Is it infallibly true that some drugs should be illegal?

[Bill_7154]

It would have been nice if Catholics or Christians had not persecuted people centuries ago over superstitious things. In general atheists don’t believe in witches where many Christians may have at one time. And my point is you and Coptic unwittingly are making Catholics look like nit wits.

I believe a Catholic nun - if my memory is correct - was even involved in the early formations of AA. But AA was influenced by Protestant Christians involved in the Oxford Movement (C.S. Lewis I think was involved in the Oxford Movement). And again, if I remember correctly, part of the aim of the Oxford Movement was for Anglicans to recapture more of their catholicity.

It is true AA, NA, and CA say promote the new comer as the most important person in the room. I just heard this today from a person at an NA meeting with 6 years clean. Previously he had 20 years sobriety - he gained on his own without NA or ever attending any meetings - before he relapsed. Now, he finds personal growth in going through spiritual and character steps of the 12 Step Program. Part of which is for those that gain sobriety to help others - the new comers - rather than be selfish and turned inward. This act of learning to be less selfish (which they claim addiction makes people become increasingly) is why they encourage “service work” at the meetings.

The meetings themselves offer a community of addicts working to recover (rather than use) and giving each other moral support. Not unlike war veteran groups. Or any other group of people that share common struggles or problems.

And it’s that moral support - from people that understand what you are going through - which is the primary reason I attend. I have no delusions that AA, NA, or CA is not a “magic pill.” Mind you… there are many serious members of AA, NA, and CA that talk about these groups just like Mormons talk about the Mormon Church of Catholics talk about salvation coming through the Catholic Church.

But like I said… AA, NA, and CA methods are akin to Catholicism or religion and not science.

This Dr. Bernie you speak of found no cure nor was he engaged in the scientific methodology of treating pathologies at the chemical level with drugs. What Dr. Bernie did - and your assertions about it working for you and therefore must work for every other person - was a regression into shamanism. And the Shamans medicine worked. That’s why they were not killed. Except it never worked all the time, and it was explained away when it worked on Persons A, B, and C but not on Persons D, E, and F that persons D, E, and F either failed to pray hard enough, or didn’t believe the medicine would work, or that they didn’t “really want to be cured.”

That not how modern science or modern medicine works. You don’t need to believe or even want the medicine to work. It will work anyways.

Or put it this way, there is no “wanting crack to work” or “wanting alcohol to intoxicate you.” They will always work anyways irrespective of what the person consuming them wants or believes. It’s a chemical thing that has to do with the laws within chemistry.

This is why psychiatrists treat people with drugs whereas psychologists treat people along the lines of Catholicism (Spiritual Director - had one in Catholicism) or AA, NA, and CA.

You should be ashamed of yourself for saying some of the things you said. Shaman’s are doctors who write things for people to read and reflect on? Interesting, I didn’t know that. Next time I see my doctor (monday) when he opens his mouth I’ll be sure to let him know he’s a shaman. lol

Do your due dilligence before making assertions about me, anything I say, or anything anyone else says lest you are engaging in libelious behavior.

 

[Bill_7154]

Bill,

What you are speaking of is Karpman’s drama triangle that was adapted to the alcoholic paradigm.

The triangle involves VICTIM-PERPRETATOR-RESCUER…and the addict is forever and a day the victim. It is applied to this addiction paradigm but works in any dysfunctional relationship of which I am sure you will agree the addict is dysfunctional. It is a paradigm that is a description of dysfunction and not necessarily alcoholic, cocaine or any other drug…in fact there does not have to be any drugs involved…just dysfunction…

Interesting. Could you describe examples of ‘perpretator’ for me? Using alcoholics would be helpful but other common examples would be as well.

Thanks

 

[Tenofovir]

Holly,

My grandmother way dying of terminal cancer back in the early 80’s. This was when there were 5 people in the whole of the USA legally allowed to use medical mj. This was back in the day when police would kick in the doors of aids patients growing mj to smoke it so they could have some type of appetite to counteract their ‘waisting away syndrome’.

My grandmother’s doctor, who was treating her with chemo, but she was terminally ill, advised her to smoke mj to counteract the severe neausea one gets from chemo. Since I grew up in a very disfunctional family none of my grandmothers children were stepping up to the plate to take her to her chemo treatments. I was in high school and took days off to take her.

