addiction is not a disease?

Q: What is the disease of addiction?

A: Addiction is a symptom, not a disease.

Addiction is a symptom of unresolved (typically childhood) emotional/physical trauma, a condition that to resolve normally requires a free-of-charge addiction recovery sponsor and a clinical psychologist (if you can afford one).

Addiction happens after long-term abuse of a chemical/behavior. That abuse temporarily alleviates the (often subconscious) psychic pain leftover from (typically childhood) trauma.

Such repeated chemical/behavior abuse causes the human genetic addiction “On/Off” switch to turn “On”, permanently, resulting in an addict for life, recovering or otherwise.

It makes no sense, therefore, to treat addiction as a disease, as all efforts must instead be focused on learning how to defeat relapse (an epigenetic phenomenon).

Addiction as a disease is a concept that was created by Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) in 1939, long before anyone knew about addiction’s psychological root cause, and the roles played by genetics and epigenetics.

—Professor Addict

AND THAT’S THE TRUTH!