This guy doesnt know what he is talking about with regard to addictions! To claim that heroin addiction is not a disease is an admission of ignorance and lack of PERTINENT experience. I have personally treated thousands of heroin addicts. I have personally performed about 1100 Rapid Opiate Detoxifications (my partner performed over 1300 with a total over 2400) in an outpatient clinic (in conjunction with nursing staff and a nurse anesthetist) under general anesthesia for 4 hours (heroin generally) - 6 hours (methadone generally) during which withdrawal was induced with naltrexone. Also, before awakening a subcutaneous naltrexone pellet was implanted on all patients with duration of 30 days to prevent re-use. The fundamental misunderstanding as far as prolonged addictions are concerned is that the firmware (notice I didnt say software) in the brain gets reprogrammed to make seeking the drug a priority over everything else. It is not a question of personal responsibility or voluntarily deciding to stop using. Most of the cases I treated were severe cases 25-100+ bags heroin/day and >100 - 300 mg methadone per day. I have seen families completely destroyed with loss of all assets in efforts to stop this disease. THE CHEMISTRY OF THE BRAIN IS SIMPLY CHANGED - THAT IS THE CORRECT PARADIGM THROUGH WHICH TO SEE HEROIN ADDICTION IN ACTION. Only in the mildest cases, perhaps, is it a question of software and voluntary priorities with the ability to influence the course of the disease by medications and outpatient psychiatric treatment depending upon the patients tolerance for discomfort and positive environment. It is not a difficult deconstruction to see that Daniels qualifications and superficial biased experience with treating prisoners for 15 years in a class-conscious environment in England has adversely affected his clinical objectivity. The problem with modern culture includes arrogant and perfunctory clinicians like this one, and the injustice they spread as ostensible experts to the gullible masses. By the way, the whole neuro-physiological issue over personal responsibility and over what is voluntary is in a state of flux right now. New neuro-physiological investigations have given objective evidence through functional nuclear imaging studies that so-called voluntary decisions have already been decided by precursor activities measurable in the brain indicating outcomes (observable to the clinician) before the patient even consciously decides or knows about it. This will have wide spread implications for the criminal justice system in assessing responsibility and degrees of culpability. A gross example (and not nearly to the level of sophistication that Im talking about here) is a case of a family member prosecuted for molesting his child. Later, it was demonstrated that the member was suffering from a brain tumor which was removed. The perpetrator was released, and showed no evidence of recurrent anti-social behavior. Two years later, the same patient again assaulted another child. Imaging studies showed recurrence of the tumor. Disease pathology is mitigating as it should be. With deeper understanding of neuro-pathophysiology, outcomes coming from impulsive behavior (in ADD and ADHD patients for example) should influence sentencing for criminal behavior. Personally, and philosophically, I believe free will is a myth which science will eventually prove once there is a complete understanding of the brain. Also, in systems engineering there is an abstract isomorphism between any observable stochastic, noisy, and indeterminate system and its mathematical reachable dual which is completely deterministic. Thus all is deterministic or fatalistic in my view!
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 14:28:17 +0000
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