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Medical Research and Morality

© De Williams

Today I decided to look for medical research about addiction. I found, as you would expect, thousands of sites on the how's and why's of substance abuse. What follows spoke to me and my experiences over the years. These are things that I felt described my encounters with my various addictions.

In the April 1998 issue of Medicine & Behavior, Kenneth J. Bender, Pharm.D.,M.A. wrote about new treatments for drug addiction. While I might not necessarily agree that it takes drugs to treat addiction, his description..."of addiction as a kind of a memory...a disordered, maladaptive memory that gets us into trouble. But, it's a memory that is, at least in part, involuntary" supports my firm belief that my addiction is learned response. I fall back on these behaviors when uncomfortable feelings come up for me. I am hard wired toward that disordered, maladaptive behavior. Every day I go another 24 hours substance free I am setting up new pathways in my brain. I am learning new conditioned responses, other than to numb out.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism is a rich resource of news about alcohol use and abuse. Take time to visit FAQS on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The acronym CAGE is used to frame questions about whether you or someone close to you has an alcohol problem. (Cut down, Annoyed, Guilty, and Eye opener. This really rang bells for me when I reflected on my behavior while using!)

The NIAAA had a regular publication, Alcohol Alerts. With topics like "Alcohol and the Workplace", "Alcohol and Sleep", and "Alcohol and Aging" one can get educated about the effects alcohol has on our lives. The April alert, Imaging and Alcoholism: A Window on the Brain the latest research is presented as to what effects alcohol actually has on the brain. (As if there was any doubt of brain damage!) There is good news in that "Cognitive functions and motor coordination may improve at least partially within 3 to 4 weeks of abstinence" with over longer periods of time other brain components return to an approximation of normal.

I would like to close today's discussion with The Morality of Alcoholism. Some may nay say psychology as medical science, but I have been helped by it. In this article Gary S. Stofle addresses the paradox of the disease concept of alcoholism (when someone is told they are not responsible for their alcoholism) and the feelings of shame and remorse felt by the sober alcoholic, the dis-ease. Check this article out for a clear discussion of the two views.

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