Addiction Is Not A Disease – Quotes From Experts

What is addiction? The publicly acceptable opinion is that there is a brain disease called addiction that robs people of their free will and compels (i.e. forces) them to crave and take drugs. Many purveyors of this opinion like to pretend that it is settled science, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is painfully ignorant, and probably just a cruel monster who’d like to see drug users rot in jail. But the fact is that the science is not settled in favor of the disease model of addiction, and there are plenty of classically authoritative sources who will attest to this fact. This is probably why the pro-disease camp pivots so quickly to – and indeed often begins by – attacking the morality and motives of those of us who believe we “addicts” retain the power of choice.

This page will be a permanent repository for anti-disease model quotes from various sources such as PhD’s of all kinds, doctors, philosophers, researchers, addiction experts, former heavy substance users, et cetera. I will add to it over time, and since I get many requests for info from students, I hope this page can serve as a great reference source for those looking for credible opinions on the non-disease side of the great debate about the nature of addiction. If you have any quotes you’d like to add, please paste them in the comments section below. I also encourage those of you who have been diagnosed with addiction/alcoholism/Substance Use Disorders, but who reject the disease model of addiction to join these experts and let your opinion be known in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

Addiction Is Not A Disease Quotes

“There are no published studies that establish a causal link between drug-induced neural adaptations and compulsive drug use or even a correlation between drug-induced neural changes and an increase in preference for an addictive drug.”

Gene Heyman (2013). Addiction and Choice: Theory and New Data. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 4.

“Many addiction researchers begin with the assumption that this condition is a brain disease. Yet there are virtually no data in humans indicating that addiction is a brain disease in the way that, for instance, Huntington’s or Parkinson’s are brain diseases. The present evidence indicates that this assumption should be reevaluated to formulate a more accurate view of drug addiction. An evidence-informed view would be more inclusive, would emphasize a prominent role for psychosocial and environmental factors, and would focus on offering alternative reinforcers—nondrug alternatives that decrease problematic drug-taking. From a practical or clinical perspective, this approach means it is unacceptable to tell substance-use disorder patients that they suffer from a diseased brain.

Carl Hart (Columbia University Neuroscientist) & Marc Grifell, “Is Drug Addiction a Brain Disease?” American Scientist magazine (2018).

“I believe that, whatever disease is, it is not mere statistical difference: the idea of pathology requires a state or mechanism to be dysfunctional, not just atypical. Yet much (although not all) of the evidence adduced to support the brain disease model establishes only atypicality, not dysfunction.”

Hannah Pickard, Hastings Center Report (2020)

“as a general rule, where a disease interferes with behaviour it replaces something purposive and coordinated with something chaotic (for example, Parkinsons disease, Huntingdon’s chorea, peripheral neuritis). Commonsense suggests that the disease definition should indeed normally make reference to something which disrupts or is inimical to integrated and purposive behaviour patterns. It does not make sense as a category description for the replacement of one behaviour with a new, equally integrated, coordinated and purposive pattern. If we postulate a disease which has the direct capacity to force people to steal, to lift up glasses, or to stick needles in their arms when they are actually trying not to, and furthermore to execute long strings of appetitive goal-directed behaviour as precursors to these actions, we have to accept the possibility that any integrated chain of goal directed behaviour in any realm might be nothing more than a disease symptom.”

John Booth Davies (1997). Myth of Addiction: Second Edition. 

“people are active agents in–not passive victims of–their addictions.”

Stanton Peele (1999). Diseasing of America: How We Allowed Recovery Zealots and the Treatment Industry to Convince Us We Are Out of Control

“Although the brain disease model of addiction is perceived by many as received knowledge it is not supported by research or logic. In contrast, well established, quantitative choice principles predict both the possibility and the details of addiction.”

Gene Heyman. (2013). Addiction and Choice: Theory and New Data. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 4.

“Pathology, as revolutionized by Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902), requires an identifiable alteration in bodily tissue, a change in the cells of the body, for disease classification. No such identifiable pathology has been found in the bodies of heavy drinkers and drug users. This alone justifies the view that addiction is not a physical disease (Szasz 1991; 1994).”

