Drug Addiction

4 Pages 975 Words

Drug addiction is a very controversial topic with many diverse definitions and opinions. Stanton Peele discusses the numerous sections of drug addiction in “Addiction Is Not a Disease.” Peele strongly argues the fact that drug addiction is not a disease and that the prevalent drug problem transpires in the ghetto. Peele also states that celebrities are not real addicts in the fact that they can and do get treatment by attending rehabilitation. Peele also discusses the importance of psychological movies of drug addiction, stating what addicts think and how they feel. However, Peele incessantly reminds the reader that drug addicts suffer from a self-inflicted compulsion. Drug addiction is not a disease; rather, it derives not only from the individual addict’s need to feel euphoric or to cope with a sense of helplessness, but also from the pressures of socioeconomic group disadvantage.
Stanton Peele reasons that addiction is not a disease in the most comprehensible sense of the word: a disease has a biological cause and often a cure, while an addiction has neither. Peele explains that “Addiction is not, however, something people are born with. Nor is it a biological imperative, one that means the addicted individual is not able to consider or choose alternatives” (Elements of Argument 127). Generally, people are not “born with” addiction in the same way that babies are born with hereditary diabetes. A child who suffers from diabetes has not dileberately encouraged the disease, while a drug addict makes the choice to disrupt his or her own body by altering the central nervous system through drugs. While addiction can be as caustic as a lethal ailment, it is important to discern that no individual can contract drug addiction analogous to the way one can hereditary diabetes.
The psychological motives for addicts comprise of the need to cope with a sense of defenselessness and the need to feel happy and satisfied. Stanton P...