Why I Am Profoundly Uninterested in Whether or Not We Call Addiction a “Disease"
Katie MacBridesubstack.com
Why I Am Profoundly Uninterested in Whether or Not We Call Addiction a “Disease"
"Almost everything we think we know about addiction is potentially wrong?
You get a rat, and you put it in a cage, and you give it two water bottles. One is just water, and the other is water laced with either heroin or cocaine. If you do that, the rat will almost always prefer the drugged water, and almost always kill itself. Professor Alexander ... See more
Addiction is a spiritual disease, a disease of the soul, an illness resulting from longing, frustrated desire, and deep dissatisfaction—which is ironically the necessary beginning of any spiritual path.
Richard Rohr • Breathing Under Water : Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
I remember when marijuana was medically legalized in Los Angeles. I would see massive lines out the door of dispensaries in my neighborhood. Looking at everyone waiting for their kush, I’d ask myself, “Are all these people really here for ‘medical’ usage? This feels more like legalizing mass addiction to cope with depression, anxiety and god knows ... See more
Tucker Walsh on Substack
I sometimes wonder if our modern predilection for becoming addicted is fueled in part by the way drugs remind us that we still have bodies.
Anna Lembke • Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
The knowledge that some people can have enough while you never can is the single most compelling piece of evidence for a drinker to suggest that alcoholism is, in fact, a disease, that it has powerful physiological roots, that the alcoholic’s body simply responds differently to liquor than a nonalcoholic’s.
Caroline Knapp • Drinking: A Love Story
In meetings you often hear people say that, by definition, an addict is someone who seeks physical solutions to emotional or spiritual problems. I suppose that’s an intellectual way of describing that brand of fear, and the instinctive response that accompanies it: there’s a sense of deep need, and the response is a grabbiness, a compulsion to latc
... See more