Jeffrey Schaler PhD, Addiction Is A Choice, 1999.

“Is addiction a disease of the brain? That’s a bit like saying that eating is a phenomenon of the stomach. The stomach is an important part of the story. But don’t forget the mouth, the intestines, the blood, and don’t forget the hunger, and also the whole socially-sustained practice of producing, shopping for and cooking food.

And so with addiction. The neural events in VTA clearly belong to the underlying mechanisms of addiction. They are necessary, but not sufficient; they are only part of the story.”

Alva Noë. Addiction Is Not A Disease Of The Brain.

“While I do believe that a host of human habits and compulsions can be understood as addiction, I think the disease version of addiction does at least as much harm as good. An addiction does not mean that God in heaven decided which people are alcoholics and addicts. There is no biological urge to form addictions, one that we will someday find under a microscope and that will finally make sense of all these different cravings and idiocies (such as exercising to the point of injury or having sex with people who are bad for you). No medical treatment will ever be created to excise addictions from people’s lives, and support groups that convince people that they are helpless and will forever be incapable of controlling an activity are better examples of self-fulfilling prophecies than of therapy.”

Stanton Peele (1999). Diseasing of America: How We Allowed Recovery Zealots and the Treatment Industry to Convince Us We Are Out of Control

“Q: What do you think about the idea that addiction is a progressive incurable brain disease?

A: Ask the person who says that, ‘can you please show me the data to show that?‘ There is absolutely no data to support that fallacious sort of claim. It’s a nice sexy claim and you can show brain imaging pictures and you pretend that you’re telling the person who’s listening something that’s remarkable when in fact you’re not. I wrote a paper back in 2012 that systematically reviewed the brain findings in people who use methamphetamines for extended periods of time. They met the criteria for addiction and all of these things, and could not find this sort of pathological brain structure or measures that people had been talking about, and it was a review of all of that literature.

It’s one of the biggest frauds that’s been perpetrated on the public – this notion of a chronic progressive brain illness.”

Carl Hart PhD, neuroscientist, addiction researcher, interviewed by Michelle Dunbar on Saint Jude Retreats Blogtalkradio Show February 2015

Also see High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society by Carl Hart

“Physical changes in the brain are its only way to learn, to remember, and to develop. But we wouldn’t want to call learning a disease.So how well does the disease model fit the phenomenon of addiction? How do we know which urges, attractions, and desires are to be labeled “disease” and which are to be considered aspects of normal brain functioning? There would have to be a line in the sand somewhere. Not just the amount of dopamine released, not just the degree of specificity in what you find rewarding: these are continuous variables. They don’t lend themselves to two (qualitatively) different states: disease and non-disease.

In my view, addiction (whether to drugs, food, gambling, or whatever) doesn’t fit a specific physiological category. Rather, I see addiction as an extreme form of normality, if one can say such a thing. Perhaps more precisely: an extreme form of learning. No doubt addiction is a frightening, often horrible, state to endure, whether in oneself or in one’s loved ones. But that doesn’t make it a disease.”

Marc Lewis PhD, Neuroscientist, “Why Addiction Is Not a Brain Disease” PLOS Blog, Nov 12 2012.

“…the human behavior summarized as ‘addiction’ is not studied by neurologists… the cultural notions of addiction are taken as wholly self evident and then ‘confirmed’ in neurological description of the same. The notions of addiction transformed into the language of neurology as performed by authors like Volkov, Berridge, Gessa or De Vries are completely tautological.”

Peter Cohen (2009). The Naked Empress. Modern neuro-science and the concept of addiction. Presentation at the 12th Platform for Drug Treatment, Mondsee Austria, 21-22 March 2009. Cedro.

“It surely is irresponsible to claim that ‘addiction’ is a brain disease based on the present state of neurological knowledge and underlying theories and techniques. It is more probable that addiction is a normal human bonding to an object, in spite of the negative social and cultural evaluations it is subjected to.”

Peter Cohen. (2009). The Naked Empress. Modern neuro-science and the concept of addiction. Presentation at the 12th Platform for Drug Treatment, Mondsee Austria, 21-22 March 2009. Cedro.

