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To: Reeses

The benefit derived is to focus a course of study/investigation to better understand it. No drunk who has lost his family, job, savings, lifestyle, friends, etc. etc. etc. wants to be a drunk. Yet the compulsion to drink over-rides these considerations. Why? What's the neural mechanism?

Putting the burden on the drunk by citing will power, lack of morals, etc. propels the argument back into the Victorian age and halts scientific inquiry, which doesn't usually delve into moral issues.


226 posted on 07/30/2005 1:46:22 PM PDT by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: durasell
No drunk who has lost his family, job, savings, lifestyle, friends, etc. etc. etc. wants to be a drunk.

Over drinking is not a moral issue. It is a behavior decision making problem. Someone who half wants to quit also half wants to be drunk no matter what. In all humans, the half that wants to quit always has more mental power than the animal half that doesn't. But clouding the mental struggle as a chronic disease and not a decision making problem is not helpful.

There is no mysterious out of control neural mechanism forcing someone to lift a drink to their lips. Saying there is a mental disorder is just another angle in shifting blame. If someone has enough wits about them to drive to the liquor store, buy a bottle, unscrew the cap, and pour it down their hatch, they have enough wits not to as well.

228 posted on 07/30/2005 2:07:41 PM PDT by Reeses
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