Chemical Dependency/Illness or weakness

[wolf]

First, as we all learned in the first month of statistics class ... correllation does not imply causality. Is it genetics, or is it learned behavior? Or is it a matter of the process of addiction itself?

Craving and physical withdrawal symptoms are not seen in social users because they don't use to the point where they've fucked up their bodies enough to require the substance. Or have they? Plenty of casual drinkers have hangovers ... it's not that far of a step to the withdrawal symptoms, shakes, seizures and DTs of the serious alcoholic deprived of his booze. Ditto for herion, for example. It doesn't take that long to develop a tolerance requiring more and more of the substance. The more you use, the harder the withdrawal. That the withdrawal symptoms are insignificant when one starts using doesn't make them any less real.

But none of that makes it a disease. It's consequences of one's choice.