“…regardless of whether disease explanations fit the facts or not, there are reasons supporting the use of these concepts which derive directly from societal values which are second nature, and which are rigorously defended. A crucial facet of ‘addiction’ which influences treatment offered, outcome success, and all aspects of the substance-abuse system, as well as the nature of the individual cognitions of sufferers, is that it involves behaviour which in terms of conventional societal values needs to be explained as malfunction. It would therefore involve the notion of guilt, for which punishment rather than treatment is generally felt to be appropriate; or worse imply that using drugs was a reasonable adaptation to the world in which we live, should an explanation be offered in terms of personal responsibility or voluntary action.

Addiction is thus driven by a moral, rather than a scientific, consensus. In the absence of such a moral consensus a particular kind of behaviour could not have attributed to it the features that are said to characterise, and that we require from, our addictions. And though people would still encounter the same problems deriving from what Orford (1985 op cit) terms their ‘excessive appetites’, there would be no such thing as ‘addiction’ per se.”

Peter Cohen. (2009). The Naked Empress. Modern neuro-science and the concept of addiction. Presentation at the 12th Platform for Drug Treatment, Mondsee Austria, 21-22 March 2009. Cedro.

“Despite the fact that there is no general agreement about the definition of alcoholism, hundreds of hypotheses have been proposed about what causes it. In 1980 a monograph published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse discussed a selection of specially interesting theories-forty-three of them. The temptation to doubt that the theories could all be wrong must be balanced by the thought that, however plausible they may seem, at least most of them must be wrong. After all, how many true explanations can there be?”

Herbert Fingarette (1989). Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease.

“Research to date has shown that no one causal formula explains plains why people become heavy drinkers. Indeed, the attempt tempt to find a single catchall “cause” of a single “disease” has repeatedly led researchers astray. On the basis of all the available evidence, many scientists are challenging any theory that assumes “[a] sharp distinction between the determinants of ordinary drinking and harmful drinking.”

There are, in short, many kinds of heavy drinking that arise from many different causes and produce many different patterns of associated problems. This recognition, after all these years of research, is not evidence of failure. It is an important and productive discovery, for we now know that we can give up the search for an explanation of a disease that does not exist. We can then look at the realities of alcohol abuse in our society and begin to think constructively about the variety of people and problems associated with alcohol abuse.”

Herbert Fingarette (1989). Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease.

“addiction is not a chemical side effect of a drug. Rather, addiction is a direct result of the psychoactive effects of a substance–of the way it changes our sensations. The experience itself is what the person becomes addicted to. In other words, when narcotics relieve pain, or when cocaine produces a feeling of exhilaration, or when alcohol or gambling creates a sense of power, or when shopping or eating indicates to people that they are being cared for, it is the feeling to which the person becomes addicted. No other explanation–about supposed chemical bondings or inbred biological deficiencies–is required.”

Stanton Peele (1999). Diseasing of America: How We Allowed Recovery Zealots and the Treatment Industry to Convince Us We Are Out of Control

“after reviewing the available research from both sides of the debate, the belief in the disease of alcoholism (addiction), causes the disease. Organizations and institutions that promote the disease theory are, in many cases, doing irreparable harm to the individual and performing a disservice to the population as a whole. Geneticists are aware that a predisposition does not dictate subsequent behavior, and treatment professionals are aware that the programs they offer, fail. It is an outright injustice when faced with the facts. Stripping human beings of their ability to choose is damaging, whereas giving them back the power of their own volition is essential for recovery. Alcoholism is a choice, not a disease.”

Alcoholism Is Not A Disease, Baldwin Research Institute

During the 1990s – known as the “decade of the brain” – advancements in neuroscience and brain imaging meant “technology caught up with the terminology,” Ritter says. “There seemed to be a shift from the term ‘disease’ as a rhetorical device to something that Americans believed literally. This simplifies dependence down to brain chemistry. In reality it is a complex cultural, social, psychological and biological phenomenon.”

