My experience:  Addiction is very real but 95% of it is in your own head.

The other 5% are deadly withdrawals.

Blah blah

There is such a thing as innocent addiction

It happens when people you trust give you something like a pain killer

They don’t tell you the danger or how to control it

After you’re hooked it’s a different world from what you guys are describing RE willpower

Look, I can stop drinking for a few days!  Why can’t you!  You fucking weak mother fucker, be strong like me!  What’s wrong with you?, you’re fucking weak. Weak willed, weak minded, you fucking suck as a man. I can not have a drink, wtf is wrong with you!!!?  Just fucking stop!

I can’t friend. The pain is something you cannot comprehend. I shake in bed, I shake when I wake up. I shake uncontrollably. But having that drink makes all that pain go away. It hurts so fucking much brother. Oh god the pain. Please help me brother, please. I need help. I need help right fucking now. Take me to a hospital, help me. I’m so fucking sick, I don’t want to die.

Name is spidey, I’m an alcoholic. I’m good now but I know that he’ll, others don’t.

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

Bullshit.

You *can* become dependent on them, but just because you have them prescribed does not mean that you *are* dependent.  The viewpoint you posted is as naive as saying "If you drink, you're already an alcoholic".

Most people with ADHD go out of their way to *prevent* dependence.  Strategies include using short-lived meds to last just long enough for work/school, leaving you 16+ hrs/day *off* of the meds, skipping weekends, skipping some work/school days, not taking them during summers, etc..

Someone (like spidey) who is physiologically addicted to alcohol is at significant risk of DEATH if they try to quit alcohol cold turkey by themselves. However, if you are willing to go inpatient at a hospital or facility, they can get you through it with benzodiazepines. CIWA protocol.

I would rather be addicted to a lot of things before alcohol.

Physically addiction is very real. To think otherwise is crawdad level IQ.

A lot of times, you don't even have to show up at inpatient for the benzos.   Show up at the ER with a high BAL, they'll give you some banana bags, write you a script for the benzos, and send you home.  My brother would do that every time he got up around 0.40-0.45, and once he'd had the banana bags and gotten the benzos, he'd go home and keep drinking.  

Some inpatient facilities (those without an actual MD on-prem) won't take you if you're currently drunk, for the exact reason you mention:  Coming down from, say, 0.4% all at once without the benzos can sometimes kill you.

And that’s what I did. I post in these threads not as a drama queen, only because I know that pain. Others reading this thread can beat it. But you’re gonna need medically surpervised inpatient help.

I think it’s a pretty complicated subject.  Are there some people who are physically addicted to certain substances and can’t quit? Sure.

Are there some slack ass losers who don’t give a shit about anything and would rather get drunk and high all day instead of working and trying to make something of themselves? Sure.

Are there people who use drugs and alcohol to white wash the pain of PTSD from horrible stuff they’ve been exposed to in a war zone or an abusive childhood? Sure.

Are there combinations of all of the above? Sure.

Addiction isn’t a black and white affliction.

Alcohol withdrawal can kill you.

I never said everyone can just straight up quit cold turkey. Physical dependency on drugs is a real, fatal thing, you're right. But, if you're in that situation, once you have sought medical help to get past that physical dependency, it is up to you and only you, psychologically, to stay sober.

My mother has these weird addiction pathways.  It is bizarre how alcohol and gambling trigger them and her behavior and take her over.

She really loved that song "Addicted to Love" and I realize now why, the lyrics expressed how her addiction to alcohol is/was. I didn't really understand how messed up she was because she was straight for my childhood and early adulthood.  She relapsed after she retired when I was in my 30's, it was so strange to see how much alcohol rewarded whatever pleasure center in the brain it rewards.

At my sister's reception she got smashed and while we were driving her home all she could talk about was how glad she was that there was wine at the reception.

While I was inpatient detox I watched while the other guys folks got released after just 2-3 days. Meth, heroin, you name it.

But me, I was alchohol. They watched me like a hawk. Check vitals every 2 hours. Wake me up, check vitals. Here, take this medicine (some benzo, starts with L..Librium?). Took 10 days before I was released. 10 days of being monitored like that, medicated like that.

But I saved my life. If your sick, you need a doctor. And I was very, very sick.

I have taken as many as 6 oxycodone a day for weeks and gone to zero in 2 days when the pain was resolved.  No problem. I worked two weeks on and two off for years . When I was single and chasing skirt I would go out often , and drink heavily,  never had a problem stopping to go back to work where I couldn't drink at all. I overuse my phone but don't go into withdrawal when im out to sea or I go camping  and it doesn't have reception.  I like sex and porn and jerking off when I can't get the real thing but when I haven't been able to do either because of an operation or a ruptured disk , I didn't go through withdrawal.  
I don't understand the who addiction thing unless it's something like heroin that I haven't experienced.  Because alcohol,  gambling,  sex, prescription opioids I've done enough that I should have experienced it if I was going to.

Agreed. It doesn't change my statement in the least.

