Is addiction a disease? Yes, but it’s a disease of choice

We posted a video on our Facebook page showing a man pushing the notion that addiction is not a disease and that by calling addiction a disease you are enabling users. The arguments that followed in the comment section mostly fought over the question, is addiction a disease? Most people missed the main point of the video – that addiction is a choice and for this article I’ll call addiction a disease by choice.

By the exact definition of the word, a drug addict has a disease. Per Webster dictionary online:

“A condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms or a harmful development.”

It’s hard to argue by that definition that addiction isn’t a disease, but the point of the video is that by classifying addiction in the same light as cancer, it’s actually harmful to the addict by giving them an excuse – it’s not your fault, you have a disease. You can’t simply choose to stop having cancer, but you can right away choose to stop using a drug. Millions do it every day, by never trying addictive drugs or by deciding to not use them any longer. The vast majority of us choose not to take that first hit. There isn’t a drug addict alive today that didn’t know heroin was addictive before putting that first needle in their arm. That’s not the case with most wide-spread diseases. One could live a healthy lifestyle and be diagnosed with cancer – lung cancer kills a lot of non-smokers and so many cancers are hereditary.

Addiction is a disease by choice. Never in the history of mankind has a drug addict become addicted without trying the drug. You will never go to bed a non-addict, never have tried heroin, and wake up suddenly addicted to heroin. You are hit on the head over and over about the dangers and addictive qualities of hard drugs, yet people still choose that first hit. The main difference between an addicted drug user and a non-user is addicts decided to take that first hit. It’s that simple.

Some will say, “but Mike, you aren’t a doctor, how can you even have an opinion?” Well, while I respect most doctors, hospital errors are the third leading cause of death in U.S. – killing 440,000 Americans annually. Pharmaceutical companies and doctors also played a major role in creating the opioid crisis by over prescribing opioids. History shows doctors recommending cigarettes and telling us that with a huge marketing campaign in the 90’s that opioid pain medication wasn’t addictive. And who is making money curing addicts? Doctors. I appreciate and love what most doctors do, but let’s not act like they are the only ones entitled to an opinion on addiction.

Many people who have had family members die from cancer get upset when people call addiction a disease. They’ve seen young children die from a disease they had no choice in getting. They also see drug addiction as a choice and it is. For every drug addict that chooses to use drugs for depression, I can show you thousands of people equally depressed that found other ways to cope. Drug addiction is the easy way out and friends and family members ease the burden by classify drug use as a disease as to shift blame – my brother is an addict because of a disease, not by his choice. As the video states, that’s enabling and allowing the addict to push away any personal responsibility and truly end his addiction.

That’s not to say that drug addicts don’t deserve our love and help. No one should suffer a lifetime of suffering based on a bad choice, bad disease choice to be exact.

Do you suffer with addiction or know someone that does? Visit http://www.paaca.org/