I also procured mj for her as her doctor recommended she smoke it, but wasn’t able to prescribe it. He even let her smoke it in the hospital in a room before she got her chemo treatments.

This was the beginning of the shaping of my views on mj and whether or not it should be illegal, and under what circumstances. Here I am a boy, not yet 18, effectively being made into a criminal in order to assist my dying grandmother to find a degree of aleviation of her extreme neasuea as her doctor recommended. And my dying grandmother, who wasted away to 60 lbs before she died was also made into a criminal. She didn’t drink or do any drugs before this.

I found it to be a travesty of justice and outright abuse of basic human rights for her situation to be dealt with this way legally. It was also the beginning of the time when I started to develop contemp for government. It’s my understanding that there were and are many cases similar to my grandmothers, however nowadays the gov’t isn’t kicking in the doors of dying people who are in possession of marijuana under the recommendations of a doctor in order to make their last weeks or months less filled with suffering.

God Bless,
Bill

I’m not sure why whatever it is in Cannabis which blocks the nausea generation in the brain is not isolated and used as a prescription drug like morphine, tramadol or codeine. Cocaine has medical uses too, and is used in ear, nose and throat surgery because it constricts blood vessels and blocks pain nerve fiber conduction of pain impulses, the way the local anesthetic your dentist uses, works. Cocaine in fact belongs in the family of local anesthetics.

Hence I’m not sure why marijuana can’t remain banned except for restricted medical use for patients on chemotherapy where drugs like prochlorperazine or metoclopramide are ineffective. Terminal patients are also allowed to receive large amounts of morphine which is addictive and could be used as a drug of abuse too in those who don’t suffer from pain but want the euphoria.

Obviously the issue comes down to controlling behaviour and the simplest way of doing that is to control the actual substance. Say you don’t want people looking at animal pornography, you don’t just arrest someone when they are looking at it, you arrest them when they’re in possession of it or are trading in it.

 

[Bill_7154]

Obviously the issue comes down to controlling behaviour and the simplest way of doing that is to control the actual substance.

Controlling the drug the way morphine is controlled or the way alcohol is controlled, I agree with you.

Controlling the drug the way the drug war attempts to control cocaine I couldn’t disagree more and the proof is in the pudding. It’s readily available everywhere and drugs are easier for minors to get than alcohol, because the one’s ‘controllling’ them are criminals who set their own standards on who they will sell to. With alcohol the gov’t sets the standard on the age it can be sold to and this is proven effective because kids can get drugs easier than alcohol.

I also beleive that morphine and it’s cousins are too tightly controlled on terminal patients. Dr.s fear the DEA breathing down the back of their necks and don’t want to be one of the one’s in their field prescribing it more often than others in their field. They have a lot to loose if the DEA yanks their medical license. This saddens me a great deal that terminal pain patients and other patients in extreme pain are not given what doctors would give them if they did not have fears of the DEA. They most certainly would not prescribe LESS if the DEA wasn’t scrutinizing their prescription habits. They would prescribe the same or more.

I happen to be against human suffering and think that doctors are in a better position to make those calls than beaurocrats working for the DEA, yet it is those from the DEA effectively making those calls.

God Bless,
Bill

 

[CopticChristian]

Interesting. Could you describe examples of ‘perpretator’ for me? Using alcoholics would be helpful but other common examples would be as well.

Thanks

Bill,

you can find a discussion here…

angriesout.com/grown20.htm

The perpetrator is the persecutor and this is perceived by the victim. All these roles are perception and are dysfunctional. They are not necessarily concsious.

Alcohol.

The Alcoholic is the victim. Whoa is me. You don’t know what I have been through

Perpetrator can be a person or more than one person or an imagined set of circumstances. I go to Church…Just look at you. you are a miserable drunk. Why can’t you be like me. I am what you should be. This can be perceived of and spoken of by the victim as a person, society, whatever it is for the victim to remain victimized and not take responsibility. If it wasn’t for my mother…if it wasn’t for my marriage…this is percieved but real.

Rescuer/Enabler…let me help you, poor dear…you are drinking because of the way they treat you or let me help you…let me rescue you from this dismal dilema of a life that is not your fault.

