Hey, Addiction is a Brain Disease and IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT!

According to a statement on the Betty Ford Foundation website, and many other sources, addiction is a brain disease, not a character flaw. This “brain disease model” may be promoted by well-meaning people who have addicted loved ones, but it’s not accurate, just a PR concept, with no scientific evidence whatsoever. But search “addiction is a brain disease” and the Internet is full of people who bought into the lie, claiming that’s the way it is. Opioid addiction, sex addiction, food addiction, Internet addiction, porn addiction, it’s the new fashion statement to be addicted to one or more things that are just too big and strong for little old you to overcome, you poor thing.

Psychiatrists dreamed up this idea to make money and to get more people under their control. First they cozied up to traditional medicine to seem more official, and while psychiatrists have medical degrees, that’s just cover for voodoo head-bump crystal-vibration nonsense that is modern psychiatry and psychopharmacology.

They like to use diabetes, as an example of why drug abusers are so helpless. “It’s something that happens to your body, you can’t do anything about it, it’s not a moral failing, and it requires a drug for the rest of your life.” A drug which — just like all those street drugs out there — were produced by BigPharma.

So if you are drug addicted, it’s not your fault, you can’t help it, it’s your body’s fault, probably something you got from your parents via their DNA. And did I say “IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!”

Along with this brain disease model is the hint of a protected class of citizens who are not responsible for their condition. Drug addicts – I can see it coming – are not responsible for their condition and need care at public expense for the rest of their life, because, after all, it’s a brain disease and IT’S NOT THEIR FAULT.

Well, I beg to differ. Anytime something you do – like knocking over liquor stores to feed your heroin habit, or injecting opioids or cooking meth in your spare room and screaming at people who aren’t there — you are killing yourself, endangering people around you and filling your neighborhood with crazy, amped up psychos who break into houses and shoot people who they think are going to kill them. THAT IS YOUR FAULT YOU JERK!

It’s not your body, it’s the choices and you’ve made them. The choices that led you down back alleys where needles litter the street, and now you – and all the “brain disease model apologists for drugs and drug abusers” are determined to “reduce the stigma” and engage in “harm reduction” where you don’t get arrested for creating all this chaos, but instead you are swaddled into the caring arms of psychiatrists who will put you on methadone maintenance at public expense, or some of the new psychedelic drugs which means all those people who actually work at real jobs, creating useful products and services for society will pay for your treatment for the rest of your useless and non-productive life.

You can’t change your body, but you can change your mind. If you listen to the psychs they don’t give you a ghost of a chance to dig yourself out and you’ll just keep using street drugs, psych drugs, all kinds of deadly crap, until you overdose and die, and the psychs will shake their heads sadly and say they need more money to treat poor sorry-ass drug addicts like you who need sympathy and drugs to live. Oh, and let’s get rid of the “stigma” of addiction, because after all it’s a brain disease and IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!

One thing about sympathy? It’s deadly. It’s an agreement from others that you are a sad little nobody. It will suck the life out of you, kill your own ability to push through obstacles. It makes a basically good spiritual being think they get love and help only when they are pathetic.

The psychs won’t tell you this, but you are a basically good spiritual being, who’s been through hell and back. You are tough, you’re still here and you can change your life. It’s not destiny that determines your future, it’s the choices you make. So stop whining and get busy cleaning up. It’s not easy, the drugs make you a slave and you have to do courageous things to break those chains and escape.

And forget about suicide, death doesn’t help. You come back the same spirit you were, with the same temptations, same vices, the same choices in front of you. Different body, different DNA, and it’s not the body that will make or break you. It’s not a chemical imbalance or some phony brain disease, it’s those stupid choices you make.

So stop blaming your body, your parents, the horrible and evil and terrible society that drives you to drink or use meth or some other crap you snort, eat, inject, smoke or cram up your ass. If you want to be a slave there are lots of others out there who will be happy to make you one. You can commiserate, share needles, give each other AIDS and hepatitis and die in some piss-stinking alley feeling really sorry for yourself. Or you can get well you sorry-ass addict and start helping other people — that’s the way out.