Whether addiction is a choice or a disease has been a long-debated topic. Although it’s unlikely that the medical profession, the general public and even addicts themselves will ever agree on one or the other, here we debate both sides to the argument.
Addiction is a choice
Even an addict will admit that they choose to drink, take drugs, gamble or engage in whichever behaviour they’re addicted to of their own free will. It’s only in very extreme and rare cases that a person is forced to do these things by another person. Therefore, the argument that all addictions are a choice is a very obvious one.
In order for something to be classed as a disease, some part of the body needs to be in a state of abnormal physiological functioning. Nobody can argue for example that cancer isn’t a disease because it’s caused by changes to DNA within cells. A person with cancer cannot choose to stop this abnormal physiological functioning or make the disease go away. It’s only through treatment that they can keep the undesirable symptoms at bay.
If you take an alcoholic for example, there is no physiological malfunction happening in their body. Alcoholism isn’t something that just happens – it’s not something you’re born with and it’s not something that is possible to develop unless you physically choose to drink alcohol. A person cannot choose to get rid of cancer whereas an alcoholic – albeit with addiction counselling help, has a choice about whether they want to be an alcoholic anymore.
Addiction is a disease
Choices do not happen without a brain, it is the mechanism of choice. The quality of a person’s choice depends on the health of that mechanism. However much we may wish that a person’s choices are free in all instances, it is simply a fact that an addicted person’s failures are the result of a brain that has become greatly compromised.
Even if you take ‘less severe’ addictions such as smoking, anybody who has tried to or who has successfully kicked the habit will tell you that it wasn’t easy and probably took multiple attempts. After all, it’s not just your body that becomes addicted, it’s your mind too. If beating an addiction was that simple, surely the word ‘addiction’ wouldn’t even exist?
Everybody will admit that taking a drug for the first time is ‘free choice’, The problem is however that the progression of brain changes that occur after this weaken circuits in the prefrontal cortex. This is the very thing that’s necessary for exerting self-control and resisting temptation. Once an addiction takes hold, the ability for a person to stop engaging in that behaviour is greatly diminished.
This disrupted choice mechanism is what makes it so hard for people to stop drinking or taking drugs and is the same reason why so many addicts relapse even after decades of being clean and going through addiction treatment.
If you have an addiction that you would like help with, please visit our Drug and Alcohol page for more information. Alternatively, feel free to contact us in the strictest of confidence and we will be more than happy to advise you about the addiction counselling and addiction recovery services we offer.
