Does addiction last a lifetime?

I am now 11 years into recovery from my battle with opiate addiction, and I have always been fascinated with two related questions: is there truly such a thing as an “addictive personality,” and do people substitute addictions? The myth of the addictive personality The recently deceased writer and television personality Anthony Bourdain was criticized by some for recreationally using alcohol and cannabis, in what was seemingly a very controlled and responsible manner, decades after he quit heroin and cocaine. Was this a valid criticism? Can a person who was addicted to drugs or alcohol in their teens safely have a glass of wine with dinner in their middle age? It depends on which model of addiction and recovery you subscribe to. If you are a traditionalist who believes that addictions last a lifetime, that people readily substitute addictions, and that people have ingrained “addictive personalities,” the answer is: absolutely not. This would be playing with fire. During my 90 days in rehab, it was forcefully impressed upon me that addictions are routinely substituted, and that if one is ever addicted to any substance, then lifelong abstinence from all potentially addictive substances is one’s only hope of salvation. This seemed to make sense, as a person would have the same lifelong predispositions to an addiction: genetic makeup, childhood traumas, diagnoses of anxiety or depression — all of which could plausibly set them up to become addicted to, say, alcohol, o...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Addiction Alcohol Medical Research Source Type: blogs