Ritter predicts fatigue with the brain disease model. “It has not produced any new technologies for treatment nor necessarily decreased stigma or improved the lot of people who experience dependence problems,” she says. “So in a sense, there is this available space to ask: ‘What has it been good for, if anything?'”

Professor Alison Ritter​, director of the Drug Policy Modeling Program at the University of New South Wales

Quoted in “Why addiction isn’t a disease but instead the result of ‘deep learning'” by Jenny Valentish

“We disagree with your one-dimensional view that addiction is a disease, and with your claim that this view is not particularly controversial among scientists… Neuroscience has been widely documented as just one of many important influences in drug addiction.

Substance abuse… is not simply a consequence of brain malfunction. Such a myopic perspective undermines the enormous impact people’s circumstances and choices have on addictive behaviour. It trivializes the thoughts, emotions and behaviours of current and former addicts.”

Derek Heim of Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK, on behalf of 94 signatories in the addiction field – working in academia; policy; neuroscience, sociological, behavioral, and psychological research; and in professional practice helping people with substance use problems. From a letter to the editors of the Journal Nature, in response to an article stating the typical brain disease view of addiction.

Signatories to the letter:

Ravindra Agrawal Manipal Hospital, Goa, India
Allaman Allamani Firenze, Italy
Philippe Arvers Université de Grenoble, Grenoble, France
Franca Beccaria Eclectica, Institute for Training and Research, Torino, Italy
Virginia Berridge London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Jan Blomqvist Stockholm University, Sweden
Sadie Boniface University College London, UK
Raimondo Bruno University of Tasmania, Australia
Julian Buchanan Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Gerhard Bühringer Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
Doug Cameron University of Leicester (Emeritus), Market Bosworth, Nuneaton, UK
Tanya Chikritzhs Curtin University, Australia
Ross Coomber Plymouth University, UK
Stephanie Covington Center for Gender and Justice, La Jolla, California, USA
Phil Dalgarno Glasgow Caledonian University, UK
John B. Davies University of Strathclyde (Emeritus), Glasgow, UK
Tom Decorte Ghent University, Belgium
Vagner Dos Santos University of Brasilia, Brasilia-DF, Brazil
Cameron Duff Monash University, Victoria, Australia
Johan Edman Stockholm University, Sweden
Francisco Eiroa Orosa University of East London, UK
Niamh Fitzgerald University of Stirling, UK
Alasdair Forsyth Glasgow Caledonian University, UK
Vibeke Asmussen Frank Aarhus University, Denmark
Suzanne Fraser Curtin University, Victoria, Australia
Lars Fynbo Social Policy and Welfare Services, Copenhagen, Denmark
Wayne Hall The University of Queensland, Herston, Australia
Jan Halldin Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden
Richard Hammersley University of Hull, UK
Lana Harrison University of Delaware, Newark, USA
Carl Hart Columbia University, New York, USA
Nick Heather Northumbria University (Emeritus), Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Derek Heim Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK
Matilda Hellman University of Helsinki, Finland
Ray Hodgson Alcohol Research UK, London, UK
John Holmes University of Sheffield, UK
Geoffrey Hunt Institute for Scientific Analysis, Alameda, California, USA
Jerome H. Jaffe University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Margaretha Järvinen University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Chris-Ellyn Johanson Chicago, Illinois, USA
Harold Kalant University of Toronto (Emeritus), Ontario, Canada
Katherine J. Karriker-Jaffe San Mateo, California, USA
Srinivasa Vittal Katikireddi MRC/CSO Social and Public Health
Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, UK
Florence Kellner Carleton University (Emeritus), Ottawa, Canada
Axel Klein University of Kent, UK
Dirk J. Korf Universiteit van Amsterdam, Netherlands
Anja Koski-Jännes University of Tampere (Emeritus), Finland
Kypros Kypri University of Newcastle, Australia
Paul Lemmens University of Maastricht, Netherlands
Neil Levy University of Melbourne, Australia
Scott O. Lilienfeld Emory University, Georgia, Atlanta, USA
Anne Lingford-Hughes Imperial College London, UK
Susanne MacGregor London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Claire Mawditt University College London, UK
Jim McCambridge London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK
Neil McKeganey Centre for Drug Misuse Research, Glasgow, UK
Petra S. Meier University of Sheffield, UK
Rebecca Monk Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK
David Moore Curtin University, Victoria, Australia
Philip Murphy Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK
Ethan Nadelmann Drug Policy Alliance, New York City, New York, USA
Abhijit Nadkarni London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
James Nicholls Alcohol Research UK, London, UK
Kerry O’Brien Monash University, Australia
Pat O’Hare Prevessin, France
Stephen Parkin University of Huddersfield, UK
Andy Parrott Swansea University, UK
Stanton Peele New York City, New York, USA
Andrew Percy Queen’s University Belfast, UK
Hanna Pickard University of Oxford, UK
Melissa Raven Flinders University, Australia
Amanda Reiman University of California, Berkeley, USA
Craig Reinarman University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
Tim Rhodes London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Ron Roizen Wallace, Idaho, USA
Stephen Rollnick Cardiff University, UK
Anders Romelsjö Karolinska Institutet (Emeritus), Sweden
Robin Room University of Melbourne, Australia
Fred Rotgers Manasquan, New Jersey, USA
Alastair Roy University of Central Lancashire, UK
Sally Satel Yale University, USA
Toby Seddon University of Manchester, UK
Gillian W. Shorter University of Ulster, UK
Roland Simon European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Lisbon, Portugal
Martine Stead University of Stirling, UK
Gerry Stimson Imperial College London (Emeritus); London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Tim Stockwell University of Victoria, Canada
Jessica Storbjörk Stockholm University, Sweden
Stuart Taylor Liverpool John Moores University, UK
Andy Towers Massey University, New Zealand
Richard Velleman University of Bath (Emeritus), UK
Darin Weinberg University of Cambridge, UK
Reinout W. Wiers Universiteit van Amsterdam, Netherlands
Sharon C. Wilsnack University of North Dakota, USA

