Steph

being a psychiatrist who is board-certified in addiction psychiatry and has evaluated and treated a great number of active and sober people suffereing from substance dependence, and knowing a lot of people who are active and sober people, including my current husband ,who is sober from alcohol/cocaine/heroin dependence and marijuana abuse (colloquially known as a "garbagehead," alothough his last was dependent on alcohol and heroin,) i will say that addiction is far, far more complicated than what you have stated. for example, greater than 50% of addicts have chronic PTSD from being physically and/or sexually abused in childhood. there are also biological vulnerabilities. there are also people who are chronically psychotic and actively hallucinating and/or delusional who alcohol or drugs do a better job of medication than psychotropic meds.

the question of choice is often a difficult one to tease out. for example, my husband was chronically physically and emotionally abused and neglected by both of his parents in childhood, and by his mother from as long as he can remember (he remembers her shaking him when he was toddler.) he had a chaotic attachment to his mother. he had biological vulnerabilities as well, as his father and both of his sibs abused alcohol, his mother is a compulsive gambler, his nephew had his licence revoked for DUIs and is alcohol dependent, and his brother is alcohol dependent and was busted for selling cocaine in his 20's. my husband was abusing alcohol by age 10 and was dependent by age 16, if not earlier. who is to say that he had any choice?

sandy

Sandy, Certainly there are two totally different ends of the spectrum. I did not state that is the case IN ALL addiction patients. I put it in very sophmoric terms. I am sorry if you took offense to my blog, but that is what I was thinking at that time. At no point did I say your husband had a choice. I do however know for fact this chick did! Again, I am sorry if this doesn't sit right with you, but hey... I am brain damaged, and that is what my brain was processing. Steph

Steph

no offense taken....i just views addictions differently.

sandy :big_grin:

Steph, don't stress over what you were. You had strokes and missed some of your life, that happens. Now you have a lot more time for your kids and can make up for some of that.

Sometimes choice in what happens just isn't there. Sometimes we choose unwisely but often there is an opportunity to makeover the present and make our life count for something. I am a firm believer in redemption. And while we can never lose the past to a certain extent we can make up for it.

Plan to be there for your kids and with your kids. There are a lot of good times ahead for you and Dave and the kids. Enjoy it to the full.

Sue.

I know alot of people would say addiction is not a choice, BUT it is a choice the first time you inject or snort etc etc etc. The reason "most" people do it in the first place is to escape. But why would anyone want to escape to a world so similar ( mentally) to post-stroke?

Steph,

People never think they will get addicted, they will be the exception. A good example of that is all the people who light up their first cigarette. Others can talk until they are blue in the face about the evils of smoking/addiction to the product but thousands of kids each year light up that first one just the same. The same could be said of several ethic groups who are predisposed to alochol dependence; they'll all heard the warnings, seen the reprecusions of alochol abuse but they start social drinking anyway, thinking they'll be in control of their own bodies and can pull back at any time.

Don and I have often said that we are gratiful that we grew up just when we did, and not 10 years later. We were around the drug culture of the 60s and 70s in the clubs, etc. but old enough, at that point in out lives, to have the wisdom not to try all the temptations ourselves. People in their teens and early twenties can't always say that...and then the phyical addictions take over.

Jean

Jean, That was precisely the point! That is why I said it is a choice when done for the FIRST time. (in most cases) And the cigarettes are a prime example, which I of course, being a dumba$$ smoker left out. And yes it WAS a choice even at the young age of 10! I knew what I was doing was wrong, otherwise I would not have hidden it from my parents. Well, that's all water under the bridge now, as I am having one hell of a time trying to quit over and over again. One of these times maybe it will work. And it is the physical addiction that keeps me smoking, however, it does not impair my thinking capabilities (however the CVA does lol). Thanx Steph

I understand what you are saying Steph. I too am addicted to nicotine and I will quit smoking. It just has not happened yet. Good luck on your end and keep trying.

Thanks for the chat by the way. I enjoyed it.

Soon.

Margaret

That is why I said it is a choice when done for the FIRST time. (in most cases)

Steph

i think there is a difference between a choice and and informed choice. i think that the choices that you talked about are not informed choices. choices made with a child/adolescent mind are never informed choices.

BTW, i had the same "stroke vs drug addict" discussion with John when i first met him in 2002, and took the same position that you did in this discussion...now, in 2006, i have totally changed my position. ..maybe next year i'll feel differently. i think, for me, that the position that i espoused in 2002 was due to an lot of unresolved anger concerning having a stroke and an unacknowledged, uncionsious touch of a "why me?" attitude. i still get that way sometimes, but i'm much more conscious about what i'm feeling when i'm feeling it these days.

sandy