It's no secret at all that guys like to get off. They enjoy fucking women (or men, or goats, or whatever...no judgement) but it's willpower that stops us from fucking those things out in the street for everyone to see. It's pretty fucking arguable that the will to fuck is as strong as the will to gamble, drink, shoot heroin, etc and it's a pretty well universal fact that 99.9% of males want to do it, yet the vast majority of us refrain from doing so at places such as Arby's at lunch, the intersection of Main and North street for everyone to see, or the local soccer game. That'a called willpower.

Try oxy for a few years and jump off cold turkey. Your opinion will differ.

Or why people like me can take fairly high doses of opiates for long periods of time a d stop without any symptoms of withdrawal or feeling that I was addicted to begin with for that matter?

Weeks is not a long time.

Well I've only taken it for 6 weeks straight at high doses but I always have a full bottle of 10/325s in the medicine cabinet and take it once a week or so if my back is bad. I've never gotten a buzz from it, maybe that has something to do with it. But I didn't have any problems with morphine or codeine after hospitalization either. I doubt everyone who claims to be addicted to Oxycodone has been on it for a few years before becoming addicted though. I've  had the pain management doctor and access for almost 2 years and Tramadol for a couple of years  before that. It's just that what ever I take I only take intermittently when I actually need to, not when I don have pain.

But is addiction a disease? Society today wants to claim everything is a disease! If I'm in a crowd I can't catch an addiction. It is something that I bring on myself. I don't believe it is a disease. My father and uncles on both sides as well as many cousins were alcoholics. As an adult I liked to drink also but didn't know when to stop until I was sloppy drunk. So I just quit all together because I didn't want my family to experience the life I did growing up.

Injured my back and wouldn't take pain medicine because of the horror stories. After about 10 days and nights of no sleep because of the pain and my legs would spasm and jerk uncontrollably I finally tried the pain meds. Never took them unless I was in pain and never abused them. After years on opiates from a pain clinic and surgeries I quit them. Never a problem. As the pain became less frequent I just didn't even think to take them, but when I injured my neck and had to start the meds again I noticed that if I failed to get my meds and would go awhile without them my pain was more extreme and my body would have withdrawals such as runny nose or just overall feeling bad and as soon as I got my medicine filled and took it those symptoms would stop immediately. Hopefully when I get my neck surgery I can be done with pain meds because I hate taking them.
Sorry for the long reply.  If alcoholism or drug abuse is labeled a disease then people can feel better about their addictions and can possibly get a disability check.

Congrats. You’re not an addict. Not everybody is like you.

But if it's a disease shouldn't I be an addict? I understand addictions I just don't think it's a disease.
I think I'm addicted to skoal. But don't know because I haven't tried to quit yet.

No. You don’t turn yourself into an addict just from heavy use. It’s a genetic disease. You either have addict genes, or you don’t.

I think there is more to it than simple genetics. Genetics may create the emergency exit, but it doesn't give you the emergency to open it.

I didnt think it was a real thing.  I thought it was all a lack of will power, and believed addicts were the losers TV depicts them as.  I was in control of my life, and it couldn't happen to me.  I wouldn't let it.

Then I lived it.  I also have met with many others who have lived it.  I've seen some survive, recover, and return to living awesome lives.  I've also attended funerals of those who didnt.

It's a real thing.

And all areas in between.

Thankfully, addiction did not run in my blood family; however, my aunt (not by blood) and cousin (her daughter) were both alcoholics. They were both the nicest, funniest people you'd ever meet, but they were active alcoholics until the days they died.

A family friend that was like a brother to me growing up was also an alcoholic. Another one that was so nice and very funny, but he could NOT stop drinking. In and out of rehab multiple times. They found him dead in his car outside a liquor store. Broke my heart. His parents were devastated, his mom kept saying you shouldn't have to bury your child.

I think it is pretty well established that some families have a genetic predisposition to become addicted easier than others. Whether a person heeds the warning from actions of others in his/her family is the question. Human behavior is a puzzling thing.

I've been sober for right at a decade.  Physical addiction is very, very real.  It is horrible.  But it can also be overcome.

Unless you've walked a step as someone who has been addicted to something, be careful about judgements. No one becomes addicted on purpose.

I know addiction is real. My questioning was is it a disease? If there's a genetic cause then maybe it is a disease? I've just always thought of a disease as something you catch or come down with.

My father when jerking & sweating in the bed always said it was DT's and he needed more whiskey to get better. I've had cousins die from alcohol poisoning from drinking too much at one time. But I've seen some of my uncles that drank all their  lives suddenly get saved and quit never to drink again for the rest of their lives. It just always seemed like in my family if they wanted to bad enough that they'd quit.
That's why I've never thought of addiction as a disease because you can't just decide to quit a disease.
Oh well it's something for smarter men than me to figure out.

Good luck and prayers for all you guys that are in the trenches with addictions!

"Disease" or not, it's all semantics.  It's a life threatening condition and the word "disease" gets people access to the care they need.

They’ve actuay identified the genes that cause alcoholism. That’s why it’s hereditary.

Dang I'm glad I didn't inherit those from my dad. Another thing to be proud of my mother for.

I think you need to do a google search on "disease" because it seems you have a warped understanding of the term.

As to the part in bold, many addicts may decide to quit but that doesn't mean they're no longer addicted. They're just not feeding their addiction.