Addiction and Choice: Theory and New Data

Figure 11 shows the cumulative frequency of remission as a function of dependence on dependence of a representative addictive sample nationwide (Lopez-Quintero et al., 2011). Researchers first recruited samples of more than 42,000 individuals whose demographics were similar to the US population between 18 and 64 years old (Grant and Dawson, 2006). We interviewed participants according to a questionnaire designed to ensure APA diagnosis. There are other issues designed to document the time course of clinically significant drug usage levels for those who currently or in the past met the "substance dependent" criteria (addiction terms in APA) . Figure 11 summarizes the findings of mitigation and dependency periods.

The x axis is the elapsed time since the beginning of the dependency. The y-axis is the cumulative frequency of relief, which is the percentage of individuals that met lifelong dependency criteria but have relaxed over the past year or more. The fit curve is a negative index based on the assumption that the probability of remittance per year remains the same regardless of the onset of addiction (Heyman, 2013).

The cumulative relief frequency of each drug increases every year. The easiest thing is that a certain percentage of people who change each year do not care how long they depend on. By the fourth year (since the onset of addiction), half of people with cocaine addiction cease to use cocaine at a clinically significant level, six-year dependent half-life for cannabis, dependence on alcohol for cannabis The half-life was quite long. ,16 years old. Since the typical age of onset of illegal drugs is about 20 years (Kessler et al., 2005a), the results show that most people who are addicted to illegal drugs are "poisoned" at age 30 It is. Of course, an addict may replace medicine in lieu of a stopped medication, but other considerations suggest that this does not explain the trend shown in Figure 1.1. For example, the dependence on all illegal drugs decreases markedly with age, even if an addict is switched from one drug to another (Heyman, 2013).

This figure also shows that there are many individual differences. Approximately 5% of cocaine users are still in their 40s meeting the poisoning criteria, about 8% of cannabis users are still heavy users under 50 years old, 15% of those over 60 years old in alcoholics It is still a big drinker. Therefore, for legal and illegal drugs, some addicts respond to the expectation of "chronic disease" labels. However, as described below, the relevance of smoking cessation drugs is a correlation of decision rather than being thought of as having similar correlations of disease addiction

"Addiction is an option," Dr. Jeffrey A. Schaler (a book of the same name, a book interviewed by ABC News) stated that there is no empirical support for the claim that addiction is a disease. Dr. Schaler insists that addiction is an act, that is clearly an individual's intention. One of the evidences presented by Dr. Schaler is an open religious nature of 12 stages of organization like alcoholism. "Is the best treatment religious," he asked. How is addiction disease? If you want to believe in the philosophy of the 12-step approach, dependence is not a medical problem but a moral problem. Even psychotherapy and counseling resulting in conversation and conversation therapy are based on a disease model and the client is convinced that drug abuse and the resulting behavior are not a choice but a result of a disease. If poisoning is sick, addicts can not control their behavior.

Scholars have proposed different theories to explain why people are abusing or getting into trouble. The basis of an ethical approach is that drug abuse is a concept of personal choice, and drug users are simply irresponsible people. On the other hand, in biological theory, drug abuse is a disease, because dependence is hereditary, people are considered to be addictive because they are easily abused. Psychological theory treats addiction of specific personality types and treats substance abuse as a form of self medication that helps individuals control depression and anxiety. Sociological theory focuses on subculturing, especially for specific social groups, accusing society of substance abuse and allowing substance abuse.