The way the triangle works is between the victim and the rescuer. The rescuer is unknowing and does not play the game well. The victim plays the game very well and is intent on remaining a victim. The rescuer/enabler puts forth effort believing that they are helping and when they continue the victim turns on the rescuer and enabler and they switch roles…

The rescuer/enabler becomes the victim and the victim persecutes the rescuer/enabler and since the role of victim is not known to the rescuer as well as the victim role is to the victim in turn persecutes/perpetrates on the persecutor/victim and then victimizes the former victim and the victim assumes that well known role.

The only way out of this dysfunction is to be constantly seen as the persecutor once the roles switch and leave the victim to their own demise, not trying to switch roles.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Time,

You point out the rediculous nature of the 12 step paradigm/disease model and the religion of AA. Cigarettes/tobacco is the most addicting substance on the planet and it will and can kill you. The AA/NA/CA…all treat tobacco as if it is just nothing…duh…it is something…and the focus is so much on the other substances that their minds do not register a health problem like smoking.

Yes, there are many in AA, NA, and CA that subscribe to the belief substance addiction is a disease. It’s not limited to these groups, however, that is a widely held belief in the V.A. Hospitals. I think most medical doctors and nurses subscribe to this belief too, irrespective of how accurate it may or may not be.

And you can repeat your point about cigarettes all you want but it won’t make it any more true. Furthermore, not everyone that smokes cigarettes or uses tobacco goes to an early grave. Some, perhaps due to a combination of behaviors and genetics, are pretty fit people all the while being active smokers. My two troop handlers in the Marine Corps school of MCT during the early 1990’s were chain smokers and both were marathon runners. And not just by mouth. They use to run us into the dirt - every Friday we had to run (finish) for our libo - without ever knowing how long it would be or end.

As a rule of thumb crack smokers are cigarette smokers. Rarely are they not. And once they consume all the crack they have they immediately light up a cigarette to help some of the physical and psychological suffering subside. Every crack addict will turn down a cigarette for crack - once they’ve already begun smoking crack.

And having been over in Desert Storm, and shot 3 times in Milwaukee laying in critical condition for several days with my stomach on the outside of me, I can tell you while I certainly don’t desire to go through the pain and hell of being shot again (losing kidney, spleen, part of pancreas, diaphragm needing repair, 5% of left lung, artery blown out of my left arm and the bone shattered into tiny fragments like a grenade went off in it, none of those things come close to the hell of crack addiction. Not close. And according to the doctors and surgeons few men survive the level of traumatic gun shot injuries I sustained.

Crack addiction is essentially this: it surpasses your sexual orientation - and it surpasses your desire for any man or woman you may want.

I know women that have traded their teenage daughters to teenage drug dealers in exchange for crack. So, you can ramble on all you want about what you think you know, but you don;t know 1/10 of it.

The reason AA/NA/CA don’t work is because AA is a religion and it is faith healing that forces someone to accept a lie that they have a disease and they do not, forces them to believe they are powerless and they are not, and then forces them to believe that they must forever and a day go to meetings or die and they do not. They get involved in this malarky of a disease. What kind of disease? A spiritual disease. They get to work on their character defects to solve their problems. What are character defects? Sin. Say what…that is why it does not work.

I never said AA, NA, and CA does not work. I said it does not have a very good success rate. It’s chicken soup for a cold. It’s the best thing we’ve got for an amputated arm in absence of the most futuristic bionic arm.

It has in fact helped millions of addicts around the world arrest their addiction.

And many meetings end with addicts holding hands praying the Our Father or the Serenity Prayer. And what did Jesus say about 2 or more people gathered in his name?

But AA, NA, and CA made themselves adaptable to agnostics and atheists a long time ago. I do not see this as evil however.

---

Edited to add:

You have an issue with the “powerlessness” thing? Many addicts and many people do. It attacks our pride (1 of the 7 deadly sins). The notion we on our own are insufficient but must rely on a power greater than ourselves - and for the religious that is God (and the word God comes up a number of times in the 12 Steps) - makes the devil inside us rebel.

The idea in AA, NA, and CA in turning to God, becoming humble, and suffering by not giving into your temptations (or terrible withdrawals) is that one must pick up their cross and carry it.

