paulska
Cheesehead
And I'm just saying that rejection of the disease model does not preclude one from being intelligent and compassionate. Nor does it represent a lack of understanding. I can tell you with absolute certainty from experience that those alcoholics and drug addicts who see themselves as having a disease have poorer outcomes than those who don't. The ones who think they have a disease almost invariably use that idea to justify further abuse. Those who define their addiction as a problem to be solved by and large have much better outcomes.
I'm not going to argue personal experience with anyone. I can see how that approach can yield positive outcomes. I've also seen positive outcomes arise out of addiction as a disease approach too. Not everyone who views addiction as a disease view it as a crutch- I have seen many young people come to understand that addiction is something they can minimize through tremendously difficult choice making and a host of other strategies, and by treating addiction as a life long condition that has to be managed (not unlike diabetes, a metaphor some clinicians hold up in models like this). I think what this shows is that addiction requires a variety of approaches to deal with, because it doesn't work the same for everyone. It's pretty rare that treating conditions have only one approach in best practice- usually there are a spate of things that could be done with varying degrees of effectiveness. Here's hoping that the Packers can leverage their resources to assist Lyerla with finding the approach that helps him put addiction behind him for life, regardless of what the model used is. It would be great to see...
At the end of this, I suppose when you get down to the finer details of what people actually think, you discover that initial points of view have greater depth than is originally apparent. It seemed to me your first post on this topic was emphatically opposed to thinking of addiction as the result of anything other than poor, selfish, choice making. After chatting back and forth, you make a bunch of valid points on the topic now that we've drilled down, and it's this kind of dialogue I really appreciate about the internet when people have a mind to be civil about exchange and disagreement. Thanks for this!