Why do people insist on medicalizing what is essentially a natural human response to unbearable social pressures, most of which are systemic in nature and thus beyond the immediate control of the sufferer?
We all know the world we have created is not gentle on the human soul and it is only natural the hardest hit will seek some kind of relief - to be honest it can boil down to either doing that or going mad right on the spot in many cases.
Medicalizing the causes of addiction still serves as a backhanded way of putting forth a 'personal defect' model in which the world is portrayed as an essentially benign environment where difficulties in adjusting or coping are seen as being due to an individual flaw, rather than illustrating addiction as a completely understandable and inevitable consequence of someone trying to soften the blows meted out by a society that has become steadily less responsive to human needs and feelings.
The notion of a malfunctioning 'reward center' in the brain as a cause arises from just the kind of carrot-and-stick mentality an authoritarian society wields in order to maintain compliance from the masses. If any such mechanism even exists in the human mind, its presence is completely artificial and results from deliberate enculturation as opposed to any kind of inborn 'flaw in the circuitry'.
The primary health issues related to addiction arise from the wear and tear that substances themselves have on the body and mind, or sometimes other factors such as infectious diseases like HIV or Hepatitis C acquired through the actual mechanism of drug use. It is not inherently a 'disease' and upon successful termination of substance use most of the related medical issues likewise vanish, unless some kind of permanent physical damage has occurred.
The term 'addiction' itself has been expanded over the years to include (and thus medicalize) a broad range of human behaviors including the performance of vital functions such as procreation or taking nourishment, when in truth it was only ever intended to describe the compulsive ingestion of certain foreign substances that create a literal, physical dependency, meaning that unpleasant - or even life-threatening - symptoms will result if the substance is withdrawn.
So the solutions to addiction are obvious - fundamental changes to society are needed in order to put a stop to the kinds of systemic abuses that cause people to seek succor in mind-numbing chemicals in the first place. Alongside this we need to stop criminalizing substance use itself, and the acts related to the procurement and possession of such substances for personal use, provided these acts do not in themselves result in harm to others.
There is also the question of the role played by medical practitioners themselves (and their Pharma handlers) in creating widespread dependency on legally-sanctioned substances in order to enrich their own bottom line and frequently as a means of social control in itself. Psychiatrists are among the worst offenders with their wholesale use of mind-numbing chemicals to pacify painful emotions or unwanted behaviors in their 'patients'.
This is the truly criminal behavior; the deliberate, systemic use of powerful chemicals not only to modify the behavior and emotions of unwilling individuals, but to reap huge profits by doing so. And it is all legally-sanctioned despite the fact that many prescription drugs (especially psychotropics) can be every bit as physically addictive as heroin or other 'illicit' narcotics, and their use is even more likely to result in violent behavior from persons under their influence.
The same applies to alcohol and tobacco, which are completely legal for personal use despite the fact they are among the most addictive (and physically harmful) substances on the planet. Yet society's insidious double standards outlaw the use of cannabis, which by comparison is a relatively benign substance that does not result in catastrophic physical dependency, or any kind of withdrawal syndrome upon cessation of use.
The whole 'industry' of addiction can be seen as a complex nexus of social control for profit involving the criminalization of substance use (and directly related, the intentional state-sanctioned introduction of 'illicit' substances into certain communities in order to destabilize them and serve as 'pretext' for legal intervention), the deliberate, doctor-created dependency on still other 'medicines' in order to control people while reaping enormous financial gains in the process, and the wholesale availability and use of 'legal' recreational drugs that carry their own host of social and medical issues, thus keeping the whole destructive loop endlessly turning.
Systemic abuse, injustice and general lack of caring form the engine that drives this vicious cycle in the first place, with profit motive and an aggressive social control agenda providing the fuel. Challenging and putting a stop to these deliberate systemic aberrations is the only real solution to addiction.
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