 

[CopticChristian]

Yes, there are many in AA, NA, and CA that subscribe to the belief substance addiction is a disease. It’s not limited to these groups, however, that is a widely held belief in the V.A. Hospitals.** I think most medical doctors and nurses subscribe to this belief too, irrespective of how accurate it may or may not be.**

And you can repeat your point about cigarettes all you want but it won’t make it any more true. Furthermore, not everyone that smokes cigarettes or uses tobacco goes to an early grave. Some, perhaps due to a combination of behaviors and genetics, are pretty fit people all the while being active smokers. My two troop handlers in the Marine Corps school of MCT during the early 1990’s were chain smokers and both were marathon runners. And not just by mouth. They use to run us into the dirt - every Friday we had to run (finish) for our libo - without ever knowing how long it would be or end.

As a rule of thumb crack smokers are cigarette smokers. Rarely are they not. And once they consume all the crack they have they immediately light up a cigarette to help some of the physical and psychological suffering subside. Every crack addict will turn down a cigarette for crack - once they’ve already begun smoking crack.

And having been over in Desert Storm, and shot 3 times in Milwaukee laying in critical condition for several days with my stomach on the outside of me, I can tell you while I certainly don’t desire to go through the pain and hell of being shot again (losing kidney, spleen, part of pancreas, diaphragm needing repair, 5% of left lung, artery blown out of my left arm and the bone shattered into tiny fragments like a grenade went off in it, none of those things come close to the hell of crack addiction. Not close. And according to the doctors and surgeons few men survive the level of traumatic gun shot injuries I sustained.

Crack addiction is essentially this: it surpasses your sexual orientation - and it surpasses your desire for any man or woman you may want.

I know women that have traded their teenage daughters to teenage drug dealers in exchange for crack. So, you can ramble on all you want about what you think you know, but you don;t know 1/10 of it.

**I never said AA, NA, and CA does not work. I said it does not have a very good success rate. It’s chicken soup for a cold. It’s the best thing we’ve got for an amputated arm in absence of the most futuristic bionic arm. **
It has in fact helped millions of addicts around the world arrest their addiction.

And many meetings end with addicts holding hands praying the Our Father or the Serenity Prayer. And what did Jesus say about 2 or more people gathered in his name?

But AA, NA, and CA made themselves adaptable to agnostics and atheists a long time ago. I do not see this as evil however.

Time,

You are wrong. Most doctors including me know that addiction is not now or ever been a disease. You can do a search for yourself on the number that accept this garbage and those that do not.

The religion of 12 steps/AA/disease model has no better than a success rate of 5-10% and is not the best we have. It is no better than spontaneous remission.

There is a thread “is addiction a sin”…I will look for it. There you will find that the religion of 12 steps/AA/disease model is not the best solution. What works, published in a book by Reid Hester, PhD…points out that the following have the best success rates…

Brief Intervention
Self Help
CRAFT
CBT

If you accept and believe that the religion of 12 steps/AA/disease model is the best we have for an amputated arm short of a bionic arm then you are not aware that there is a bionic arm available that is better.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Time,

You hit the nail on the head…

The Supreme Court of the United States has declared AA to be a religion
AA has Protestant religous roots
AA promotes resolution of Character defects to gain sobriety…what are character defects? Sin

A preliminary report of the Catholic Church Jesus Christ the Bearer of the Water of Life says that addiction and recovery have taken the place of sin and salvation…

you are correct AA/NA/CA are faith based healing with Protestant roots…

good job for pointing that out…

#1. You seem to be committing the logical fallacy of guilt by association. In this case: Protestants developed AA and therefore AA must be bad or wrong.

It may comes as a shock to you but Protestants advanced many of the things we have today. The Protestants in Germany developed our modern day standard in the university system where professors are not only expected to teach but to engage in research.

Protestants have always been among the top within the great intellectual and cultural movements in the Western World. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because they spend less time looking in the rear view mirror than Catholic do (or think of the Greek Orthodox that still in the year 2012 can’t get over the sack of Constantinople and the loss of the greatness of Byzantium).

#2. And I don’t know why you keep bringing up what the U.S. Supreme Court has declared. That same branch of Government has legalized abortion too and stated it - the Supreme Court - has no idea when life begins and will not weigh in on that.

The Supreme Court is part of the judicial system. That is an institution that has to be distinguished from fields of applied science like medicine or from fields of inquiry like philosophy.

 

[TimeEntrance]

I am thoroughly familiar with the way AA operates. I was active in AA for several years. What I pointed out was a way to understand the UNCONSCIOUS HAPPENINGS to those who are participating in AA.