Too often anecdote alone and misinterpretation of data drive the unrealistic and inaccurate drug stories presented to the public. For example, despite the fact that there are practically no data indicating that recreational drug use causes a brain disease, many people, including some drug scientists, believe otherwise. But beliefs alone are insufficient to guide drug-education efforts and evidence-based health policies.

Carl Hart (2021). Drug Use for Grown-Ups.
See more of Carl’s work at drcarlhart.com


Loss Of Control of Drug and Alcohol Use

“Up to the early 1960’s the evidence on which formulations of loss of control and craving had been based were the clinical observations of psychiatrists and other professional helpers and the historical reports of their experiences given by recovered alcoholics themselves. Thus the ultimate source of this evidence was, in both cases, the retrospective accounts of past or present alcoholics made when sober. However well-intentioned and devoted to accuracy, such accounts are obviously suspect for scientific purposes, owing, for example, to alcohol-induced amnesias, to the general fallibility of human memory, the possibility of conscious or unconscious anticipation of the interviewer’s expectations and the influence of theoretical constructions of alcoholism to which the alcoholic individual or the interviewer may have subscribed. The main point is that no systematic observations of alcoholics’ drinking behavior had been made under controlled conditions and subject to elementary objective criteria for the collection of scientific data.”

Nick Heather & Ian Robertson, Controlled drinking, 1981

“Case-control studies do not show whether addiction is a cause or a consequence of differences in brain structure and function or some combination of the two. Patterns of brain activity on MRI in people with addiction differ from people without addiction and do not show the use of drugs is a compulsion. The fact that decreased activity in frontal brain regions is modestly correlated with self- reported drug craving does not show that drug use is driven by irresistible impulses.”

Hall, W., Carter, A., & Forlini, C. (2015). The brain disease model of addiction: is it supported by the evidence and has it delivered on its promises? The Lancet Psychiatry, 2(1), 105–110.

“Is being addicted really something else as not wanting to change behavior? Resisting change in spite of negative consequences is such a basic element of everyday life, that when googling “resistance to change” 532.000 results appear, from scientific to popular literature. ‘Resistance to change’ is not often read as loss of control, but in the case of addiction it is. The key is in words like ‘uncontrollable’ and ‘compulsive’ but as said, we may have a very selective eye for where we assume the existence of control, and where not.”

