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RJ Tubs 202


Registered: 09/20/08
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Addiction Theory 3
#23721901 - 10/09/16 11:53 AM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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The popular modern concept of drug addiction theory is based on the disease model, that chemicals change the brain and destroy one's free will and ability to make decisions. A common story is . . . "I took my first hit of crack and was instantly addicted and couldn't stop." But addicts make many choices and decisions around using every day. Millions of "alcoholics" decide to be sober every week day, from the time they wake until 6 PM. Then they get drunk.
There's a large community of researchers, neurologists, psychologists, and behaviorists that dispute the hypothesis that exposure to drugs and alcohol causes a loss of control.
Many successful recovery programs such as SMART deny modern addiction theory and the powerless paradigm. There's a myriad of research studies, books, and websites that reject this popular perspective.
Frequently arsonists, rapists, food addicts, stalkers, obsessive gamblers, porn addicts, and video game fiends "feel" they have no control of their behaviors, but is that true? Might someone who concludes they've lost their free will be unaware they're making conscious decisions?
Wondering if anyone has studied the common phenomenon of "learned helplessness"...
It's a fascinating reason why the idea of "powerlessness" is so popular.
Like numerous popular perspectives today, many people have embraced the disease concept, that there's something biologically defective and damaged with someone who falls in love with intoxication.
Of the many notable people leading this discussion, Stanton Peele is probably the most famous.
http://www.peele.net/lib/truth_1.html
http://www.thecleanslate.org/addicts-alcoholics-lose-control/
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
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William S. Burroughs, the famous and outstanding writer, was addicted to heroin for much of his life. He said essentially that junk changed your whole soul, and that it warped your mind so much that all you cared about, 24/7, was how to score more junk. He swore that willpower had nothing at all to do with it, and could only quit himself with the apomorphine treatment.
Quote:
“The question is frequently asked: Why does a man become a drug addict?
The answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. You don’t wake up one morning and decide to be a drug addict. It takes at least three months’ shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don’t really know what junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict.
The questions, of course, could be asked: Why did you ever try narcotics? Why did you continue using it long enough to become an addict? You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in the other direction. Junk wins by default. I tried it as a matter of curiosity. I drifted along taking shots when I could score. I ended up hooked. Most addicts I have talked to report a similar experience. They did not start using drugs for any reason they can remember. They just drifted along until they got hooked. If you have never been addicted, you can have no clear idea what it means to need junk with the addict’s special need. You don’t decide to be an addict. One morning you wake up sick and you’re an addict. (Junky, Prologue, p. xxxviii)” ― William S. Burroughs, Junky
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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RJ Tubs 202


Registered: 09/20/08
Posts: 6,016
Loc: USA
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Burroughs is demonstrating the common belief that drugs can destroy free will.
Whether we're talking about a craving for drugs, gambling, sex, or video games, it's not the object of desire that causes obsession, but the experience itself.
When an experience causes exhilaration (cocaine, sex, meth, video games) or a sense of power (gambling) or a sense of self-care and self soothing (shopping addiction and hoarding), it is the experience itself that can create an ongoing desire (obsession). Not the object of the desire.
It's not the power of a casino that causes people to lose their home and their car and life savings. It's the feeling associated with it. Which is a huge distinction.
A stalker is not driven by the person they stalk. They're driven by their feelings associated with the person.
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Duncan Rowhl
Fiducia Christum



Registered: 10/08/12
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Quote:
RJ Tubs 202 said: It's not the power of a casino that causes people to lose their home and their car and life savings. It's the feeling associated with it. Which is a huge distinction.
Isn't the 'power' what makes a casino able to evoke the feeling and thus what makes it a 'casino'?
Quote:
A stalker is not driven by the person they stalk. They're driven by their feelings associated with the person.
Likewise, isn't the quality of a person dictated by the emotions they evoke in us?
We judge them for their precursive quality in rendering the end product in us - the emotion.
It's why the following isn't just a word - 'Piping Hot, Pepperoni Pizza'.
Edited by Duncan Rowhl (10/09/16 02:03 PM)
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SleepyE
DMT is metaphysical



Registered: 07/21/08
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I believe mind surpasses matter in this case. I believe addiction is just a lack of self-control and has nothing to do with destroying your free will. That's like saying cake is destroying my free will not to eat it. Obese people have the same problem, they cant stop because they have no self restraint.
If someone has strengthened their willpower and self-control and has created a schedule or routine within themselves and how much they can indulge in something without it negatively impacting their health.
Strong willed people i believe are unlikely to have drugs change their sense of self-control and have it compromise their self preservation.
-------------------- My Drawingzz Draw DMT!
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sudly
Darwin's stagger


Registered: 01/05/15
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I think addiction is just an over stimulated sympathetic nervous system and fight or flight response. That's why entheogens help a lot of people to quit smoking, because they act as an antagonist on our instinctive functions.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
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What about chemical dependence, though? The nicotine a smoker ingests feels good, yes. But it also changes the chemical composition of the cells in his body to the point that the cells need to have the chemical in order to function properly. That is the definition of chemical or physical addiction. That has nothing whatever to do with how the substance makes you feel, except that your body rewards you for satisfying it. Isn't that obvious?
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Morel Guy
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Addiction is self control. I use drugs to effect the control I have over my sense of self. The problem is that the mind can only have so much awareness. The cause and effect and dealing with every detail. Sober people have their complications as well. Either it's the opiate of religion, or telling awful jokes. Everyone is going to be shaped by their past, their biology and I think choices are a small part of that.
The only addiction I really hated was crack. I was a crackhead for one night. I liked nothing about it. I didn't like who I was with and nothing progressed.
-------------------- "in sterquiliniis invenitur in stercore invenitur" In filth it will be found in dung it will be found
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Cory Duchesne
tabernacle


