Addiction is not a disease. Thankfully, we are hearing more and more that the current, yet troubling model of addiction is not holding up to the latest neuroscience discoveries. Forty years ago, the disease model was becoming more widely accepted and, at that time it did serve a positive role in taking away the stigma of alcoholism and drug abuse. What it replaced was a societal blind eye to the entire issue of addiction. It was not something we talked about. By being labeled a disease, addiction became more socially acceptable to discuss and it came out of the shadows; it became a medical problem.
We never really examined the disease model’s limits and contradictions. The lackluster results that mainstream addiction treatment provides is finally being put under the MRI machine. What is being discovered both in the lab and on the street is that people are able to change their habits and their brains change with them.
The idea that someone is an addict, has a chronic disease, for the rest of their lives, no matter how long they have been clean and sober is just not supported by what we now know about neuroplasticity and our ability to make changes in our lives. We now know that worldwide, the vast majority of people who quit smoking, drinking, gambling, and drugs have done so without the help of a program. They made a clear decision to change their lives and they did it. Once they made that internal decision for themselves everything changed.
If you want to find out how you can make this whole process easy, call or leave your info in the blue box on the right. We’ll get back to you right away and help to give you the power you need to make smoking a stinky habit of the past!