Time Magazine’s “How We Get Addicted”
Time magazine’s cover story on addiction,
“How We Get Addicted”
The cover story in the July 16, 2007 edition of Time (“The Science of Addiction,” by Michael D. Lemonick, a recovering addict, with Alice Park) provides evidence that something goes haywire in the brain of addicts as a result of use, which supports the idea of addiction as a brain disease. While the story combined a number of non-substance addictions with the drugs, because of the role of dopamine in driving the reward circuits in non-substance compulsions I won’t quibble. It explained the reason why “90 meetings in 90 days” works as well as it does to put the addict on the road to long-term sobriety (this appears to be “how long it takes the brain to reset itself and shake off the immediate influence of a drug”).
However, there were several myths it helped to perpetuate, including the definition of addiction offered by Joseph Frascella of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which requires “repetitive behaviors in the face of negative consequences [and] the desire to continue something you know is bad for you.” Unfortunately, while such awareness may be true for the non-substance addicts such as shopaholics and Internet addicts, the “hijacking” of memory and “exploiting emotions” that the article itself refers to prevent psychotropic drug addicts from self-diagnosis in the early stages of their disease. This myth tends to dissuade codependents from offering uncompromising tough love, since we’re all thinking the addict “knows” the drug is bad for him and, if true, continuing to heap on consequences for misbehaviors would make no sense. No, he doesn’t know the drug is bad for him–or for his victims–and, due to euphoric recall (the memory hijacking mechanism that causes addicts to view what they say or do through self-favoring lenses) cannot know it’s bad.
Next, Lemonick cites Dr. Nora Volkow, director of NIDA, who asserts that “everyone will become an addict if sufficiently exposed to drugs or alcohol.” First, she perpetuates the use of the term “drugs or alcohol” as if alcohol is not a drug, which is deplorable for someone of her influence. Second, no they won’t. Most recovering addicts admit to having triggered their addiction during the first drinking episode, which suggests a predisposition to addiction. Few, if any, become addicts who are not so predisposed, the evidence for which we can observe in a number of ways. We can follow the lives of college fraternity members, a few of whom later prove to have addiction and most of whom go on to lead the peaceful and productive life of the non-addict. We can also try and drink addictively ourselves and will find that we are on our faces long before the typical early-stage alcoholic even appears inebriated.
Finally, the article asserts that addiction is so harmful “evolution should have long ago weeded it out of the population.” Actually, it’s done an excellent job. Consider the difference in aggregate levels of alcoholism in cultures where fermented grains and fruits have been available in large quantities for 10,000 years v. those having had access for only 400 years. The former, such as the Mediterranean populations, have a 5-10% rate of alcoholism, while the latter, including Native Americans, have a rate as high as 75%. The reason may revolve around the fact that alcoholics have a propensity to think they are invincible, which would have weeded out budding young alcoholics from injuries before modern medicine was around to save them from themselves.