Before you judge and deny how Dr. Eric Berne describes alcoholics I think you should actually read the chapter in his book that describes in detail the psychology of the alcoholic, the psychology of others connected to alcoholics (you’ve heard of enablers I assume?), including the rescuer, and the other roles of people who are co-dependent to alcoholics in different ways.

Once you have that information, once you are educated in that fashion, I encourage you to come back and discuss it. Right now your essentially ‘flying blind’ and have NO IDEA what I’m talking about while I have a thorough understanding of the AA model and the model put forth by Dr. Eric Berne.

I can dismiss it because of my background in biology. I’m not opposed to psychology but physics and chemistry are arguably more of sciences than biology and biology more of a science than psychology.

I say this due to the level each fields relies on deterministic laws and each fields ability to accurately make predictions.

Perhaps this is why some call into question if psychology ought be categorized as a science.

What I regard as “cures” in the sense of science… concerning biological organisms… are treatments using chemicals to deal with a chemical problem. And those chemical reactions being largely deterministic and contingent on laws.

This Dr. Berne is just one more Messiah in a long list of Messiahs.

And where did I say going through seizures is playing games? Why would you attribute such ridiculousness to me? I am not encouraging anyone in AA to not be in AA. I benefited from AA myself. However, I also benefited from the teachings of Dr. Eric Berne on the subject.

You implied the causality of substance addiction within the addict is merely role playing games. And the phenomenon need not be addressed or even investigated at the level of matter and the chemically driven functions and responses in the brain. Furthermore, you implied problem drinkers of even the most severe type can become social drinkers if only they read and put to work Dr. Berene’s Messianic propositions.

Have you not witnessed in AA the ‘need’ that those in recovery have to help another. I’m not simply talking about following step 12 because it’s the right thing to do, or because that’s what AA teaches, I’m talking about how there are plenty of people who are ‘emotionally charged, emotionally driven’ to take on the role of rescuer…almost like an alcoholic is emotionally charged to go drink.

This is why I say I don’t care what people do. And I’m well aware of the self righteousness of the typical lay Catholic and their proclivity to complain about any little thing they don’t like their parish priest allowing.

Many Catholic parishes allow AA meetings. I’m sure Coptic has a hissy fit over this.

Yes, I know how emotionally charged up some people in AA, NA, and CA get. Because they are mirror images of Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and Buddhists. If something works for them and the person sitting next to them then by God it must work for everyone.

A great many people have recovered from addiction - especially in the Protestant Black Churches - without any help from AA, NA, or CA. Though a good number in AA, NA, and CA would like to dismiss that.

So, many in AA, NA, and CA find helping or “rescuing” as you say the new comers struggling with addiction as some work of goodness that paradoxically helps them stay sober. Some I think even switch their addiction from their substance of choice over to going to meeting constantly.

But why should I care? I don’t.

I don’t care if taking up Buddhist meditation or ice skating is what works for some individual to remain sober. I don’t care if it’s singing in their Protestant choir and reading the bible every day. I don’t care if it’s going to AA and “rescuing” others. I don’t care.

Go read and educate yourself my friend before you dismiss something as untrue. But you probably won’t do it because you want (assuming your in AA and a practicing member) what is in your unconscious about the underlying psychology of why AA works (as opposed to the underlying spirituality of why AA works) to remain in your unconscious rather than enter into your consciousness and shed new light for you on the way AA works.

God Bless,
Bill

I already know it’s untrue he found a cure.

Pseudo-sciences like astrology always have a reason why X did not result exactly as predicted. And they refrain from reliance on laws of nature that are deterministic in physics and chemistry. Consequently, they can always mold their observation to fit their hypothesis: e.g., It will rain when Bob walks outside. It did not rain in the city Bob lives in when he walked outside but it did rain in some city in some part of the world that Bob does not live in.

 

[CopticChristian]

#1. You seem to be committing the logical fallacy of guilt by association. In this case: Protestants developed AA and therefore AA must be bad or wrong.

It may comes as a shock to you but Protestants advanced many of the things we have today. The Protestants in Germany developed our modern day standard in the university system where professors are not only expected to teach but to engage in research.

Protestants have always been among the top within the great intellectual and cultural movements in the Western World. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because they spend less time looking in the rear view mirror than Catholic do (or think of the Greek Orthodox that still in the year 2012 can’t get over the sack of Constantinople and the loss of the greatness of Byzantium).

