Does It Really Matter If Addiction Is a Disease?

Lately I have been hearing a lot about certain claims of cures and the importance of understanding addiction as a disease. I’m in the camp that it is a disease. I’ve studied enough of the scientific research to know that the brains of addicts are different – whether that was true before they started using or after doesn’t change the fact that once they are in the grips of addiction the brain IS different. To claim that means it’s not a disease would be like saying someone who didn’t get diabetes until they ate a lot of sugar and was overweight doesn’t really have a disease.

The question is, however, does it really matter? Obviously it matters in terms of research into ways to treat addiction, but what I’m asking is if it really matters to the addict who is trying to get sober, right now. Probably not.

Addicts know their life is a mess. He or she knows that the drug or drink they so desperately crave doesn’t seem to do the trick anymore. They know the consequences they continue to reap: financial problems, family problems, personal health problems.

I don’t need the disease stamp of approval to know I need to do something and I need to do it now.

Addiction is a funny thing. It really alters your perceptions of the world. Addicts become uniquely talented at justifying behavior that once would have horrified them. We embarrass ourselves, hurt loved ones, and harm our health. Yet we continue to seek out the drug unless we reach that point where we say, “Enough is enough.”

Then the hard part comes: learning how to live without life being modified by substances.

So in the end we can applaud anyone who devotes their life to studying addiction, it’s causes, and possible treatments, but for the addict in this moment, on this day, the cause doesn’t really matter, just the solution.