I think both of y’all have a rough understanding of addiction. There is no such thing as people who get addicted to substances after a single use. There are instances of people trying a drug and then continuing to use it, usually due to availability.
Its a lot like any other opportunity that enters your life. Sometimes its really hard to turn down the idea of using to fix whatever problems you have in the short term. Noone plans to use forever you know.
Is it so shocking that average people are just as capable of addiction as the people they see at their local methadone clinic?
You are right that taking something once at a low dose is unlikely to make you addicted. It doesn’t make sense though to ignore psychological, situational, and genetic risk factors for addiction.
I never said that those factors should be ignored.
The point I’m making is that when people frame this as “some people just aren’t built to handle it” they put people into two groups: the easily addicted, and normal people.
People want to be part of and prove they are in the normal group. Something is wrong with you if you are in the addict group. Those in the normal group feel protected by being part of it. They think they aren’t capable of addiction that they must have gotten lucky.
I think that’s an incredibly dangerous framing of addiction. Everyone is capable of becoming an addict. Just because some never do, doesn’t mean they had some special mutation that protected them. Addiction is an incredibly social disease, and with how little we know about it we should be more cautious rather than callous when discussing it.
I think both of y’all have a rough understanding of addiction. There is no such thing as people who get addicted to substances after a single use. There are instances of people trying a drug and then continuing to use it, usually due to availability.
Its a lot like any other opportunity that enters your life. Sometimes its really hard to turn down the idea of using to fix whatever problems you have in the short term. Noone plans to use forever you know.
Is it so shocking that average people are just as capable of addiction as the people they see at their local methadone clinic?
You are right that taking something once at a low dose is unlikely to make you addicted. It doesn’t make sense though to ignore psychological, situational, and genetic risk factors for addiction.
I never said that those factors should be ignored.
The point I’m making is that when people frame this as “some people just aren’t built to handle it” they put people into two groups: the easily addicted, and normal people.
People want to be part of and prove they are in the normal group. Something is wrong with you if you are in the addict group. Those in the normal group feel protected by being part of it. They think they aren’t capable of addiction that they must have gotten lucky.
I think that’s an incredibly dangerous framing of addiction. Everyone is capable of becoming an addict. Just because some never do, doesn’t mean they had some special mutation that protected them. Addiction is an incredibly social disease, and with how little we know about it we should be more cautious rather than callous when discussing it.