Addiction on 2 Fronts: Work and Home

[groovedaddy]

WASHINGTON — His son had been dead from an overdose only three months when A. Thomas McLellan, among the nation’s leading researchers on addiction, got a call from the office of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Would he accept the nomination to be the government’s No. 2 drug-control official?

Dr. McLellan, 61, makes no secret of his cynicism about government — “I hate Washington,” as he put it in an interview — and he had no intention of leaving his job as a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and scientific director of the Treatment Research Institute in Philadelphia.

But the loss of his younger son, who overdosed on anti-anxiety medication and Scotch last year at age 30 while his older son was in residential treatment for alcoholism and cocaine addiction, changed his perspective.

“That’s why I took this job,” said Dr. McLellan, who was sworn in as the deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in August. “I thought it was some kind of sign, you know. I would never have done it. I loved all the people I’ve worked with, I loved my life. But I thought maybe there’s a way where what I know plus what I feel could make a difference.”

Married to a recovering cocaine addict, Dr. McLellan has been engulfed by addiction in life and work. His own family has been a personal battleground for one of the country’s most complex and entrenched problems, while as an expert he has been a leading voice for the idea that addiction is a chronic illness and not a moral issue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/science/08prof.html?th&emc=th

[Turbineguy]

1. In Dutch the term for "addiction" is

"verslaving", translating to "enslavement".

I think it more accurately describes the problem. Addiction is such an abstract and clinical term and it certainly seems to remove some of the moral onus on those who do the enslaving.

[kenichol]

3. You are so right.

Enslavement perfectly captures the reality that Nora Volkow described when she asked, "How can we comprehend the concept of a person who wants to stop doing something and cannot, despite catastrophic consequences? That is what we are up against."

Some people can use drugs, from nicotine to methamphetamine, and escape with their lives; others need all the help we can provide.

[groovedaddy]

4. In fact, most who try various drugs do not become addicted. I think the

percent of addiction in the general population is 3 - 5%, which is still alot of people. It just comes down to how we, as a society, want to deal with this problem: as a crime or as a health related issue. I think we're moving more toward the latter.

[kenichol]

2. Good article. Thanks for sharing. eom