#2. And I don’t know why you keep bringing up what the U.S. Supreme Court has declared. That same branch of Government has legalized abortion too and stated it - the Supreme Court - has no idea when life begins and will not weigh in on that.

The Supreme Court is part of the judicial system. That is an institution that has to be distinguished from fields of applied science like medicine or from fields of inquiry like philosophy.

Time,

Your understanding of facts is not clear…all I am doing is providing facts…

Looks like a religion
Has religous roots
Courts say that AA violates the establishment clause
AA says you need a spiritual awakening
AA says in the 12 and twelve your character defects are sin
There is a chapter in the big book on the Agnostic…Why?

God is mentioned in the 12 steps 6/12 times… and the in the big book…298 times as seen here below…

164andmore.com/words/god.htm

Theism. I am all for theism. It is what it is. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to accept it. You don’t have to believe it…but AA is a religion.

 

[TimeEntrance]

You should be ashamed of yourself for saying some of the things you said. Shaman’s are doctors who write things for people to read and reflect on? Interesting, I didn’t know that. Next time I see my doctor (monday) when he opens his mouth I’ll be sure to let him know he’s a shaman. lol

If your doctor writes you a prescription and tells you the medicine will only work if you believe it and want it to work… then yes… that is Shamanism.

Do your due dilligence before making assertions about me, anything I say, or anything anyone else says lest you are engaging in libelious behavior.

I’m afraid you don’t know what libeling someone is, Bill. Stating you unwittingly make Catholics look like nit wits is not libel. It’s an opinion over the strength and reasoning of your argument.

An example of libel would be me falsely claiming someone illegally gave their own underage daughter alcohol and then had sex with her. That could result in a civil suit for libel. Especially if it was shown the person suffered emotional distress or social or financial loss from my false accusations.

 

[CopticChristian]

If your doctor writes you a prescription and tells you the medicine will only work if you believe it and want it to work… then yes… that is Shamanism.

I’m afraid you don’t know what libeling someone is, Bill. Stating you unwittingly make Catholics look like nit wits is not libel. It’s an opinion over the strength and reasoning of your argument.

An example of libel would be me falsely claiming someone illegally gave their own underage daughter alcohol and then had sex with her. That could result in a civil suit for libel. Especially if it was shown the person suffered emotional distress or social or financial loss from my false accusations.

Time,

Your understanding of medicine is remedial. Homeopaths believe in and practice with the notion of Placebo. All Physicians including myself know about Placebo. You appear not to understand.

I actually think that Shamans have a place for some people however your understanding of the practice of medicine causes me to ask you again to listen to Michael Jackson and the man in the mirror.

 

[fakename]

Although the debate is both entertaining and interesting I would merely like to point out that the OP was not about any of the things debated but rather about the above quote.

So what is the right exegesis for the above?

I am just reiterating my above concern. Is there a clear cut answer or no?

 

[CopticChristian]

CopticChristian,

Your a physician? Great!

Please share with this group in this forum the degree of harmfullness that heroin poses to the human body, such as the bodies organs, compared to say a drug like…um…acetaminophen?

Please do share this truth with the group as a physician.

God Bless,
Bill

Bill,

Heroin in and of itself is harmless with the understanding that Heroin is not used for any medicinal purpose. The harm is in the use, continued use, consequences of use, and destruction of life as a result of continued use, ie the addiction. It is not of any medicinal purpose and it’s only purpose is euphoria.

Acetaminophen is safe when taken in suggested quantities however if there is an overdose then it causes irreversible damage to the liver for which there is no cure. It is a dangerous drug when taken indiscriminately.

 

[CopticChristian]

I’m not a physician or a scientist. But I have some small familiarity with science and it’s mode of research and scientific writing given my major is biology.

I think what is fact is that more than once in the physical, natural, and medical science what has been believed as “fact” has eventually turned out not to be fact.

Many crack smokers are actually cigarette smokers - even many recovering addicts in AA, NA, and CA smoke cigarettes - and I know as fact that nearly all if not all of them consider cigarettes the least of their concern.

Crack heads are rarely generous enough to break off a $1 hit off their $10 rock for someone without a hit of crack rock. But the generosity - even among strangers - abounds among cigarette smokers.

And I’ve never seen anyone prostitute themselves for a whole cigarette let alone a whole pack. I know as fact there are crack addicts that have provided oral sex on the open stairwells of apartment buildings for a single hit of crack.

