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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Some of you people are so clueless. Addiction is a very, very powerful disease. You don't just "decide" to get clean or continue to use. Some people get themselves together, and many people can't beat it. It is an illness, not a lifestyle choice.[/quote]

Eh. Even addiction experts will say that this line of black and white thinking is both tricky, somewhat outdated and for many addicts may serve to be counter-productive.

The reality is that its a little bit of BOTH. Like many, many things that effect us there are elements of "nurture" and "nature" that can go into that pathology. Because part of the 'cure' if you will IS a decision making process, every day, to live a lifestyle. It is, therefore, unique from other diseases in that respect that do have a more black and white sort of pathology. There was a piece last year in the Atlantic about the research being done where there is a negative effect with some addicts in the whole "I am powerless over XXXX" being a per-requisite for sobriety. [/quote]

And some people don't want to get better. I've witnessed that in my own family. But PPs' insistence that somehow someone with wealth and means has a better chance or responsibility to get clean than a poor person is nonsense. [/quote]

You really don't think that if you took two people with the same kind of addiction, the same emotional and physical health profile and the same desire to get clean, but one had money to afford the best medical care, rehab facilities, etc., and the other had to struggle along on their own because they couldn't afford those programs, the wealthy person wouldn't have even a slightly higher chance of achieving and maintaining sobriety?[/quote]

Actually, no.  Look at the book Inside Rehab.  The very expensive rehabs do not have a better track record of keeping patients drug free than far less expensive rehabs.  There are a number of country run programs with better success rates.  Even the really expensive rehabs almost universally lack the intensive mental care many addicts need--in most you are lucky to get one private therapy session a week.

Also, it is not true you have to want to be clean to be successful in rehab.  Studies show that people who are court mandated into rehab have success rates on par with those who go voluntarily.  Of course, success rates all around are pretty low.  In addition, rehabs are not necessarily the only best choice for recovery--many people are successful getting treatment with a doctor on their own together with private therapy or even just Narcotics Anonymous, which is free.

In terms of medical care there is suboxone--probably overused as it is addictive and naltrexone, a good choice for alcohol and opiate addicts because it is nonaddictive, but which is woefully underused.  Both are hugely overshadowed by methadone--the clinics have every interest in keeping people hooked so they can keep their numbers and funding up, but it is wretched drug that can have many adverse side effects over the long run, which the clinics are fine extending to ten or twenty years.[/quote]

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