First Person: A Change Has Come
Eventually their iron control failed and problems re-emerged, usually far worse than before.
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Spontaneous Remission?
The experience of addiction routinely includes periods of reduced substance use, or abstinence.
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Root Cause
Complex behaviors often require complex explanations.
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Disease Arguments: The Sequel, Remake, etc.
Alcoholism has been around for nine or ten thousand years, but most of what science understands of brain function is less than eighty years old.
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Whose Fault Is It, Anyway?
It makes us uncomfortable to acknowledge that degree of helplessness.
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Do I Have a Drinking Problem?
Ultimately, you are the only one that makes decisions about your life.
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Believing in the Disease
There’s a big difference between “knowing” that something is a disease, and actually treating it as one.
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Addictive Disease: Why Semantics Matter — and Why They Don’t
But to start opening those doors, someone has to be in the room — that is, they have to be identified (by themselves, preferably, but frequently by others such as the court system or family members) as possible/probable addicts.
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Evolution of a Disease Concept
A model generally supersedes other models not because it is perfect in every respect, but because it seems to explain certain aspects better than its predecessors.
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A (Very New) Beginner’s Guide to the Disease Concept
We’re brought up to view a pattern of problems with alcohol or drugs as the result of a variety of other factors— psychological issues, or lack of willpower, or moral weakness, or some terrible past experience. That makes it difficult for most of us to switch over to the view of addiction as a chronic illness.
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Quick Onset: “One Drink” Alcoholism
One large survey of alcoholics found that some 14% had actually become dependent within a year of the first drink. The percentage almost doubled when the time period was extended to two years.
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It’s Time to Retire “Behavioral Health”
Calling these diseases “behavioral illnesses” and calling our systems of care “behavioral health programs” promotes two destructive, harmful beliefs.
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The Disease Debate
“We’re still stuck at the problem of definition. Until we agree on that, I don’t know how we can resolve it.” And not surprisingly, we didn’t.
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