LOL. Okay.

I don’t believe I’ve ever said withdrawals were not a spectrum. Frankly, I’m not sure what your point is with all this.

But I think it’s worth noting medical science has not discovered a cure for addictions to alcohol, crack, heroin and so forth. Evidently medical science does not have it all figured out. And medical science knows how to cure gonorrhea irrespective of what the patient believes. So, any rhetoric about an addict needing “to believe” X, Y, or Z for the magic cure to work is simply a regression into shamanism and not pure science that deals with chemical structures.

The reason AA, NA, and CA don’t have such a great success rate is because they do not treat the problem or pathology the way doctor treat a patient for gonorrhea. You don’t have to believe 2 hydrogen atoms combined with 1 oxygen atom is water. You can disbelieve it all you want. It still turns out to be water. That science. Shamanism is predicated on prayers, “believing,” and “really wanting it.” Then the medicine works its magic. Kind of like chicken soup. Works for some or many with a cold.

Time,

You presuppose that addiction requires cure. It is not a disease so therefore there is no cure and medical science has failed miserably with this problem.

The Church says it is a vice, others say it is habit. Vice can be changed as can bad habits. There will never be a cure for addiction since it is not a disease.

 

[CopticChristian]

Although the debate is both entertaining and interesting I would merely like to point out that the OP was not about any of the things debated but rather about the above quote.

So what is the right exegesis for the above?

Fake,

What you have asked is a good question.

Here are some things to consider.

Who classifies what is and is not a drug? Not the magesterium.

Are there substances that are not classified as drugs that are drugs and substances that are not drugs classified as drugs?

Once a substance is classified as a drug then the magesterium says that it should be done morally correct. I agree.

OTC drugs and herbs can be consumed with harmful effects and the magesterium is saying that these things should be used prudently as well.

This requires a formed conscience and a conscience that is in tune with health. Health is in keeping with the magesterium and then the question is who defines what is healthy?

 

[Nate13]

@CopticChristian
Hmm while you don’t classify it as a disease, would you agree with the idea that some people are more predisposed genetically to fall into addiction?

 

[TimeEntrance]

Time,

You are wrong. Most doctors including me know that addiction is not now or ever been a disease. You can do a search for yourself on the number that accept this garbage and those that do not.

The religion of 12 steps/AA/disease model has no better than a success rate of 5-10% and is not the best we have. It is no better than spontaneous remission.

There is a thread “is addiction a sin”…I will look for it. There you will find that the religion of 12 steps/AA/disease model is not the best solution. What works, published in a book by Reid Hester, PhD…points out that the following have the best success rates…

Brief Intervention
Self Help
CRAFT
CBT

If you accept and believe that the religion of 12 steps/AA/disease model is the best we have for an amputated arm short of a bionic arm then you are not aware that there is a bionic arm available that is better.

It’s apparent you have an agenda, Coptic.

Atheists and others often ask, “What has Christianity ever done good for the world.” One of my first responses is they created AA which has helped Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics and atheists

You prefer to war over it’s Protestant origins. I prefer not. In this case the Protestants did something extraordinarily remarkable for Christian history.

As for the sin and disease thing it’s evident you have zero clue what it is I believe. Yes I believe active alcoholism and drug addiction are sins and consequences of that sin result. I go even further - and like more than one addict - believe and publicly assert drug addiction opens the door to demonic oppression. I’ve felt an evil spirit standing over me as I’ve laid in bed alone. Like a dog can sense a predator and danger nearby under the dark night sky in a wooded area. And yes… most in AA and most (if not all) in the Veteran Hospitals that deal with addicts would disagree with me and have.

Your problem is you need to read the Serenity Prayer and come to terms with the fact this is 2012 and a secular run world (at least in the West).

I’m on no jihad to make all non-Christian and non-religious people of the world believe what I believe about sin or Satan or demonic oppression (or even possession). With respects to alcoholism, drug addiction, or HIV the treatment of non of them requires any mention of sin. I was shot 3 times due to my drunkenness which was due to my alcoholism and the doctors, surgeons, and nurses patched me up and took care of me. No mention of the sin. Except maybe… one nurse in the ER or wherever I was when I awoke after several days of having my stomach on the outside. She kept implying they should let me suffer and die.

