Posted by Elizabeth on July 22, 2001, at 15:19:09
In reply to Re: Effexor stuff » Elizabeth, posted by jojo on July 20, 2001, at 13:19:35
> > "RE: "(some authorities, notably Goodman & Gilman, recommend dropping it from the medical
> vocabulary altogether)."
>
> That seems to imply that they don't know what it "means", i.e., have an acceptable definition, either.No, they say that because "addiction" has become a very loaded word with political and legal connotations. G&G uses a definition that's very close to the APA's definition ("substance dependence" in DSM-IV).
> If it were used more, possibly to apply to everyone who is pharmacologically dependent, such as diabetics or people dependant on anti rejection drugs, it might loose its pejorative power, similar to the
> emasculation ; >) of the word "fuck".Maybe, but I think it would not be clinically correct to make no distinction. I believe that there really is a separate phenomenon of "addiction" (what used to be called "psychological addiction") that is largely unrelated to substance-specific withdrawal symptoms.
> If you do use the word, what do you understand it to mean?
Pretty much the same thing as Goodman & Gilman and DSM-IV say. I can quote them if you like. Once I started studying the current medical approach to addiction, it became very clear to me that it wasn't about withdrawal symptoms or tolerance. That doesn't mean that I think drug addicts should be considered criminals; I think that's an abomination.
> Certainly there are so many good reasons for dropping it, but as they haven't been effectual for the past
> ….. what? Certainly before the death of Len Barney, around 1983, when the War was declared.I guess I'm not old enough to remember that: who was Len Barney? My understanding is that Nixon was the first president to declare a "war on drugs." (I don't see the drugs fighting back much. Although there was this article in the Onion in which it was reported that the war on drugs had ended, with the drugs as victor.)
> This is not about being "intellectually honest" or "medically pragmatic", it is about politics, the art of the possible. Part of that art is forcing one's opponents, and I use that word advisedly, into an untenable position, which is what I am suggesting.
Beating our opponents by playing as dirty as they do? I'm not really in favour of that, even if it's the only way. I think we would debase ourselves and betray our own values if we did that.
> Anyway, what is the distinction between "drug addiction" and "pharmacological dependence"? Pleasure? Also, do you know anything of the replacement of the word "euphoria", meaning "normal mood", by "euthymic", which I guess means "not abnormal mood"? Could the meaning of "normal" be the problem?
Euphoria doesn't mean "normal mood;" it means unusually high mood (e.g., hypomania or mania can be said to be "euphoric" if it's not a mixed state; some drugs, the so-called "drugs of abuse," can cause euphoria as well). Euthymia means normal mood. They're both words of Greek origin; I'm not sure what they mean literally in Greek.
-elizabeth
poster:Elizabeth
thread:17065
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010720/msgs/71384.html