Addiction: A Choice or a Disease?
Drugs, drugs, drugs… that’s all we hear about these days. The substance abuse problem has reached epidemic proportions and all it seems we do about is disagree about it. Everything’s an argument. Pro-marijuana supporters argue that marijuana isn’t a gateway drug. MAT supporters argue that being on methadone and Suboxone really means you’re sober, because hey, at least you’re not using heroin, and different groups of people argue whether or not addiction is some life-long mental illness or a “disease,” while the other side says addiction is a choice. All I know is that a person can’t get addicted to drugs unless they decide to try them.
An old saying when I was in AA and NA was “you can’t get high (drunk) if you don’t pick up” and I find that to be very, very true. When I was growing up, doing the D.A.R.E. program and other drug education programs, they made it seem like you had to be very wary and careful of the elusive drug dealer who would come out of the shadows and shove drugs down your throat and shoot them into your veins against your will. It’s laughable, at best, because you have to choose to get high the first time. No one forces you to do it, although some of my friends definitely made some convincing, pro-drug arguments to me.
The fact of the matter, and I remember it clear as day, is that I chose to get high. I chose to snort that first line of cocaine that inadvertently got me more addicted to something than I ever thought possible. I chose, in a split-second decision, to do something that I knew could be potentially harmful. I wasn’t a bad person. I was raised in a great family and given every chance I could ever want to succeed and create a great life for myself. What happened when I tried cocaine was serendipitous. The drug “solved” all of my problems. I felt my low self-esteem disappear. I felt my self-consciousness and social anxiety melt away. I had found the answer to all of my problems… so I thought.
In the name of protecting my cure-all, my silver-bullet, my magic potion, I chose to destroy my family and I chose to throw my life and education away. I chose to go to drug rehab over and over and I chose for my family to spend their money trying to save me. To feel better, I destroyed more than I created, and what I did create, was awful. Now, some of you may think that I didn’t choose to become an addict and I didn’t choose all the upset, heartache, and despair that came with being addicted to drugs, but what I did choose, was trying them that first time, knowing well and good the possibility of what might happen. I rolled the dice. I took the chance. I made a contract with the devil that I couldn’t keep.
The extent that addiction is a choice is to the extent that a person becomes willing to try drugs. Once drugs become your solution to your life’s problems, all bets are off. If addiction is a disease, can I get addicted if I never try drugs? No, probably not. A disease, like diabetes, afflicts a person whether they like it or not. A person can get Type 1 diabetes without indulging in sugar and carbs. A person can get cancer and never smoke a day in their lives. But no one can get the “disease” of addiction unless they try drugs. It’s a completely preventable situation, or “pathology,” if you will. If you don’t pick up, you can’t get high.
While I don’t 100% agree with AA’s philosophies on addiction, I do agree with that cliché. It’s simple, pure, and true. Well, true for me at least.
