Charles Socci Dot Com

I just read [somerthing that really upset me] over at a site called Saint Jude Retreat House. A.K.A. http://www.soberforever.net/.

This place claims that 12 step programs don’t work. They claim that traditional treatment for addiction does not work. They claim that current treatment programs can actually be harmful. They claim that addicition is not a disease.

Well holy cow… after all these years drug and alcohol addiction aren’t diseases afterall. They are simply choices. Sounds a lot like Nancy Regan to me. Just say NO! Choose not to be an addict and it will go away… just like THAT! Maybe they are Republicans.

“Rather than lamenting over an imaginary disease, The Jude Thaddeus Program concentrates solely on the solutions to one’s problems and the responsibility of living the principles of honesty, unselfishness, love and purity.”

The more I read about this place on their website the more I want to puke. I don’t want this post to turn into a rant against this $9,450 program. What I want to do is speak to some of these claims. I am mad as hell at the thought that somone could throw addiction research and treatment back to the dark ages. I am pissed that once again, alcohol and drug addiction are clearly being called a character defect, a lack of integrity, a figment of the imagination, and a weakness of mind over matter.

I’ve been clean for three and a half years. I know a few things about addiction.

It is different for everyone. You have to want to beat it. And; in most cases, it is DEFINITELY chemical - or better put AN ILLNESS.

Addictions tend to exist as substiutes for other human - or - physical needs. The strength of addcition varies from person to person. Addicts often REALLY DO HATE their habits. They endure great personal shame at their lack of ability to put them down. Yet there is SOME  need that is SO satisfied by the habit they can’t give it up. The key is finding what NEED that habit is satisfying. That’s the tough part. That need isn’t always a simple one.

Sometimes spirituality, companionship or meetings and communig with other people can satisfy that need. Usually its a combination of those things and fixing something that is PHYSICALLY MISSING from the victim.

For some people, the drug, substance or behavior they are addicted to stimulates certain areas of the brain. Not only does their body learn to physically depend on the substance, but the brain is triggered in a way that is only recently becoming able to be explained.

To make a gross, very gross oversimplification its like a little switch in the brain that releases a certain state of being into the body. When you hit that little switch hard enough and directly enough there is an excitement, or a calming, or a feeling of peace, or a feeling of being ten feet tall and bullet-proof (to borrow a phrase from someone I met in a bar in Plano, Texas one night many, many years ago). Many addicted people were born with; or ended up with a switch that doesn’t the work the way it is supposed to. These switches are composed of various types of physical and chemical structures inside the brain.

Most people already have a good balance of chemicals and switches in their brain. They might try a drug or drink from time to time but it doesn’t stick. They might have done a line of cocaine at a party and got a little high but couldn’t really see what the big fuss was about. Its expensive and against the law. Half the time its a rip-off. One never knows exactly what they are selling. So why bother? There are a million reasons not to bother.

Other people snort that first line and, as I have heard it described time and again, found what they had been looking for all their lives. They return to use again and again - because suddenly for a while they’ve found something that makes them feel good for a change, whole, in control of their lives.

What are the differences between these people? Character? Love and Purity? Honesty? Selflessness?

This is where we can start to define an illness. That first time feeling is SO dramatic for most addicts they continue to chase it again and again. That little switch in their brain is a tiny and not-very-sensitive switch. For whatever reason, these people usually have unusual chemistires in their brain. Some studies have shown the switch sensitivites are genetic. Some studies show the brain can become so damaged from violence or early childhood experience that these little brain switches become unable to respond until some chemical comes along and hits them hard enough.

Why are some drugs more addictive than others? Some durgs are so powerful that one inhales and within a few seconds the heart is pounding and the feeling is like going down a very, very steep roller coaster at 100 MPH. Drugs like crack and meth hit that switch HARD. But it only lasts a few minutes and then one feels like shit. One does it again, again and they keep hitting that switch over and over again. Eventually there isn’t anymore ‘feel good’ left in that switch. They hit a lot of other switches too. Ones that make them paranoid. Ones that make them crazy. Ones that let them do things they really don’t want to do. Its ALL chemical. Its not a weakness of character. Its not a lack of honesty or purity. Its what the drug does to their brain.

Nicotine is a familiar drug to most people. Why is it some can take it or leave it? Why is it some can quit cold turkey the first time? Why is it that some people can never quit? Does it have anything to do with honesty, purity or being selfish? I know people who will stand outside their homes in sub-zero temperatures to smoke a cigarette because they can’t do it inside or don’t want to expose their family to the smoke. Is the cigarette really THAT good? Nicotine hits one of those switches, but the nature of nicotine and the nature of smoking a cigarette is that you puff that cigarette again and again until it is gone. It hits that switch every 30 seconds, with every puff, times however many packs a day. I knew someone who was heroin addict for 18 years. He quit. He’d been clean for twenty years when I knew him. He couldn’t quit smoking. He tried. He kicked heroin but he couldn’t quit smoking.

Other drugs like alcohol and heroin are longer lasting, but the more they are used the more impossible they make it for the brain to experience any joy or pleasure without them. They muck up those switches in the brain so that they don’t work very well anymore. In time, if one tries to stop the drug the body begins to rebel and one gets SICK. The good news is that the damage can often be reversed.

I think addiction is an illness. For me, being treated by a doctor and finding the RIGHT combination of medications eliminated my need for anything outside of medical science. It was quite dramatic. I used to sip a drink and that first swallow brought a feeling of “thank God” now I can feel all right… After I began being treated with a drug that regulated my moods and my chemistry, that drink had no punch. It completely lost its power. Something else was regulating my switches. I didn’t need a HAMMER to make them work any more. My wife didn’t drink and eventually I was ABLE to make that decision too - because my underlying chemical ILLNESS had been treated. I didn’t want to drink any more. I didn’t need to drink any more.

We are all human. Most of us could be a little less selfish, a little more honest, a little more loving. (uh, not sure exactly what ‘pure’ means exactly). Certainly we have to want to quit. But we must understand the underlying need - and for those of us whose need is a sickness - fix it. Neither honesty, pureness, kindness, love nor graciousness alone are going to save us from our demons and there is NOTHING imaginary about the illness of addiction.