A number of new sources are talking about the addiction paradigm this week.  For almost 100 years, alcoholism has been defined as a disease.  It took quite a while to get the condition out of the realm of a “moral failure” and into the realm of “medically defined disease.”

But is medicine doing anything to help cure addiction?  Or are they treating it as they treat most conditions:  by over-medicating?

I’ve long maintained that addiction is multi-faceted.  It really can’t be defined as simply a disease or any sort or moral issue.  It’s emotional.  And it’s deeply spiritual.

Medicine cannot touch that.

In my own experience with addiction treatment, I found the paradigm of addiction as a disease to be a box I couldn’t tolerate.  Among the defining elements:

1.  You are powerless in the face of addiction.  No! I have always known, even when I was not acting powerfully around food, money, alcohol, or drama, that I was, nevertheless, powerful.

2.  An addicted person will always be addicted.  No.  Not true! There is no always.  At best, “always” is just an assumption.  How many relationships start out as “always” and never make it past six months?

3.  Cross addiction is acceptable!  No!  What’s the point? In my early days in Overeaters Anonymous, I found that practically everyone there had once been in AA, or GA, or DA, or NA.  How many people quit smoking and gain weight, only to find they substitute food for their firesticks?  As I worked my way out of addiction to food, I was very clear that substituting another substance was unacceptable.

I believe we can grow ourselves up, past our childish obsession with substances that are mere substitutes for the real things we want in life: connection, meaning, love, acceptance, a sense of purpose.

It takes some work.  Addiction demands we look inside at what is working and not working in our lives, and face it directly.

It’s a call to action.

It’s a call to courage.

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