Addiction

[Griff]

Interesting articles on the Reason website about addiction.

I was reading
George Washington: Boozehound
Prodigious alcohol consumption by Washington and his fellow founding fathers has been whitewashed from American history.


when I followed a link to this.

Government Says You Can’t Overcome Addiction, Contrary to What Government Research Shows

But what they tell us doesn’t happen to be true. People recover from addiction all the time. How do I know? Government research conducted by the NIDA and its sister agency (with which it is soon to be combined) the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) tells us that. In the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a massive national study involving face-to-face interviews with over 43,000 Americans in 2001-2002 about their lifetime drinking and drug use, the NIAAA revealed that, “twenty years after the onset of alcohol dependence, three-fourths of individuals are in full recovery; more than half of those who have fully recovered drink at low-risk levels without symptoms of alcohol dependence.” That’s not all. "About 75 percent of persons who recover from alcohol dependence do so without seeking any kind of help, including specialty alcohol (rehab) programs and Alcoholics Anonymous. Only 13 percent of people with alcohol dependence ever receive specialty alcohol treatment.” Wow. As the director of the research project at NIAAA, Mark Willenbring, notes, “These and other recent findings turn on its head much of what we thought we knew about alcoholism. As is so often true in medicine, researchers have studied the patients seen in hospitals and clinics most intensively. This can greatly skew understanding of a disorder,” especially in the case of alcoholism and addiction.

http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publicatio...29-2/74-78.htm

Anyway, there seem to be a lot of folks in a lot of different places on this whole thing but knowledge is power unless used for self-delusion. I'm not one for tracking time but I think my last drink was over 6 years ago. Alcohol had its claws into me pretty good but my quitting was as represented in the article, my decision done independent of outside influences. Some folks go back and retrain themselves to drink reasonably, but I don't think I want that at this point. I still feel like I shouldn't put the key in the ignition. I have some talented functional alkies in my family, but I'd never trade my life-style for theirs.