t steal from my family for them, I didn’t overdose on them etc etc. they are the slow killer, but as far as the process of quitting each, opiates were wayyyy harder. If I could do heroin and it only carried the same consequences of smoking I never would have quit in a million years.
I beat my very bad addiction to heroin and other opiates and have attained years and years of abstinence. I reduced myself, never did a rehab and have never been near a 12 step programme. I'll be fucked if I'm going to sit in a room and declare that I'm an addict... as I'm not. I was a person physically and psychologically addicted to drugs, and now I'm not. That is all.
100% truth
No, it's not a disease, it's a social maladaptation. If you can't deal with the life you see around you; war, social injustice, living in poverty, living in social poverty, your dad beats up your mom, or vise versa, a person without support, or feeling of community, will be laid bare to loneliness and addiction. It's the 12 step recovery method that leaves people without hope, if you don't subscribe to their threats and ideologies, you are without hope. When all you really want is to just go to a job with meaning for you, and have a family, friends, and belief in the world around you.
There is no scientific data to support 12 step programs, it's only anecdotal, and has a pretty dismal success rate.
Pray to a bronze age deity. Fucking spare me!
Wtf ^
Wish I could like this comment more than once. Nailed it on the psychosocial aspects of addiction
Correction Peele, smoking is not the hardest addiction to beat, it's the most widespread addiction. This matters because those who do quit smoking on their own do use some form of self treatment - support from others, personal goals & convictions, patches, gums, medication, etc. Another noteworthy point is .. how do we equate smoking with other illicit - prescription drug, or alcohol addiction? Also, don't know of many rehabs that really take in patients who have a smoking habit -nor would their insurances likely have those provisions as they do for the heavier addictions.
Try telling some alcoholic in the hospital and doctors working to save them from severe delirium tremors that smoking is the toughest to beat. Smoking is just not in the same category or context. Can't even say quitting smoking on one's own is a good example of how many can do the same with the drugs..come on now, that borders on an irresponsible assumption as far as I'm concerned. Somebody keeps trying to quit drugs on their own - they can really get themselves in trouble.
I quit smoking 3 years ago on my own without any support or medication after more than 10 years of continuous heavy use. How do you explain that?
One of the problems with brain scan presentations that I've seen is that they compare the scans of different individuals rather than the same individual before and after substance abuse. As we've come to find out, different individuals can have radically different looking brain scans for completely non-disease-related reasons. A study of London taxi drivers, for example, shows that engaging in certain types of mental activity over a period of time makes the scan images differ from the "norm."
I'm just going to pretend he didn't just put down Trotsky. Peele doesn't know what he's talking about on that.
real shit my friend
Being this is in my field as well, no, brain scans don't positively spot an addicted person - any clinician wouldn't buy into that Peele.. Call it a tool, a partial confirmation, or an additional determinate factor, yes. A positive correlation.
Volkow (sp) conducted scans predominantly on addicts who were already deemed so previously. Her research helped in the studies on addiction and patterns involving the brain through the imaging, etc. The work and her purposes were not a matter of some poo poo story line Peele is giving us here whatsoever.. No, we don't use brain scans to determine addiction.
Where are your sources?
Need I hear more? Thank you DR
I don't know what's worse? lol
"Brain scan's mean nothing" Oh that was a doosy. He should read up on the predictive power of D2 receptors and addictive behavior. Predictive power - in other words, probabilistic.
Tasi Watson Thanks for your comment. Peele is considered something of a maverick in the field as it is..Nothing that wrong with mavericks per say, but this guy's just off the hook ..in lala land, and to make him worse is he's condescending and disrespectful about things as well.
Since when is probable absolute? Peele is right. To practice guitar till you're fingers blister or bleed could be described as "HARMFULL BEHAVIOR" and needing "TREATMENT". ADDICTION IS QUACKERY.
Honestly, I don't know what is so controversial about thinking that it is useful to take steps towards identifying neural correlates of addiction. Looking at neural correlates on one hand and looking at environmental cues and correlates on the other hand are not mutually exclusive viewpoints, and no serious addiction researcher (Volkow included) would think to discount one or the other.
irwin rommel Addiction isn't quackery ... it's just a word. Observations pertaining to extreme habitual addiction/substance abuse prove a valid point .. when there is such a tremendous problem such as alcoholism, etc it thus becomes an evidence based fact. The only quack around here is Peele. ..
He doesn't answer the question about the brain scan.
yes he does
alcoholics anonymous did not come up with the disease concept of alcoholism, it was a dr. who passed it on to the founder of aa who passed the concept on to other alcoholics and it worked and still working today.this misinformation about the disese of alcoholism is 10 yrs old and yet its still here. the ama, cme, employers, insunance companies and many others accept alcoholism is a disease, and alcoholics in recovery accept it as a disease. i dont see any fixation on that.
He's wrong. Hands down, benzos are the most difficult drugs to stop taking. And we're talking folks who took them as directed by their doctors even for relatively short periods of time. Even the slowest taper, which can last up to a year, can be literally a waking nighmare, with little or no help.
Thanks for making the comment about benzos. I have had substance abuse issues off and on for years. I have been in AA for over 30 years and believe that I am in the process of walking away. Not so I can go start getting drunk again but simply because I've always had philosophical and intellectual issues with AA.
I always felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.
I was hooked on benzos and it was very very unpleasant to kick the habit.
To compare heroin to smoking cigarettes shows he's never experienced neither. May be a disease, maybe not but this guy has no clue either way.
Former heroine users have told me that quitting smoking was equally as hard or harder than kicking heroine, particularly when it came to the cravings.
Perfectly Human Malcolm X made that point in his famous autobiography, and he worked with many addicts.
I quit doing opiates and crack after 6 years of abuse, and later quit smoking. I would say opiates were way harder to quit than cigarettes, the only reason cigarettes are “harder” to quit is that they don’t give you tons of immediate consequences like heroin. I didn’t steal from my family for them, I didn’t overdose on them etc etc. they are the slow killer, but as far as the process of quitting each, opiates were wayyyy harder. If I could do heroin and it only carried the same consequences of smoking I never would have quit in a million years.
Good point.