Why Addiction Isn''t Really | Devil in a Blue Dress

Why Addiction Isn''t Really

Books in the Making - Devil in a Blue Dress

Written by Douglas Wilson

Thursday, 09 April 2009 08:40

"In other words, the establishment of an addiction requires a certain discipline or determination. It is not something that creeps up on your unnoticed or unannounced or all unawares. As a moment's reflection would suggest to anyone not blinded by self-interest, this fact has important and profound implications for the very concept of treatment, which in effect is metaphorical at best, a masque, veneer, pretense, or charade rather than the thing itself. For it requires as much effort to sustain an addiction, especially to opiates, as to acquire it in the first place" (Dalrymple, Romancing Opiates, p. 18)

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Last Updated on Thursday, 09 April 2009 08:40

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Gregory C Dickison

Thursday, April 09, 2009 1:13 pm

Amen!

Valerie (Kyriosity)

Thursday, April 09, 2009 1:26 pm

But is the defining point of addiction the magnitude of effort required to sustain it or the magnitude of temptation to sustain it? It seems to me that resisting sin, of whatever sort, is very often harder than whatever feats of effort required in committing it.

Not that the recovery model works for me. It's repentance all the way in my book. But I don't know of any more difficult work than repentance.

Simon Hetherington

Thursday, April 09, 2009 10:38 pm

Absolutely not. What evidence does Dalrymple use to back up the statement "It is not something that creeps up on your unnoticed or unannounced or all unawares."?

I would imagine it would be almost impossible to find an addict, recovered or otherwise would agree with that.

David Houf

Friday, April 10, 2009 1:44 am

Dalrymple's evidence is prevalent throughout his books, and his experience treating addicts in Britain's roughest neighborhoods and prisons. Give the books a read. He's writing from a starkly realistic perspective after years of working among outcasts.

Simon Hetherington

Friday, April 10, 2009 2:37 am

Thank you.

Matthew N. Petersen

Friday, April 10, 2009 3:25 am

I'm having some trouble with this one too. I'll grant that the adict became a slave to the substance through a absolutely free choice. Adam and his race became slaves to sin through the free use of their will. But Adam's original freedom is irrelevant to our current state. We are now slaves to sin. Christ starts here and works from our slavery to sin. Likewise we should start with the adict's current slavery to a substance.

Likewise the effort required to continue the addiction seems irrelevant. Yes, it is (often, but not always) far harder to sin than not to sin. Yet we are slaves to sin. Repentance is the answer to our sin, but Jesus did not become Incarnate on the condition that we repent. He became Incarnate, and therefore we repent. And parents don't only spank children who have repented, often children are spanked or in some manner coerced, to bring them to repentence.

Mark Dove

Friday, April 10, 2009 4:00 am

Mathew, how are we slaves to sin? Romans tells us we are not to live in sin. We are baptized into Christ's death. We were buried with Him also, that we might walk in newness of life. The old self was crucified so that we would no longer be enslaved.

Matthew N. Petersen

Friday, April 10, 2009 4:22 am

"We" didn't mean "We in Christ" but "We in Adam." My point regards how Christ transforms us from slaves to sin to free in Christ. The fact that it (often) takes more effort to sin than not to is irrelevant. The fact that we freely chose to be slaves to sin is irrelevant. Even repentence is not a condition for Christ saving us, but the result of Christ coming to us. And we remain free from sin, not on our own power, but through Christ--all is Christ, from first to last, including our repentence.

So likewise when we minister to adicts, the fact that it takes more effort for them to sin than not to is irrelevant. The fact that they freely chose to become adicts is irrelevant. And even simple repentence isn't enough. Repentence must be brought about through outside help, and sustained through outside help--even outside coersion.

Matthew Hoover

Friday, April 10, 2009 4:38 am

Matthew Petersen - I appreciate your interactions on this blog. The first step in bringing repentance from outside of someone is to get him to give an honest assessment of his condition. He needs to see that he's an addict because he chose to be (not because he's a tragic hero). He chose to be an addict because of the way he is in his heart- corrupt and wicked. When someone sees and admits that, Jesus will take away his iniquity and give him a new heart.

Gregory C Dickison

Friday, April 10, 2009 5:33 am

Dalrymple's observation as such is right on. It does take a huge amount of work to sustain an addiction, and that does have profound implications for treatment. It calls into question many of the assumptions of the disease model of addiction, which currently holds sway in the judicial system.

Matthew N. Petersen

Friday, April 10, 2009 7:10 am

Matthew H.

I'm not quite sure I agree. Surely sometimes you are correct. Thus Jesus repeatedly confronts the Pharisees with their sin. But I'm not sure that that is always the case. Though Jesus calls all men to repentance, his call to repentance is often communing with the sinners. Yes, he tells the woman caught in adultery "go and sin no more" but he doesn't first tell her "you know, you are sinning and need to stop. Ok, now that you have repented, go and sin no more." If my experience of what she would have been thinking means anything, she probably thought of herself as a victim, then as vindicated, and finally that command caused her to repent. Probably not all addicts hate the drug and want out, but I'm relatively some do--even when they also love the drug.

"Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior."

"I hate and I love. Why do I do this, you perchance ask.

I don't know! But I feel it happen, and I am crucified!"

Matthew N. Petersen

Friday, April 10, 2009 7:11 am

That said, twelve-step programs are often very effective. And step 1 is admitting the problem.