Addiction: A Habit Or A Disease?
Addiction. Whether you view it as a disease, a substance abuse disorder (SUD), or both. The reason behind this is nothing more than our humanistic need to define something. To put it in a box and store it in our mind as "X".
At Crow's Nest Ranch here in Truckee, California we approach addiction with a more medically contemporary idea as a habit. A psychological hook that we can free ourselves from through new activities, adjusted thought patterns, mindful presence, and healthy self-rewarding systems. We do not deny the need for a "higher power" whatsoever as that is wholly up to the individual but approach this medical condition with science first.
Where our use initially started as an innocent coping mechanism to issues that sit deeper within us all, we understand that it grew to something much larger and less manageable.
In fact, the disease model was created back in the late 18th century by two physicians, Benjamin Rush (1746-1813) and Thomas Trotter (1760-1832), and was a more astute description of substance abuse. “The habit of inebriation…has seldom been the object of medical admonition and practice” (Trotter, 1804) So for the time, this was actually a very progressive way to describe substance abuse and actually assisted in the advancement of our society being able to understand addiction as more than someone experiencing “a spell of mania”.
Unfortunately, this idea of the disease model has held strong for almost 200 years while other medical practices and understandings have progressed immensely.
It is still widely referred to across all media and popular outlets as a disease. Again, if that is your way of defining it then great! Call it a disease or even a 400-pound weasel on your shoulder.
We know that we can go from a state of constant maintenance into a permanent place of appreciating a happier and healthier life.
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