quotations about addiction
Cognitive states of mind are seldom addictive, since they depend upon exploration of the world, and the individual encounter with the individual object, whose appeal is outside the subject's control. Addiction arises when the subject has full control over a pleasure and can ponder it at will. It is primarily a matter of sensory pleasure, and involves a kind of short-circuiting of the pleasure network. Addiction is characterized by a loss of the emotional dynamic that would otherwise govern an outward-directed, cognitively creative life.
ROGER SCRUTON
Beauty: A Very Short Introduction
Beating an addiction is hard work. It's why we clap when someone gets 30 days, two days, three days, one day. I've celebrated four hours. You just celebrate every minute of your life.
BUFFI WILLIAMS
"Counselors: Beating addiction is a long journey", Mansfield News Journal, September 1, 2016
Gaining a real understanding of the sources of addiction will have the added benefit of reducing stigma--which sometimes prevents people from seeking the treatment they need. We must all learn that addiction is a brain disease and that people struggling with addiction should be treated with the same dignity as people with diabetes or recovering from a heart attack.
JOANNA BILOTTA
"Educating the Community is the Key to Combating Addiction", GoLocal Prov News, September 7, 2016
Addiction is a disease that's like a tree. It branches out, trying to touch everyone in your life.
BRIAN DUGGER
"Racing for Recovery on front line of Ohio's addiction epidemic", Toledo Blade, January 22, 2017
It's not addiction, it's slavery! We let a part of us boss the rest of us. You can offer all the excuses you want, the simple answer is, addiction is self-inflicted. Who runs your life: your stupid part, or the smart self?
LESTER F. POLENZ
"Addiction is slavery", Mansfield News Journal, February 13, 2016
The thing you love right away, don't do it, because that's the very thing that's going to be your addiction for the rest of your life.
FRAN LEBOWITZ
"In Conversation: Fran Lebowitz with Phong Bui", The Brooklyn Rail, March 4, 2014
Like other addictions, the addiction to sex is a compulsive cycle of negativity that begins and ends with feeling bad. The person is unable to gain control in any kind of sustainable way, except by acknowledging the problem and getting outside help. Like other addictions, it is characterised by denial, repeated efforts to keep on track which keep failing because of compulsive responses to triggers. Apart from a brief 'hit' from the release of dopamine in the brain, it's not enjoyable. Sex addiction is deeply mired in intense feelings of shame, guilt, anger, hopelessness, anxiety and despair.
OWEN REDAHAN
"Why sex addiction is no fun", Independent Online, February 23, 2016
In reality, drug addiction is a complex disease, and quitting takes more than good intentions or a strong will. In fact, because drugs change the brain in ways that foster compulsive drug abuse, quitting is difficult, even for those who are ready to do so.
NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE
"DrugFacts: Understanding Drug Abuse and Addiction"
The horrific irony of addiction is that most addicts are already victims of a vicious world.
SCOTT GEHRING
"Today's drug addicts not using for fun", Cincinnati, September 7, 2016
Addiction is like driving on a run-down road. Even though it's a slightly or very painful road, you still take it, because you know where you're going and there's some level of certainty there.... People stay on this road of pain simply because they've been down it before. They know what to do.
JULIE BATES-MAVES
"Why Addiction Keeps People On A 'Road Of Pain'", WisContext, September 8, 2016
All too commonly, given the choice of accepting a safe home or continuing their addiction, the severely addicted choose the latter, even though it means living rough. The tough-love approach works for very few. The enormity of the struggle to beat addiction is hard for the un-afflicted to grasp. Yes, the ideal is to get the addict clean. But the more urgent choice is sometimes to either give such people a safe environment -- shelter, food and some monitoring -- while they continue their tragic self-harm, or simply stand by while their lives deteriorate fast on the street.
EDITORS
"The establishment of wet hostels for addicts is a step in the right direction", New Zealand Listener, September 8, 2016
At every stage, addiction is driven by one of the most powerful, mysterious, and vital forces of human existence. What drives addiction is longing--a longing not just of brain, belly, or loins but finally of the heart.
CORNELIUS PLANTINGA
Not the Way It's Supposed to Be
To be sure, addiction can be explained according to how it operates at the level of neurons and brain circuits. In this respect, arguably, addiction is a brain disease. But it is also a personality disease, a motivational disease, a social disease, a cultural disease, and so on.
SALLY SATEL & SCOTT LILIENFELD
"What government researchers get wrong about addiction", American Enterprise Institute, February 29, 2016
Addiction is indeed a brain problem, but it's not a degenerative pathology like Alzheimer's disease or cancer, nor is it evidence of a criminal mind. Instead, it's a learning disorder, a difference in the wiring of the brain that affects the way we process information about motivation, reward and punishment.
MAIA SZALAVITZ
"Can you get over an addiction?", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 14, 2016
Addiction is a chronic medical disease like diabetes, hypertension or heart disease, even though it's often not treated that way. Like those other illnesses, we want to identify people as early in the course of the disease as possible, because we want to prevent the negative consequences that come from untreated substance use disorder or addiction.
SARAH WAKEMAN
attributed, "Challenges and new tools to assess addiction", Addiction Now, January 23, 2017
It's bad to tell people they have a hopeless disease they cannot cure. The obvious solution to addiction--quitting--is within human competence to achieve, so it shouldn't matter whether the addiction is a disease, a "spell," an astrological or genetic outcome, or just a bad habit.
JACK TRIMPEY
"A Rational Approach to Addiction Recovery", The Rotarian, Sep. 1992
Studies have not found evidence in favor of harsh, punitive approaches, like jail terms, humiliating forms of treatment and traditional "interventions" where families threaten to abandon addicted members. People with addictions are already driven to push through negative experiences by their brain circuitry; more punishment won't change this.
MAIA SZALAVITZ
"Can you get over an addiction?", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 14, 2016
If the last to know he's an addict is the addict, then maybe the last to know when a man means what he says is the man himself.
PHILIP K. DICK
A Scanner Darkly
Modern addiction has no boundaries -- 94 percent of all Americans have been touched by addiction through family members and loved ones. This is an epidemic that does not discriminate. It has effectively crossed all racial, religious and socioeconomic divides, leaving behind a painful path of destruction.
SCOTT GEHRING
"Today's drug addicts not using for fun", Cincinnati, September 7, 2016
The initial use of and, ultimately, addiction to illicit drugs can be a method of coping with a neurobiological system that is broken.... Much like a malfunctioning pancreas for diabetes, addiction has a clear biological basis.
VIVEK KUMAR
"The Key to Addressing the Addiction Epidemic Begins with Science", The Jackson Laboratory, February 2, 2016