Registered: 10/05/16
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Opiates are a substitute for the mother or the girlfriend or guardian. With an opiate, you get the warm unconditional acceptance in a predictable way. As long as you're not doing things that warrant paranoia and retribution, you can rely on the Mary Jane to make you comfortable before sleeping. Then you wake again to the same challenges you had the day before.
Reminds me of a passage:
"It is easier to be a lover than a husband, for the same reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day, than to say bright things from time to time." (Part I, Meditation V: Of the Predestined, aphorism LXIX)
-------------------- C.G. Jung: "Please remember, it is what you are that heals, not what you know." "I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud." - Carl Jung Krishna, as his friends called him, freely admitted his compulsive lying. He blamed it on simple fear of having his deceptions detected." NOTES OF A FRINGE-WATCHER MARTIN GARDNER on J Krishnamurti "All your questions are born out of the answers you already have. Any answer anybody gives should put an end to your questions. But it does not." [UG-K]
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Morel Guy
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The last time I took an Oxycontin I got paranoid as fuck. There was no dope to that experience.
I used to think there was something easy to consciousness. There was, I was young and that's easy. But I mean I felt there was a system, an operation that could be spiritually overcame. I've learned that there is no forward movement. We are all guaranteed to lose our comforts. Think of your worst trip and if you had comfort. Even a shred of comfort. Sooner or later even the bad feelings begin to comfort. As long as you have that bad feeling there's something there predictable. Something that won't leave.
-------------------- "in sterquiliniis invenitur in stercore invenitur" In filth it will be found in dung it will be found
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Morel Guy
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Re: Addiction Theory [Re: Morel Guy]
#23722891 - 10/09/16 05:01 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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Modern methods of treating addiction are with other addictions that are healthy. Hobbies and interests, education and helping other people. They use a lot of pharmaceuticals and that's what got people interested in drugs to start with.
-------------------- "in sterquiliniis invenitur in stercore invenitur" In filth it will be found in dung it will be found
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falcon



Registered: 04/01/02
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Yeah comparing addiction to a disease is a scam IMO, if anything it has more in common with a symptom. And not limited to but the most likely disease associated with this symptom would be lack of self control.
The thing that mystifies me, is why so many people would embrace the idea that addiction is a disease. It is bizarre.
There is a lot of compelling evidence that addiction is not a direct result of chemical dependence.
First most people who either suffer trauma or go through surgery that requires high of doses of opiates quit after their prescription ends, they don't become dependent.
And second the Rat Park Experiment IMO, nullifies any animal studies that support the notion of addiction of animals without some loss of some normal interaction with other animals.
I would support a war on Behavorial Scientists and the elected scum that embraces the paradigm of addiction as a disease caused by chemical dependence, as they're both in cahoots with the telephone sanitizers.
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falcon



Registered: 04/01/02
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It is a choice if you understand that it can change your chemistry and continue to use nicotine, you are not dependent.
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Morel Guy
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Re: Addiction Theory [Re: falcon]
#23723271 - 10/09/16 07:07 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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Human psychology is dependent on many things. What has power over you? Surely many things
-------------------- "in sterquiliniis invenitur in stercore invenitur" In filth it will be found in dung it will be found
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,819
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Re: Addiction Theory [Re: falcon]
#23723316 - 10/09/16 07:18 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
falcon said: It is a choice if you understand that it can change your chemistry and continue to use nicotine, you are not dependent.
Okay, but please realize that many people are not strong enough to quit very easily, and it's not their fault. Are we not to have compassion for addicts in this thread?
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Morel Guy
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Nobody ever gets sober.
-------------------- "in sterquiliniis invenitur in stercore invenitur" In filth it will be found in dung it will be found
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falcon



Registered: 04/01/02
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If you point out to them that they have a choice rather than a disease, it is IMO, much more compassionate. There is a good bit of bureaucracy that is in the business of coddling those that are considered addicted, this is not compassion, this is a fruitless pursuit, to pad the pockets of those in public service, both by law enforcement and support services and private support services for those afflicted. Most people recover from this so called disease, they do so at a fairly predictable linear rate when looked at over a period of years, with or without assistance of health professionals.
Edited by falcon (10/09/16 07:34 PM)
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falcon



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Re: Addiction Theory [Re: Morel Guy]
#23723372 - 10/09/16 07:32 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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If I know what has power over me, why can I not change it? if I can change it or it's relationship to me, am I dependent?
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Morel Guy
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Re: Addiction Theory [Re: falcon]
#23723382 - 10/09/16 07:35 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
falcon said: If I know what has power over me, why can I not change it? if I can change it or it's relationship to me, am I dependent?
Because you know. The worst thing that can happen to a person is knowing. We can never in my understanding unknow something. Even with Alzheimers can I think we unknow something.
-------------------- "in sterquiliniis invenitur in stercore invenitur" In filth it will be found in dung it will be found
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,819
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Re: Addiction Theory [Re: falcon]
#23723419 - 10/09/16 07:44 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
falcon said: If you point out to them that they have a choice rather than a disease, it is IMO, much more compassionate. There is a good bit of bureaucracy that is in the business of coddling those that are considered addicted, this is not compassion, this is a fruitless pursuit, to pad the pockets of those in public service, both by law enforcement and support services and private support services for those afflicted. Most people recover from this so called disease, they do so at a fairly predictable linear rate when looked at over a period of years, with or without assistance of health professionals.
So you feel addicts shouldn't have support? Stiff upper lip?
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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