Posted on 04/21/2003 4:06:10 PM PDT by Zon
Help Me, I Can't Help Myself
A John Stossel Special
April 18 — Watching television, one might think the whole country is addicted to something: drugs, food, gambling — even sex or shopping.
Stanton Peele, author of The Diseasing of America, says, "The United States has elevated addiction to a national icon. It's our symbol, it's our excuse."
In Help Me, I Can't Help Myself, ABCNEWS' John Stossel reports on conflicting views about addiction and popular treatments and asks: is addiction a choice? The hour-long special airs MONDAY, APRIL 21, at 8 p.m. on ABC.
Stossel interviews Sue Silverman, a self-professed sex addict. "It was such a compulsion that I felt I had to do it over and over and over again." She went to 10 therapists and not one told her to stop having sex, or that it was her fault. Silverman wrote a book about her experience titled Love Sick in which she says TV talk shows loved the idea of sex as an addiction.
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.
Is addiction really a choice?
U.S. government policy is that drug and alcohol addiction is a disease, and many government-funded researchers, like Stephen Dewey of Brookhaven National Labs, agree. Addicts are "absolutely out of control," says Dewey. At the Medical College of Wisconsin, Dr. Robert Risinger scans the brains of human addicts while they watch a so-called "craving video" of people getting high on crack. He then shows them a hard core sex film. The brain scans show 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.
Stossel asks: "They don't have free will?"
Dewey answers, "That's correct. They actually lose their free will. It becomes so overwhelming."
But the fact that most cigarette "addicts," as well as cocaine and heroin users, do eventually quit demonstrates that we do have free will. Cancer is a disease — you cannot "quit" cancer. Addiction is a choice. It can be difficult to quit, but people choose to do that every day.
Watch Stossel's full report Monday, April 21 on ABC at 8 p.m.
All it says is that he should change the tape.
There is a very simple argument against all this addiction theory: the drugs and sex and all that was available forever. If the theorists were right, the mankind would've been dead.
The reverse is true: we have more addicts because of the permisiveness. Just as we have more sexually confused people because of acceptance of homosexuality.
First, there is the often-ignored distiction between physical addiction to a substance (such as alcohol, heroin, or nicotine) and the strong desire to engage in certain actiivites (such as sex or websurfing).
Second, there is the debate about how far addicts are morally responsible for their behavior.
These need to be dealt with separately. On the second issue, there is room for debate. As to the first, claiming that heroin addiction and sex "addiction" are the same thing is just asinine.
But the fact that most cigarette "addicts," as well as cocaine and heroin users, do eventually quit demonstrates that we do have free will. Cancer is a disease — you cannot "quit" cancer. Addiction is a choice. It can be difficult to quit, but people choose to do that every day.
I think that sums up mainstream media and many supposed experts are incompetent, ignorant or having a self-serving agenda and exposes them for it.
There it is --the distilled truth.
I'm a cancer survivor, and find it a little insulting that people who keep losing the mortgage payment at the casinos or snorting, jacking or smoking it up want to claim "disease sufferer" status. I didn't volunteer for cancer, but if you smoke, you did. If you shoot heroin, you did. If you get in your car and drive to the casino when you know you can't afford to lose, you did. If you snort coke, you did.
Sorry if that sounds cold-blooded, but that's life.
Sorry. I've sworn off TV.
It's amazing that you clicked on the link. Must be URL-click addiction. ;-)
As to the first, claiming that heroin addiction and sex "addiction" are the same thing is just asinine.
They're the same in that a person has free will to chose to quit and that's the point. You're free read into the article anything you chose.
Cancer is a disease — you cannot "quit" cancer. Addiction is a choice. It can be difficult to quit, but people choose to do that every day.
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