Chemical Addiction - Weakness Of Will, Tricks Of Demons, Or Disease?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

How many times have you heard about the problems of alcoholism and drug addiction?

The statistics on chemical addictions within Ukraine alone are appalling. About 100 thousand people with alcoholism are registered annually. Those who do not register, continuing to drink "in moderate" or "exorbitant" doses, perhaps, are countless. Ukraine leads the list of 40 European countries in terms of the number of adolescents who drink alcohol. At the same time, there is a lack of programs for the treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction, and generally understanding whether it is a disease and how to treat it. These sad facts call to think about and, finally, to understand more deeply the issue of chemical dependence.

Today, almost every family has a person who abuses alcohol and / or drugs. Traditional feasts with alcohol on the table are a generally accepted social and even cultural norm. How often have you personally encountered bewilderment when someone suddenly refuses to drink? “If a person does not drink and does not smoke, you involuntarily wonder if he is a bastard?”, The hospitable hosts of the feast quote Chekhov. And, if everyone is definitely afraid of drug addiction, seeing imminent deaths, mutilated by the lives of those who "got on the needle", then alcoholism, which acts slowly but no less destructively, seems to be the norm for those drinking on Fridays / Holidays / Beer evenings. And the statistics are not long in coming, counting the number of deaths from alcohol poisoning, orphans left without parents, parents deprived of the rights to their children, chronically and terminally ill and lonely people who have not solved a simple problem: how not to take a glass (not buy a drug) … And we all know that few people come to professional treatment for alcoholism and drug addiction.

To an inexperienced viewer, it seems that this is not even a problem. “You just need to pull yourself together,” we hear the expert opinion of neighbors, relatives, and acquaintances. But will this advice help the addict? Or is such an addiction a disease? Or the tricks of demons who have infiltrated the soul of the unfortunate man full of doubts, and all that is business is to go to church and repent?

Let's figure it out.

Moderate and controlled use is usually not a problem. The problem starts when a person starts to abuse a chemical. When a hangover begins, memory lapses, withdrawal symptoms, theft, assault, problems with the law …

And the problem of abuse is traditionally tried to be solved in three ways:

1. Education

2. Appeal to various kinds of magicians, sorcerers, healers, witches and other representatives of the mystical cohort

3. Drug treatment of chemical addiction - detoxification

Is parenting a chemical addict effective? Usually, in the case of abuse, the methods of education are reduced to appeal to the willpower of the person or to his conscience. The appeal to will, as a rule, does not work by definition. Will is the ability of a person to control his actions in accordance with his desires and goals. But the chemically dependent between desires, goals and actions, even empirically, has serious confusion: today he decided to permanently recover from alcoholism, “quit” and start working, because “he wants to live a normal life,” and tomorrow he sells his grandmother's last tea set, because that "wants to relax." Appeals to conscience are also unsuccessful. Following the questions of your conscience is creating and following your own or accepted and meaningful moral and value norms. But systematic deviant behavior destroys the values and morality of a person, leaving a depressing sense of guilt for the inability to follow these very values. Unable to withstand the guilt and shame, the chemically dependent suppresses them with a new dose.

Turning to "specialists" in the field of magic also does not bring long-term results. Here you can write a separate article on the variety of ways to rein in an unlucky relative for the benefit of suffering loved ones. Here is both the instilling of an authoritative opinion with an admixture of intimidation by an imminent painful death, and the mystical veil of the "casting out of demons" procedure, in which the exhausted and impressionable soul of the addict goes into his heels. True, most often, not for long. And sometimes a kind grandmother can drink healing tea, but forgets to say that it contains an anti-alcohol drug, which doctors in the treatment of chemical addiction cautiously give to patients, insuring themselves by signing a whole bunch of papers on voluntary consent, because in combination with ethanol, the magic medicine gives a powerful intoxication, from which the addict will not just have a sweet tooth. If the body is weakened enough, liver functions are impaired, etc., quackery will end in death. And our healers do not require a medical record.

The last stronghold remains: drug treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction. And here, before we go further, it is important to understand: what is chemical dependence? We excluded the weakness of will, we suggest you analyze the decision on the presence of demons yourself, looking for more information on the topic of healers and sorcerers. It remains to be admitted: chemical addiction is a disease. And there are good reasons to lean towards this conclusion.

Pyotr Dmitrievich Gorizontov, Soviet pathophysiologist and radiobiologist, doctor of medical sciences, academician of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, professor, student of A. A. organism to the external environment while mobilizing its defenses. According to the concept of Hans Selye, a famous pathologist and endocrinologist, the author of the concept of stress, illness is tension and stress that occurs in the body when exposed to an extreme stimulus.

There are a great many causes of various diseases, but all of them can be divided into the following groups:

- mechanical

- physical

- chemical

- biological

- psychogenic (for humans)

In the case of chemical dependence, there is also a powerful irritant in the form of a psychoactive substance, and at least two of the above factors - chemical and psychogenic. And in the case of long-term use, it is also biological.

So, back to drug treatment for chemical addiction.

Medicines for alcohol dependence are divided into three groups:

- Drugs that cause intolerance to a psychoactive substance (blockers, "stitching", etc.)

- Reducing cravings

- Relieving withdrawal symptoms

These drugs are used in drug addiction practice and have different efficacy and their own set of side effects. All drugs are taken under strict medical supervision (in contrast to the approach of the above-mentioned folk craftsmen) and cause a more or less lasting effect. True, as practice shows, only in a few cases is it long-term. Because all drugs, without exception, work, as well as practically all medicine, with the effect, but not with the cause.

So what do you do? If it is pointless to appeal to the willpower and conscience of the patient, sorcerers and magicians will not help, but also harm, and pills can give temporary relief, but the reasons will not remove and the risk of a relapse of the disease is great?

The treatment of chemical dependence must be approached in a comprehensive manner, using biological, psychological and social approaches. The process of recovery cannot be fast, since the addict's biological processes are disturbed to a different, but always significant extent, the psyche is severely traumatized and social ties are almost completely destroyed.

It takes a long time to restore the normal functioning of the body, but recovery is possible. There are no medications that normalize the functioning of the nervous system after the use of psychoactive substances. The body will recover by itself, however, one must remember that this problem is forever: one single breakdown - and the disease will return to its starting point. As part of an integrated approach, the patient is informed about the peculiarities of the body's work in the process of recovery from chemical addiction and after the completion of treatment.

In the treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction, long-term group psychotherapy is effective, in which the social skills of addicts are gradually improved and psychological trauma is healed, as well as a special training program developed and approved by specialists in this field.

Help with alcoholism and drug addiction should be provided by professionals - specialists in chemical addictions with specialized education, relevant specialization and work experience: narcologists, addicts, psychologists, social workers, addiction counselors.

Such an integrated approach to the treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction, in the end, helps not only to temporarily stop the abuse, but to return the patient to a full-fledged sober life in the family and society, as well as to harmony with himself.

- Practical psychologist, consultant on psychological and philosophical issues, practitioner in the direction of transactional analysis, trainer, member of UATA, EATA.