But as I always say 99% of the hospital staff treated me awesome! And as I always say… whether they were atheist, Jews, agnostic, Protestant or whatever… it was my first time experience real Christian charity.

No… AA does not hammer away on the subject of sin or eternal damnation in hell. They don’t go into politics or economics or banking scandals either. They are united for one purpose and they have too many people from to many different backgrounds to be engaging in issues that are essentially divisive issues. There are active homosexuals, atheists, conservatives, liberals, Catholics, and transsexuals in AA.

And none of those acronyms you mentioned work any better than AA, NA, or CA. If you had no education in the sciences - which employs mathematical statistics - I would just chalk it up to ignorance with no malevolent agenda. But the ability to come up with accurate statistical data on addiction with recovery is notoriously difficult. What’s recovery? One year? Five years? Thirty years? Does one slip negate that or not? How about twenty slips? I are the subjects of the survey being honest?

I’ve personally known plenty of addicts that have said they were clean while still actively using.

Actually, of every veteran I went through VA rehab with the last time, every single one of them has gone back to using.

The best success rates - we have been repeatedly told - as far as can be inferred from the data our therapists have said, come with those that stay connected to some sort of support group be it AA or something else.

And alcoholism and drug addiction can be considered a disease - dis-ease - depending on how one wants to define that. Like I said it is similar to the controversy over biological race. Anthropologist, biologists, and sociologist say only one race exists among humans, and therefore our categorizations of different races is a social construct.

Which is true… if one defines races as a concept of subspecies. If one uses a more liberal definition of races as a concept denoting populations that share similar phenotypes, then one can speak of the “black race” and the “white race” because those separate races would be coherent with the little genetic difference between the two populations as well as the Out of Africa Theory.

So, “disease” is similar to that. It’s predicated on how one defines that term.

 

[TimeEntrance]

Time,

You presuppose that addiction requires cure. It is not a disease so therefore there is no cure and medical science has failed miserably with this problem.

I propose that in the absence of a cure addiction requires an arrest or the fate of the addict is almost certainly death, institutionalization, or jail.

And why does you mode of reasoning as it pertains to medical science remind me of the logical fallacy known as the God of the Gaps Theory?

A future cure for one, two, three or possibly all addictions may come about in the future by biochemist in collaboration with neuroscientists and medical research hospitals. I know my university - a tier 4 ranked university - has carried our research a number of times on cocaine addicts. Just because something is not known today does not mean it won’t be known tomorrow.

A cure for alcoholism would result in the vast majority - if not all - alcoholics being able to once again drink socially.

The Church says it is a vice, others say it is habit. Vice can be changed as can bad habits. There will never be a cure for addiction since it is not a disease.

Why do you reference the Church? It’s obvious you don’t know what you are talking about. The Church has word on morals (or vices) but not on the bio-chemical workings of the brain or the full bio-chemical and neurological phenomena of substance addiction.

The problem with alcoholism and something like crack addiction goes beyond vice. It goes beyond vice because it’s usually an issue of once a person begins to consume *X *substance they can’t stop unless either they run out of money or something outside themselves stops them.

Or put it another way… something like crack addiction defies the economic law of… what is it called… The Law of Diminishing Returns?

Most crack addicts smoked crack and were not addicted to it (only a vice). But at some point they became addicted to it (more than just a vice). It’s this latter part that is associated with what some term a “man-made disease.”

And addiction is usually progressive or that is to say it gets worse. So, my alcoholism is in early phases relative to my other substance addiction. And I drank for years - first got drunk at age 13 - and I drank heavy. I could always stop whenever I wanted it and rarely if ever had even a slight craving for alcohol. I rarely had blackouts too. All that began to change 2 or 3 years ago. But I think likely due to the toll my other addiction had physically or chemically on my brain. “Weakening” my brain if you will.

 

[interestedman]

I have wondered for some time if the Church would have a problem with medical marijuana. The reason is because while I have never used it, I have heard that using marijuana for medical purposes can be quite effective for various forms of severe chronic pain as well as for nausea and such caused by cancer. There may be other medical uses for it that I am unaware of.

I can tell you one thing…marijuana is FAR less dangerous than prescription pain killers. Two of my best friends are in rehab right now primarily for pain killers. My sister in law is in recovery because of pain killers. Saying that marijuana shouldn’t be used medically when things like Oxycontin are available is like saying we should ban coffee because it is dangerous but alcohol is fine.