Addictions versus Choices
Question: Is an addiction a personal choice or a chemical/ physiological uncontrollable impulse? For me this is a seriously difficult question. I know some people out there believe that addictions can be easily overcome by nothing more then willpower. Yet everyday in the ER I work in I see meth users and alcoholics. They stand on street corners getting handouts "for food" and spend that money getting drunk or high. Never eating , or caring for themselves. I know some alcoholics that binge drink on the weekends. Never drinking at all when they have to be ready for work. It is ruining there lives and yet they still choose to do it. Is it by choice? Or is it a compulsion that overrides their thought processes to where there is no choice any longer? Why are some people able to overcome this compulsion and others can not? To me an addiction is something you can not controlled by ordinary means. In other words, a person can not simply say I will not smoke anymore, and walk away....