Aa
EVERYONE LETS GET SOME VIEWS:
This issue is driving me nuts: CHEM-DEPENDENCE--VS--ADDICTION.
I used/booze off and on most of my life because it was the party...but when the opiates got me, I went up the latter to more and a mix to match...So I did not think of addiction until I no longer could control myself and could not give them up do to fear of w/ds. As most I feel we came to a Chem Dependence.The drugs got me up and going........but what in the world is the difference between the two...I read and listen to people but ?????
I used/booze off and on most of my life because it was the party...but when the opiates got me, I went up the latter to more and a mix to match...So I did not think of addiction until I no longer could control myself and could not give them up do to fear of w/ds. As most I feel we came to a Chem Dependence.The drugs got me up and going........but what in the world is the difference between the two...I read and listen to people but ?????
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I read an article yesterday about an the owner of a building that held AA meetings selling Oxycodone before, in between and after meetings. Nothing surprises me anymore! In any case, some people don't realize that there isn't a difference between alcoholism and addiction, it's just the substance that resignates (sp?) with the user most. In our bodies though a drug is a drug is a drug. So a determining gene wouldn't determine WHICH substance a person would be likely to abuse. If there was such a thing. And I supposed if there was, perhaps they may be able to identify that down the road. But first things first.
The GENE thing is no big thing for me NOW ..Physicains and the public are trying to understand better the interactions between genetics and addiction. The number of a certain type of dopamine receptors , known as D2, might someday be used to predict wheather someone will become addicted. Brain images suggest that people with the fewer D2 receptors are more likely to become addicted than those with many-and how many they have is genetically determined. Of course environmental factors also play a role, so propensity isn't destiny. First a person has to experiment with the substance, then repeatedly use them. At that point, genetic vulnerability helps determine who winds up addicted...Genes also account for 60 percent of tendency to be come addicted and 54 percent of one's abitity to quit.......NOW Maybe if this would save a Kid or Two to beware what can happen then YES.... I would be all for it!!! Although we can tell them but we cannot control there destiny... Knowledge might help people to unterstand what can happen..No one wants to be an addict... I know it would be for the ones who would Listen...and Yes alot of addiction is from deprssion ect mentall illness, but why should they not be aware and the DR too.
God Bless us we are only addicts..
vickie
God Bless us we are only addicts..
vickie
COMMUNITY LEADER
As far as i am concerned if they ever find an "addiction gene" it will be just one more excuse to use in active addiction.
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I respectfully disagree, there IS a difference. There ARE a lot of areas where the two are similar and even interwine for some people, but there is a big difference between someone who is just physically dependent on a drug and someone who has the mental dependency aspect.
Someone here once described it very well, and very simply...dependence is PHYSICAL, addiction is MENTAL. That does pretty much describe the difference in a nut shell.
The way I look at it is...a person who is dependent but not an addict doesn't display those maladaptive behaviors that an addict does. There's no "romancing" the drug, no mental NEED or desire to take them. People who are not addicted would not seek the drug out other than for their pain (or whatever a med is Rx'ed for). Even when they KNEW that skipping doses would lead to w/d...they still really don't have that mental need for the medication. A physical one, sure, because of course they don't want to have to experience w/ds. Besides the w/d, they can just walk away from it, and never look back, never having a need or interest in tsking those pills again...whereas an addict has to struggle with those desires and cravings for the rest of their life.
The mental and behavioral aspect of an addiction is what differentiates the two. The two terms are often used interchangeably, where is where a lot of confusion comes from, IMO.
Both are issues that need addressed, but even that is appraoched differently. A person who is dependent doesn't need the aftercare, doesn't need to explore why they are taking the meds...they just need help getting off of them when the time comes.
I think this is a great discussion, I feel strongly that there needs to be more awareness and understanding about the differences between the two. I think people who are just dependent need to be sure they're not being treated as if they have an addiction. Like,I personally strongly disagree with Suboxone being used for someone who is only dependent. ACTUALLY, Sub docs should NOT be treating them, as there is very specific criteria a patient has to meet in order to be accepted for sub treatment...and some of those criteria involve the addictive history and behaviors...which would not be present in a person who is only dependent. I never saw any patients like that in the clinic I worked for. The doc I worled with took those criteria seriously. One of the guidelines is (or used to be) that a person had to be abusing drugs for at least 12 months...she was adamant about that, unless a person was very close. If a person had only been abusing opiates for a couple months, she told them that sub treatment was not appropriate for them.
And, lastly it shouldn't be about one (dependency vs addiction) being "better" or "worse" than the other (as we see a lot of times in people's attitudes), they're just different. Apples and oranges.