Most People With Addiction Simply Grow Out of It: Why Is This Widely Denied?

[madokie]

There are many paths to recovery—and if we want to help people get there, we need to explore all of them.


When I stopped shooting coke and heroin, I was 23. I had no life outside of my addiction. I was facing serious drug charges and I weighed 85 pounds, after months of injecting, often dozens of times a day.

But although I got treatment, I quit at around the age when, according to large epidemiological studies, most people who have diagnosable addiction problems do so— without treatment. The early to mid-20s is also the period when the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for good judgment and self-restraint—finally reaches maturity.

According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, addiction is “a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry.” However, that’s not what the epidemiology of the disorder suggests. By age 35, half of all people who qualified for active alcoholism or addiction diagnoses during their teens and 20s no longer do, according to a study of over 42,000 Americans in a sample designed to represent the adult population.

The average cocaine addiction lasts four years, the average marijuana addiction lasts six years, and the average alcohol addiction is resolved within 15 years. Heroin addictions tend to last as long as alcoholism, but prescription opioid problems, on average, last five years. In these large samples, which are drawn from the general population, only a quarter of people who recover have ever sought assistance in doing so (including via 12-step programs). This actually makes addictions the psychiatric disorder with the highest odds of recovery.

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/most-people-addiction-simply-grow-out-it-why-widely-denied?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

[AngryAmish]

1. I am an above average drunk!

And they said I would never amount to anything...

[madokie]

7. I was an above average drunk at one point too

slowly I started to feel like I didn't like the fog, the hangovers the lost days and then the miracle of miracles happened I became an expectant step grand dad. With that I realized I didn't want this baby to know her or his grand dad as a drunk, functioning drunk or otherwise so I bought a bottle of my favorite spirits put it up on a high shelf where it was easily seen by all who cared to look and proceeded to clean up my act. I figured that if I kept a bottle close at hand to where in a moment of just gotta have a drink I knew it was right there. if I hadn't done that I think I probably would still be drinking today as I then would have had to go to the liquor store and once I did that I'd have drank it down. I used the same technique back in '77 when I quit tobacco, kept a pack in my shirt pocket at all times for the first several weeks then they made it to above my sun visor in the car then to the glove box then finally out the window. The bottle is in the cabinet under the sink where the other house hold poisons are. I figure the next time I clean up and throw out the old poisons under there I'll be safe in throwing it away too.

I commend you for being a functioning drinker. I've known quiet a few over the years

weed was easier for me to quit though even after 40 years of daily toking I decided I had to quit that, health reasons mind you and I did. I tried some a while back but didn't care for the high anymore. I'm loving my sobriety as much if not more than my highest of high days.

[elias49]

14. This is my story, too. (except for the weed bit)

It was that first grandchild that did it. Stopped 35 years of drinking 3 years ago and stopped smoking cigarettes last March. I feel SO much better....I was largely in a drunken haze raising my 2 (now adult) children. What a shame. But I can't get those years back. Just going forward the best I can.

[SouthCarolina]

2. Thank you

I've always had the idea that addicts were doomed, either to a life of despair or early death. And if they do quit the addicting substance, I worry they will be miserable people, always craving. I want to hear that people do come out on the other side - bruised maybe, but not damaged beyond repair.

[justiceischeap]

3. Pah! My sister (who died at the age of 50) started doing drugs

around the age of 11 or 12 and did drugs until they killed her at the age of 50. She never grew out of her drug addiction. For her, it probably got worse in her 20's--which is when she started doing heroin. She finally stopped doing heroin in her late 40s by becoming addicted to methadone, the drug given to ween heroin addicts off heroin and it happens to be more addictive than heroin. She ended up ODing on narcotic pain relief patches (because she abused prescription drugs too). In my life experience, people don't always outgrow their addictions and suggesting that we shouldn't worry, he or she will just outgrow it is an invitation for trouble in my opinion. I'm not denying that some people can and do outgrow their drug use, I just don't know that I would call these people addicts.

[Ilsa]

4. Where does "being able to afford my drugs"

come into play here? I would think that four years on cocaine or heroine would put a person into the poor house. How can a person rationalize spending that kind of money on drugs if they are part of the working poor?

[tridim]

5. lol @ "marijuana addiction" nt

[Mariana]

13. Yeah, that kind of blew the credibilty

of the whole article. There's a tendency to call every heavy drinker and every recreational user of drugs an "addict". I have to wonder if that's what's going on here.

[Cleita]

6. As a one time bartender, I sort of noticed that people who seemed

headed for jail or skid row because of their drug and alcohol use would sometimes drop away from their peer group and haunts. Yet, I often ran into many of them years later, happy, sober and often successful. It seems something turned them, whether a new love, children or career change. They often told me they had to stop because they were done with that lifestyle. I never asked if they just stopped or got help.

[LuvNewcastle]

15. I used to practically live in bars.

I got sick of it and now I rarely go out. It's unusual for me to drink at home, too. I never went through any kind of program; I just gave it up. 12-step programs don't tell you this, but whether you choose to go to AA, NA, etc. or you choose to stop it on your own, your chances of getting sober and staying that way are the same. Those programs seem to do the trick for some people, but most people don't need to attend them at all. All that matters is whether you've come to a place in your life where you're sick of it and you want a change.

[Stargleamer]

8. I think with cigarettes it's another story entirely n/t

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. I think I read somewhere that even most cigarette smokers quit before 40

We just notice those that keep going more.

Was true for virtually everyone in my peer group, including me: started at 15, quit at 37.

[RebelOne]

12. Definitely is another story.

I did cocaine for 5 years. I lived in South Florida where I knew many dealers, and then I moved up here to North Georgia where I did not know any dealers, so I stopped doing it. But cigarettes are definitely another story as I cannot kick the habit. I am 75 years old and have been smoking since I was 16 and I am addicted. I even tried hypnosis, but that didn't work. So far, my lungs are still good as I had a lung X-ray in March.

[phil89]

9. Not peer reviewed. And "Marijuana addiction"?

What planet is the author from?

[Spacemom]

11. I've wondered about this

I started drinking in my early teens, then progressed on to harder stuff. I partied A LOT. Then around the age of 20 I decided I was tired of pissing my life away and I just stopped. No problems with quitting either. I went from drunk or stoned almost every day to having a drink a few times a year, and no drugs at all. I've joked with my husband that someone should do a study on why I DIDN'T become an addict. I certainly had ever reason to.