The CDC asserts that “methadone remains the most effective treatment for opiate addiction.”
OMG, you have to be kidding me. That statement is absolutely insane.
Man I feel bad for you guys. The nonsense you are being fed by conventional resources is essentially propaganda concocted to help us rationalize failure in a concerted effort to pump meds. The following can be found on the website of a regional support group, but most of the information comes straight from the CDC, appropriately. Not only is it totally depressing, but it is also false. Don’t fall for it. So let’s list a few of these nuggets in italics and then correct each statement as we go.
Just to be clear, I’ve spoken at many of these support groups several times and these are good, wonderful people, so I’m not judging them, I’m simply correcting some of the information that appears online. Why? Because you should know that there is hope. Every single addict and alcoholic in the world with the capacity to be honest with themselves can recover, change into a wonderful person, and remain entirely drug free for life. The only people who can’t recover are the psychopaths – those who lack the capacity to be honest.
Many people, including drug users themselves, have mistaken beliefs about drug addiction and recovery from addiction. Two of the most pervasive myths are that a person can get off drugs alone and that most addicts can become permanently drug-free. These ideas stem in part from notions that continued drug use is voluntary and that a person’s inability to overcome addiction stems solely from character flaws or a lack of willpower.
Similarly, society understands that chronic conditions, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, cannot be “cured” but only treated and controlled over many years to reduce potentially severe consequences. In contrast, if is widely believed that it should be possible to permanently cure a person of addiction to injection or other drugs. If a “cure” doesn’t happen, then treatment is seen as useless and not deserving of societal investment or support.
A more sophisticated understanding of addiction has emerged in the last two decades and this is helping to clarify the disconnect between expectations and reality:
*Addiction is a brain disease. Long-term drug use causes profound changes in brain structure and function that result in uncontrollable compulsive drug craving, seeking and use.
Addiction is NOT a brain disease, at least not in the way it is purported to be. Addiction is a malady that we can allow to either end us or that we can recover from entirely. Sure we can temporarily lose the power of choice AFTER repeated use, but that has nothing to do with the acquisition of addiction, which we have chosen to give to ourselves. Much of the modern, brain disease construct revolves around framing addiction as something that must be treated with medication. There is a clear agenda on the part of the pharmaceuticals, doctors and big government to medicate as many common people as they possibly can. The more doped out we are, the easier we are to control and, of course, to deceive, lie to, and effectively brainwash.
Why does everybody think that no addict wants to be an addict, that poor little me was involuntarily stricken with addiction. I loved drugs and alcohol and disgusting cigarettes with all my heart. Addicts LOVE to use and drink and suck down butts. Fact. Nobody that becomes anything does so without wanting to on some level. That is the truth, regardless of whether we want to believe it or not.
Addiction is a spiritual malady. Sure the body of an addict reacts abnormally, but the ability to remain sober has nothing to do with biology, as noted and assumed by the scientific and medical community. The ability to stay sober for the rest of our lives is purely a function of becoming and staying sane. The brain of an addict doesn’t matter. The physical problem, the allergy, the compulsion, is irrelevant. If we never pick up, if we never relapse, then who cares about how our body reacts to drugs and alcohol?
Conventional wisdom, or academic addiction, is basically like supermarket wisdom. New age cliche’s such as ‘relapse is part of recovery’ are created by big business recovery and pharmaceuticals, people who do not quite understand the reality and the effects of spiritual conversion. I know countless others who’ve had such a conversion and relapse is no longer in their vocabulary. Drug problem gone. No thoughts. No obsessions. No desires. Nothing. Just gone.
*Addiction is a multifaceted disease. It is the quintessential “bio-behavioral disorder” with profound effects on a person’s physical, emotional and mental health, as well as his or her family, colleagues, neighbors and community.
Dual-diagnosis is a hoax. All social maladies, including addiction and mental illness, stem from the same core condition: spiritual sickness, which manifests in various forms such as pathological selfishness, self-absorption, resentment, fear, insecurity, cowardice, anger, rage, narcissism, etc. Drug addicts present with any number of mental disorders because they are on drugs. Regardless of which comes first, addiction and mental illness are interchangeable. They are essentially the same thing. A person is either well or not well. The specifics are just details.
*Addiction is a treatable chronic disease. The changes in brain function and structure that occur with drug use persist long after drug use is stopped. “Cure” is therefore not necessarily an attainable or appropriate goal.
Wow, that’s hopeful. I don’t understand, how does the clueless CDC explain recovered people? I was a horrendous alcoholic and opiate addict and I haven’t suffered from a thought, feeling, ‘craving’, compulsion or obsession from the instant I finished reading my inventory ten years ago. It’s not just me, there are hundreds of thousands of us.
And how about these gems:
Unrealistic vs. Realistic Expectations: Changing the words we use
From To
eliminate drug use reduce or stop drug use
recovered in recovery
cured treated and controlled
on my own with help
forever one day at a time
one-shot treatment ongoing process
relapse is unacceptable relapse happens
Trust me, the last thing you want to do is to change the words you use. If you say to an addict, “relapse happens”, you are giving them permission to relapse, and needless to say, that would be insane. If relapse is not what you want, don’t say relapse happens!
*Eliminating drug use is entirely realistic.
*Becoming recovered is entirely realistic.
*We can easily become cured mentally, just not physically.
*We absolutely recover on our own. Others only come into play when we make amends and when we go to help someone. They don’t help us. We help them. That’s how you get better, not the other way around
*Forever is entirely realistic, and in fact we MUST be willing to stay sober for life. We must be willing to not be a coward. We do this knowing that there is a sufficient solution powerful enough to replace our addiction with and always keep us okay inside.
*The Twelve Steps done the right way is a one-shot treatment with certain ongoing steps… and done properly, it works every time.
*RELAPSE IS DEFINITELY UNACCEPTABLE. That’s the entire point of recovery – YOU DON’T RELAPSE!