Peter Cohen (2009). The Naked Empress. Modern neuro-science and the concept of addiction. Presentation at the 12th Platform for Drug Treatment, Mondsee Austria, 21-22 March 2009. Cedro.



19 comments

  1. I am so so glad to see this stuff in writing. I have been debating with folks for years over addiction being a choice. I have been called names, been unfriended and told I don’t know what I’m talking about. I usually lose them when I make the statement that no one wakes up one day addicted. You can’t become addicted unless you use. Addicts make a conscious choice to go do their thing. They don’t just wake up one day knowing what they are addicted to, where to get it and how to use it. It is a learned behavior.

  2. My thesis on Addiction :Is it a Disease a Choice or Both? I am submitting tonight is a look thru my eyes as a recovering addict. I believe that both models intertwine. I believe that it begins with a conscious choice to use however, when the drug is ingested and the brain is altered if coupled with a person who suffers from OCD, but not limited to that disorder the addict becomes powerless over voluntary choice. I also believe that it is a choice once you wake up after you sleep it off and our higher power gives us a fresh slate to make good or bad right or wrong choices to use that day. Drugs are mind and mood altering so once you make the initial choice to use you render yourself powerless. Is it possible if the word disease was changed to disorder that it would be more acceptable? SOme drugs affect just the mind like cocaine but opiates are also physical and oftentimes in the mind of physical too. I suffer from being addicted to both and went 27 years clean from cocaine before relapsing on opiates which was never a drug of choice. After relapsing I feared the physical withdraws that I never experienced with cocaine. I was arrested and fortunately besides feeling fatigue I didn’t experience the physical withdraws addicts say they do. I also had gastric bypass surgery prior to my opiate addiction which means my body absorption is much different than someone who has not. I’m in my 1st year of getting my BSHS/AC and my goal is to open a non profit organization go into the prisons and schools and teach conflict resolution, critical thinking along with CBT . I’m 48 and never been to prison prior to the 11 months I served 3 years ago that opened my eyes and saved my life along with giving me my new found passion to want to Reach 1 Teach 1. Getting back to the discussion I feel that the third model offered is the best option that its neither a disease or a choice but both and starts with a choice followed by the powerlessness and involuntary decision-making. But hey we are all entitled to an opinion right. I just pray I continue to make the right choice to never pick up again and so long as I do then I will be living the life of recovery. I pray that even when the worst of life shows up I am able to deal with it in a manner that I will not fall short and remember the pain of active addiction. Thank you for your insight I enjoyed reading your material and will sight your source in my essay.

  3. This is a scewed perspective from a bunch of academics. After over 40 years I am still an addict,clean. but still… No one can tell me that my addiction is merely my “choice. ” What haunts me has nothing to do with choice. It is a choice precursor. I have to make the right choice to survive. The demon that prompts me to choose is very real.

  4. I HAVE in my “library” almost ALL of the books cited above! They are ALL “MUST READS” for any serious “addiction studies” student!

  5. You can always find naysayers in any field even with established medicine

    I will admit that alcohol use is a choice until it no longer is a choice. And now we are back to powerlessness or the inability to control our drinking. But does that make it a disease? Assuming all alcohol use is voluntary, alcohol disrupts the proper functioning of the body making it a disease: “a disorder of structure or function in a human.” But since alcoholism itself is potentially fatal, it logically follows that alcoholism is a disease except to those who lack the capacity to be rigorously honest who cannot be returned to soundness of mind and body, a.k.a. “sanity”, as the Second Step promises.

    It is undeniable that when alcoholism reaches a point in its progression that denying the body alcohol or practicing sudden and complete abstinence results in delirium tremens (DTs) or withdrawal symptoms that are potentially fatal, repeat, POTENTIALLY FATAL! This happens because the body is physically “addicted” to alcohol, hence the term withdrawal. It is apparent therefore that this is “a disorder of structure or function in a human” or qualifies as a disease.

