I Can’t Help Myself’
Is Addiction a Matter of Choice?
By John Stossel
April 21
— Watching TV, you'd think the whole country is addicted to something: drugs, food, gambling — even sex or shopping.
"The United States has elevated addiction to a national icon. It's our symbol, it's our excuse," says Stanton Peele, author of The Diseasing of America.
There are conflicting views about addiction and popular treatments. So, we talked with researchers, psychologists and "addicts" and asked them: Is addiction a choice?
Publicity about addiction suggests it is a disease so powerful that addicts no longer have free will. Lawyers have already used this "addict-is-helpless" argument to win billions from tobacco companies.
Blaming others for our "addictions" is popular today.
In Canada, some lawyers are suing the government, saying it is responsible for getting people addicted to video slot machines.
Jean Brochu says he was unable to resist the slot machines — that he was "sick." He says the government made him sick, and his sickness led him to embezzle $50,000. Now, he's suing the government to restore his dignity and pay his therapy bills.
Psychologist Jeff Schaler, author of Addiction Is a Choice, argues that people have more control over their behavior than they think.
"Addiction is a behavior and all behaviors are choices," Schaler says. "What's next, are we going to blame fast-food restaurants for the foods that they sell based on the marketing, because the person got addicted to hamburgers and french fries?"
Well, yes, actually. Two weeks after he said that some children sued McDonald's, claiming the fast-food chain made them obese. They lost the first round in court, but they're trying again.
Uncontrollable Impulses?
"Impulse control disorder" is the excuse Rosemary Heinen's lawyer used to explain Heinen's shopping. Heinen was a corporate manager at Starbucks who embezzled $3.7 million, which she then used to buy 32 cars, diamonds, gold, Rolex watches, three grand pianos, and hundreds of Barbie dolls.
In court a psychiatrist testified Heinen was unable to obey the law, and shouldn't be given the seven-year prison sentence she was facing. The judge, however, did put Heinen behind bars, sentencing her to 48 months.
The "helplessly addicted" defense seemed to work better for the Canadian gambler. The judge gave Brochu probation and told him to see a psychologist. His mother paid back the $50,000 he stole.
Now Brochu and his lawyer are seeking $700 million on behalf of all addicted gamblers in Quebec, claiming the government is responsible for getting them addicted, too.
Calling Addiction a Disease
Many scientists say addicts have literally lost control, and that they suffer from a disease.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse calls drug addiction a "disease that will waste your brain." This is our government's official policy. And government-funded researchers, like Stephen Dewey of Brookhaven National Labs, tend to agree.
They say their studies of addiction in monkeys and rats show that addiction is a brain disease.
"Addiction is a disease that's characterized by a loss of control," says Dewey.
Dewey takes his message to schools, showing kids brain scans that he says prove his point. He tells students that addiction causes chemical changes that hijack your brain.
Genetic Destiny?
Dewey and other researchers say our genes predispose some of us to addiction and loss of control.
Researchers at Harvard University believe they may have found one of those genes in the zebrafish.
When researcher Tristan Darland put cocaine on a pad and stuck it on one side of a fish tank, fish liked the feeling they got so much that they hung around the area, even after the cocaine was removed.
Then Darland bred a family of fish that had one gene altered. These fish resisted the lure of the cocaine.
Darland says this shows that addiction is largely genetic. "These fish don't know anything about peer pressure. They either respond or they don't respond to the drug," he says.
At the Medical College of Wisconsin, Dr. Robert Risinger scans the brains of human addicts while they watch a video of people getting high on crack. It's what they call a "craving" video. He then shows them a hard-core sex film.
The brain scans show the addicts get more excited by the craving videos. The drugs become more powerful than sex — because addiction's a disease that changes your brain, says Dewey.
I asked Dewey if he was suggesting that drug users don't have free will.
"That's correct," he said. "They actually lose their free will. It becomes so overwhelming."
But if they don't have free will, how come so many people successfully quit?
Is the Disease Message Harmful?
Addiction expert Sally Satel acknowledges drug addiction and withdrawal is "certainly a very intense biological process." But she is one of many experts who say the addiction-as-brain-disease theory is harmful to addicts — and wrong.
She also thinks it's unhelpful to take away the stigma associated with drug abuse. "Why would you want to take the stigma away?" she asks. "I can't think of anything more worthwhile to stigmatize."
"People need to get rid of the idea that addiction is caused by anything other than themselves," says James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, a book about his experience as an addict.
Frey says he took just about every drug, from alcohol to crack. Yet Frey says he wasn't powerless. He scoffs at Dewey's claim that addicts' brains compel them to keep taking drugs.
Many doctors agree, saying you can still choose not to take drugs, even if they do cause changes in your brain.
"You can look at brains all day," Satel says. "They can be lit up like Christmas trees. But unless a person behaves in a certain way, we wouldn't call them an addict."
Environment and Choice
In fact, some researchers cite experiments that they say prove that addiction is a matter of choice.
In Canada, researchers gave rats held in two different environments a choice between morphine and water. The rats in cages chose morphine; the rats held in a nicer environment preferred the water.
Whether you get addicted also depends on how you're treated. At Wake Forest University, male monkeys lived together for three months, and established a pecking order.
The monkeys who'd been bullied by the "boss monkeys" banged a lever to get as much cocaine as they could. But the dominant monkeys, just by virtue of being dominant, had less interest in the drug.
"It's just like the human world," says Dr. Michael Nader, who conducted the experiment.
"Individuals that have no control in their job show a greater propensity for substance abuse than those that have control," Nader says.
These comparisons suggest that addiction is a choice — not a disease that takes away free will.
The message from the treatment industry is that drug users need professional help to quit. What they seldom say is that people are quitting bad habits all the time without professional help.
In fact, some studies suggest most addicts who recover do so without professional help.
For example, during the Vietnam War, thousands of soldiers became addicted to heroin.
The government tracked hundreds of soldiers for three years after they returned home. They found 88 percent of those addicted to narcotics in Vietnam no longer were.
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When do we as individuals take responsibility for our own actions? For every action there is some sort of reaction/consequence. A couple of weeks ago John Stossel had a show called
‘I Can’t Help Myself’ Is Addiction a Matter of Choice? which I found pretty interesting since they had a variety of "addictions" from drugs and cigarettes to food and sex. He covered plenty of ground in a relatively balanced and fair way. Showing people who decided for themselves that "ENOUGH! I'm making the conscious effort to have discipline and stop."
My personal life brought me to AA/NA rooms with some friends and I found that no one there took responsibility for it. They pigeonholed it under "addiction is a disease" and that's how they were able to deal with it and then make the conscious choice to stop. They touted that it was something that they had no control over.
Having done my fair share of drinking and pot smoking, I do not agree with them. I did enjoy drinking and smoking. Even cigarettes. I stopped on my own. No patches, no "therapy", just made the decision to just no longer do that behavioir. I won't say it was easy. Even now, I'm instructed to not drink do to health reasons. I'd love to just have a beer with some friends, but I must refrain and do so because I know the consequences of my actions.