Brain Disease, Drug and Alcohol Abuses - Assignment Example

Download file to see previous pages Drug or alcohol abuse is a matter of personal choice. Soon it becomes an addiction. Addiction is confused with the disease. As a disease, the onus lies on medical treatment for cure. However, this line of thinking is challenged by some practicing psychiatrists who see it rather as a difficult habit formed out of personal choice and cultural practice. In certain cultures, alcohol consumption is normal. However, even in the case of cultural tastes, consumption of alcohol is more likely to turn into addiction if not strictly consumed within limits. Thus, some psychiatrists argue that the consumption of drugs and alcohol must be viewed as a personal habit and dealt with as such to return to normalcy.

Deviant drug and alcohol consumption came to be regarded as a personal choice not only recently by even in earlier centuries when religious bodies such as “the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance (ASPT), founded by Evangelical clergymen in 1826, also gained support from farmers, industrialists, and homemakers” (Boyer, Paul S, 2001).
Evangelical churches enjoined salvation and temperance to abstinence, implying that consumption of alcohol was largely due to personal choice and not the result of any physical or mental abnormality.

Protagonists of personal choice argue that even the most diehard consumer of alcohol has the free will to consume or abstain. Anybody conscious of his responsibilities will abstain due to personal and social pressures and economic dictates. Even heavy drinkers have the choice of abstaining in serious environments like business offices or production units where they are employed (HBO Addiction, 2009).

Thus the argument that deviant drinkers must be medically treated and rehabilitated does not have a strong enough basis to pursue medical treatment as the cure for drug and alcohol addictions. Medical treatment, if required, is mostly perfunctory. There are enough cases in organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous where people have opted out of heavy drinking without the use of any medical aid to prove that alcohol consumption is a matter of will rather than the charge of any bacteria or virus (Satel, Susan, 10 July 2007).
Nonetheless, drugs and alcohol weaken the nervous system and organs such as the liver and kidneys. Hence, in the absence of a strong and healthy nervous system and other organs, the body becomes vulnerable to disease-carrying microbes. Thus, drugs and alcohol abuse could be treated as medical threats even if they are not directly linked with microbes. Defenders of alcoholic consumption are on a difficult pitch when such consumption leads to physical and mental weaknesses.

Drug and alcohol addiction may not be linked to “brain disease” but they certainly weaken the physique before long. Their attack on the nervous and digestive systems makes the road to recovery difficult and dreary.

The damages resulting from alcohol consumption may not be apparent to most people. It takes a heavy toll on national productivity and national and personal resource. “The direct effects of addiction are homelessness, unemployment, and disease. The cost of interdiction and incarceration are estimated at over $200 billion annually, and the annual burden in lost productivity is another $129 billion” (Satel, Susan, 10 July 2007).

The damages resulting from addiction are staggering enough to sober any sane individual. Undoubtedly, the consumption of drugs and alcohol is injurious to health. However, the message is lost on the consumer who finds relief in drugs and alcohol and believes that he is immune from any drug or alcohol-related malaise.
Consumption of drugs and alcohol to the extent that they require rehabilitation is figuratively akin to a health issue. It can be termed a social disease requiring internal and external efforts for remedy.

Conclusion
Although drug and alcohol abuses are personal, they create social and economic problems. They affect health. So they also include health problems that need medical treatment for recovery. Thus, although abstinence is the key to safety from drugs and alcohol-related issues, those on the brink due to heavy drug and alcohol abuse must be confined to a period of special medical care.

In normal circumstances, those addicted to drugs and alcohol, have an unhappy background from which they try to shirk through drugs and alcohol. They need medical, psychiatric, and personalized care so that they can find their moorings and begin anew with a fresh perspective to life. But alas, addicts who do recover in such circumstances are very few compared to the vast majority who would rather die imbibing drugs and liquor. ...Download file to see next pages Read More