    But have it your way!

    1. Please cite ANY recent example, with verifiable proof, where “alcohol” attacked a human, and forced its continuing, increasing, “progressive” ingestion! Please prove how ANY DRUG has “power” to force its use by a human being without the human being having ANY interaction with it. Please describe how a person “gives a disease to themselves” when a REAL MEDICAL DISEASE (e.g. influenza, cancer, high blood pressure!) determines what form it takes when it invades a human being (or do humans get to pick their cancers?). Please cite the ACTUAL FLIPPING DEFINITION of “disease” that gets taught in ACCREDITED medical schools, and how this thing called “addiction” meets that CRITERIA (I asked an MD on Quora to do this! I am still waiting for a response-and that was a month ago!). Please explain how an “addiction” to a substance can continue somehow AFTER use of the substance or the activity has STOPPED! And if you are a medical professional, please put your credentials on here for verification, or so the appropriate state licensing can be contacted, so they can explain how a “quack” that believes what you posted is somehow a “competent” medical professional with a license to practice, and has access to human beings! I doubt I will get this! Wake the fuck up and ENTER the 21st Century!
      Bullshit from a 1939 book (that no reputable publisher even THEN would not publish!) is NOT valid data, nor a definitive source! But I’ll wait. I am dying to see your response.

  6. Thank you for your angry input. Should you like to have an adult discussion, let me know.

    30 years ago I too was a very angry and miserable soul and a 12-step program helped me. Maybe Alanon, Nar-Anon, Emotions or Neurotics Anonymous, or CODA may bring you some relief. God willing you will find relief.

    1. You changed because you decided you wanted to, did, and that was it. The mental masturbtion that you engaged in via a 12 Step “group”, only reenforced you previously CHOSEN decision. As for the “god” thing, how do you know it didn’t WANT YOU to be angry/addicted/neuorotic, etc? If your “god” thing has a “will”, how do you know that you being a deplorable dysfunctional is not it? Or have you proved the existence of a “god”, and personally know its “exact will”? Do give the details on that, and THEN we can have an “adult discussion”, since you thinking that there is some “deity” only proves that you do cannot demonstrate the mental maturity required for adulthood! Have a good day anyway!

      1. Fact is I “chose” to seek help with my alcoholic problem. Perhaps you should do the same with your anger problem.

        Have a blessed day!

        1. I have no “problem” with my anger. i accept it as just another emotion that comes with being human. Don’t you wish you were human enough to have the same? The existence of “12 Step idiots” DO bring it forth though. Once the pathetic religion of “12 Steppism” is GONE, the anger will be too. Problem solved. Oh well, have a good day anyway!

      2. I just began reading your rants as I stumbled on this page. You seem like u need some real help. Yoyr anger and hatred at people who do not subscribe to your particular views is very shocking. . Theres no reason to spew vile names at people you dont agree with. . Tyou are controlling ,or trying,a narrative that is not a wide held belief. And as more and more research ,technology and medical breakthroughs occur,you will hopefully be open to the idea that there is not only 1 way,1 definition, or 1 answer. Addiction is very complicated, and I know what I speak of. I dont need to give you any of my credentials, and I dont post them all over the place. I know what I kniw,and it is this…..I’ve never in the thousands of addicts I’ve known in my life ,I’ve not had ONE tell me they chose addiction. Not one . Please chill out,or at least sleak like a mature human who doesn’t call out names.often times people do that as they are so unhappy with themselves. I sure hope you find joy and light…..its so much nicer like that. Have the best day ever.

  7. Drugs and alcohol and everything under the sun only have the power we choose to give them. Even when we tell ourselves it isn’t this way. So what are we looking for when we choose and why are we choosing it’s nobody’s business but our own but you could always pay someone to convince you otherwise. It’s scary sure it is to think this is really me really my choosing and think
    Yes I choose that but it’s still no ones business but yours. The world wants to sell you the idea that the grass is greener cos tbph life just sucks sometimes but sometimes it don’t. If addiction is a disease then being human is a disease and the bad news is there’s no cure so suck it up and choose your next move….. over to you 👌

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