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Originally Posted by SONIC GAIL
I'm jumpin in on the addiction topic as we all know I have a bit of a problem in this area. It is a refusal to quit, but that refusal to quit is directly caused by the substance not only the person. Unless someone TRULY (and I mean you panic can't live without it will do almost anything to get it cant stop thinking about it act out violently when without it physically withdrawl from it) has been addicted to something there is no way they can even fathom what giving up an addiction is, how it feels, how that person feels. It not as easy as just quiting like ppl say. If it was than the world would not have such a huge problem with addiction. It is not ONLY psychlogical it is physical. Your body's chemistry is altered after being addicted to something. Any addiction is a chronic illness. Nicotine is very addictive even more so than most illicit drugs.
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what you, knox and millions others refuse to face is that you author your own actions, and that each act of consuming one of your addictions is a choice that you make and that you and noone else has control over. unless you face this fact, you cannot chose to do otherwise and quit. you are making excuses "its hard" "you have no idea what it feels like" etc. this is all irrelevant if you actually choose to quit.
it is irrelevant that it is "hard", as i've said in my earlier posts, this is what people experience when they have no intention of actually quitting and are just waiting to give in again.
and your logic is flawed when you say "if it was as easy as people would say there would be no addiction problem." people also say how hard it is and wildly exaggerate this aswell. the point is all addiction is irrelevant. you either quit or you don't. if you don't it is your choice.
nicotine is actually one of the least physically addictive substances. i know this is not common wisdom but it is fact. the addiction is purely psychological. there is hard scientific evidence to back this up. it less the nicotine, more the physiological changes in smoking and the dopamine hit it releases. but even these are very very mild when compared to something heroin.
the reason people experience smoking as such a "hard addiction" is because they are psychologically conditioned to expect it to this way.
what you say about the substance controlling the decision. well then perhaps we can agree that the act of quitting is when the person chooses to author their own decision to quit in spite of any pull from the traces of dopamineric rewiring that the substance has caused in their brain.
and actually - this finally lets me make the point i've been trying to make all along. that DESPITE a counter point to this being "oh, but surely then there are times we can say that it wasn't physically possible for the person to quit because their brain simply could not allow them, or overpower their cravings" - i can make the retort " but if the addicted person accepts this as possible, they will never successfully quit. and that this statement is only accurate as a description in hindsight that forecloses the possibility of agency when we can instead say that the person chose to not make the decision to quit."
because you cannot tell me that you are unable to quit, only that you are choosing not to. because if you say you are unable to then you can not know that for sure unless you have already decided not to quit ever. and that is my point, that noone can quit unless they chose to, and that those who aren't quitting chose not to.
allowing me to finally to put my tired contributions to this subject to rest. FINALLY. can't say anymore than that and am sick of trying.