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All I hear about opiates abuse and alcohol abuse is that people are dying of these terrible diseases. Cancer is a disease. MS is a disease. Even the common cold is a disease. How is drinking or eating pills all day to mess with your conscienceless a disease? You did it. How come smoking isn't a disease?
All I hear about opiates abuse and alcohol abuse is that people are dying of these terrible diseases. Cancer is a disease. MS is a disease. Even the common cold is a disease. How is drinking or eating pills all day to mess with your conscienceless a disease? You did it. How come smoking isn't a disease?
There was a debate about this on our local (Boston) call in talk program last night. Most people who called in do not like it being called a disease. It is a choice. I think it is a choice at first and then it becomes a form of disease. As someone who called in explained, once they are addicted, they do not even know they are addicted. And of course, they cannot stop.
In the past I thought of it more as mental illness. Where do you draw the line between mental and physical illness? The brain chemistry is changed. But in many people who are mentally ill, it's said to be due to a problem with brain chemistry. Yet those people are called mentally ill.
Maybe it's a mental illness just as schizophrenia is a mental illness. But opiate abuse started off as a choice and schizophrenia did not.
People who called into the program last night wanted the dealers to be jailed for life. Sometimes I feel that they should be sent somewhere far away and locked up to keep them away from other people. The dealers are the ones who help the others to become addicted.
I think it is a form of mental illness but I don't have much sympathy because this didn't come out of nowhere. They chose to have a mental illness. It's probably been classified as a disease so that they can get help. (Although most cannot be helped and relapse over and over.)
All I hear about opiates abuse and alcohol abuse is that people are dying of these terrible diseases. Cancer is a disease. MS is a disease. Even the common cold is a disease. How is drinking or eating pills all day to mess with your conscienceless a disease? You did it. How come smoking isn't a disease?
It is. The disease is called Addiction. It covers all substances. Addiction to some substances, like alcohol, can easily lead to a person being non-functional, and certainly leads to chronic disability and other diseases, while the disease of addiction to smoking does not incapacitate a person or make them non-functional (until they develop another disease such as COPD).
The definition of disease is "a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury."
So needing nicotine to function normally, and displaying signs and symptoms of nicotine addiction (and yes, there are physical withdrawal symptoms) qualifies it as a disease.
Addiction is a chronic disease characterized by drug seeking and use that is compulsive, or difficult to control, despite harmful consequences.
Drug addiction follows a similar pattern to other chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes. The patient will go into remission, but may have several relapses before beating the disease entirely. And like these diseases, addiction too can be treated and managed.
Most addictions are classified as a disease in The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) and The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).
Horse/dog racing and social gambling (bingo, auctions for charity, and private card games) is allowed.
Also Native American lands are not subject to the same state gambling laws.
The Texas constitution has a provision that goes back 100 years that prohibits gambling in Texas so, gambling is not something that the legislature could pass if it wanted to without voter approval.
There was a debate about this on our local (Boston) call in talk program last night. Most people who called in do not like it being called a disease. It is a choice. I think it is a choice at first and then it becomes a form of disease. As someone who called in explained, once they are addicted, they do not even know they are addicted. And of course, they cannot stop.
In the past I thought of it more as mental illness. Where do you draw the line between mental and physical illness? The brain chemistry is changed. But in many people who are mentally ill, it's said to be due to a problem with brain chemistry. Yet those people are called mentally ill.
Maybe it's a mental illness just as schizophrenia is a mental illness. But opiate abuse started off as a choice and schizophrenia did not.
People who called into the program last night wanted the dealers to be jailed for life. Sometimes I feel that they should be sent somewhere far away and locked up to keep them away from other people. The dealers are the ones who help the others to become addicted.
I think it is a form of mental illness but I don't have much sympathy because this didn't come out of nowhere. They chose to have a mental illness. It's probably been classified as a disease so that they can get help. (Although most cannot be helped and relapse over and over.)
People don't choose to get addicted. People CHOOSE to get pain relief...others CHOOSE to get high...no one thinks THEY'LL get addicted. And not everyone DOES get addicted - it's not 100%. That's the difference.
Do people CHOOSE to get diabetes? They ate all the wrong things...got fat from lots of carbs. Wasn't THAT a choice? No, not everyone gets diabetes from bad eating habits but they should have known better, right? Why take a chance? Gluttons, weak...
IMO, taking excessive amounts of pills or alcohol, or smoking cigarettes aren't a disease but things that could lead to disease/sickness or death. Most who have these things probably weren't feeling good and they think these things make them feel better. Or it could be just copying others, or something genetic,
Symptoms of a problem might be the better description for excessive drug use than use is a disease. The problem causing use could be almost anything, physical and/or mental stress would seem most likely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ltdontcare
All I hear about opiates abuse and alcohol abuse is that people are dying of these terrible diseases. Cancer is a disease. MS is a disease. Even the common cold is a disease. How is drinking or eating pills all day to mess with your conscienceless a disease? You did it. How come smoking isn't a disease?
I always thought a disease was something airborne that could be caught by others... ,but I suppose that comes under infectious diseases...... booze , drugs and cigarettes no..
surely all self inflicted addictions.
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