Writer Tom Oliver Brands Drug Addiction an Issue of “Morality” and Not a “Health Concern”

I’ll begin with “everyone has a right to their own opinion,” and this is fundamentally true, but where do we cross the line of having an opinion to disseminating a sullied, politically-ridden view of a national issue, when it has no empirical facts to substantiate said opinion? Am I professing an opinion if I assert the sky is always crimson, or am I spouting nonsense widely known to be false?

I’ll let you decide.

But in regards to Olivier’s opinion piece on Alabama, I must assert his “opinion” is undoubtedly wrong, and seeks to regress the progression of addiction treatment, and perpetuate the stigma revolving addiction in its totality. By all means, he has the right to publish what he will, yet asserting “Drug use [is] not about health concerns, but morality, responsibility, and character,” is absolutely absurd.

Addiction is a disease, as tangible as a heart condition or diabetes. The genes of addiction are passed down from generation to generation, and dependent upon one’s environment, ability to cope with stress, and underlying health conditions which may remain undiagnosed for years; in fact, many who begin experimenting with drugs and alcohol are desperately attempting to self medicate these conditions, unaware they exist.

Drug and alcohol abuse in its initial stages is a gnawing endeavor to attain normalcy. Perhaps this notion is strange to one who has never experienced the manner in which a chemical imbalance can tear rifts into one’s self image, interpersonal relationships, and their community at large.

Prolonged drug and alcohol use creates a physical and psychological dependence. Those facts are irrefutable. To deem addiction as a singular matter of morality is not only preposterous, it is wildly untrue- and you don’t need politics to affirm this. Science does.

Politics has demeaned the disease of addiction for decades, and public opinion has been stagnated as a direct response to the War on Drugs, where any positive light, or broach of study regarding the affliction is met with, “That may be so, but it’s against the law.”

Unfortunately, addiction is not so easily allayed. There are those who condemn the disease because of its facilitation of crime. Yet I refute, if those who suffered from acute schizophrenia were left jettisoned in collective neighborhoods without the proper treatment to manage their mental disorders, would we not have mayhem, crisis, and crime? Addiction is the same, yet it is not regarded as the disease it surely is.

If we could see one’s cells with the naked eye, we would know addiction is an infallible condition. Over time substance use disorders left untreated wreak havoc on the body; the condition inflicts atrophy, shut down of essential neurotransmitters, and morphs one’s chemical makeup, and yet, Oliver purports addiction to be a debate of moral standing?

Until the public comes to terms and accepts addiction for the medical condition it is, which reaches into the realm of the psyche, there cannot exist a conversation which seeks to remedy the disease and progress the discourse and methods of treatment and recovery- because certainly, when one addict goes untreated, we all suffer.

 

Keep Up With Trending Addiction News
Follow us: Facebook | Twitter | Google+ | Pinterest | Instagram

The post Writer Tom Oliver Brands Drug Addiction an Issue of “Morality” and Not a “Health Concern” appeared first on Harbor Village Florida.

from Misc http://ift.tt/1T4s8L0 via Heroin Rehab Dallas