Why the 'Disease Model' Fails to Convince Americans That Addiction Is a Health Issue

By Maia Szalavitz These days, everyone from Obama's "drug czar" Michael Botticelli to former Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie strenuously emphasizes that addiction is a disease, not a sin. Such proclamations have been earnestly made for over two centuries now, starting with physician and Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Rush in the early 1800s. Indeed, the American Medical Association declared alcoholism a disease in 1956 and did the same for other drug addictions in 1989. But these declarations have a hollow ring to them: They wouldn't need to be remade constantly if the idea were truly accepted. No one goes around issuing statements about how "cancer is a disease" or "AIDS is a disease" or even "schizophrenia is a disease," because it's pretty obvious that they are. From my perspective, addiction is clearly a health and medical problem -- no different from depression or attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), both of which are influenced by biological, social, cultural and developmental factors. However, in America, the D-word in the context of addiction has come to mean something much different from the word "disease" used for any other condition -- something that unfortunately is more moral than medical. So why don't Americans really buy the idea that addiction is no different from "diseases" (if we choose to use that word) like depression? I think there are two fundamental problems that undermine the way arguments about treating...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news