Theodore Dalrymple is soon to be beatified in my saints of essayists chapel.
Here the man goes debunking the whole stupid business of addiction.
http://www.city-journal.org/2013/eon1218td.html
Some old guys remember the performance of Frank Sinatra in the movie “Man with the Golden Arm” that dramatized and exaggerated the problem of opiate addiction.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048347/
I did my internship at Harlem Hospital–yes I was a bleeding heart liberal and it was 1971, but we treated heroin addicts one way–cold turkey–no real problems.
Now I am a jail doc and regularly get the plea for something to help with withdrawal. The jailors and most of the inmates and their families are into the culture and the mystique of addiction.
Nonsense. Addictions are an invention of psychiatry. Sure stopping something you like (like running, or sex, or massage, or traveling to exotic places) might cause you discomfort, but is that a disease????
Most inmates use recreational and prescription drugs like hydrocodone, oxycodone, oxycontin, alprazolam (Xanax) and clonazepam (Klonipin) for all their anxiety and “pain” problems. Of course there are the Methamphetamine, cocaine, and narcotic users. Most of them do well with a nice kick in the butt and a chance to go cold turkey. They certainly don’t need any coddling.
Sure, there are drugs to help smooth out the abrupt cessation of opiates and of course there is the industry that has developed around drug addicts–giving them free needles and methadone.
I say Anthony Daniels should be your splash of cold water–he puts it well. Addiction is BS. I would say all the new “addictions” to sex, coffee, computers, western movies, American Idol, tweeting, deserve to be categorized the same way–they are just choices made by people who are weak and goofy and their mommas should have kicked their ass and told them to grow up, but didn’t. “Addictionology” is an invention of caring professionals with a bag of rocks for a head.
There are reasonable precautions about withdrawal, abrupt withdrawal from sedatives like Xanax, Klonapin, Valium, Librium or Ativan and barbiturates can produce seizures. Also withdrawal from alcohol for alcoholics can be life threatening and requires medical treatment for delerium tremens (DTs) that can be life threatening, and seizures.
If you really want to get it, read Dalrymple’s book Romancing Opiates.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/romancingopiates/
Thanks Theodore (Anthony) ubedaman–damn.