Addiction is not a disease
For several decades now alcohol and drug addiction has been viewed and treated as a brain disease by the medical and psychiatric communities. Concurrent with this approach has also come a very definite lack of results in their treatments for addiction.
Even with the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on researching this major public health epidemic, there is no conclusive evidence so support the disease concept to date. Many research projects have found probabilities and indications, yet it is still quite a mystery.
Alcohol and other drug addiction does have both behavioral and biophysical components and both do need to be addressed to solve the problem, though substituting natural brain chemicals with more drugs is not a solution. In fact, it can be and often is much more damaging to a person when trying to achieve stable, long-term results. Claiming that a person is sober while being on mind-altering drugs is also a direct contradiction by definition. When searching for solutions we must ask ourselves if we as individuals and as a nation are able to look beyond bias and tradition to find and use what actually works. Results speak for themselves. They are true to the degree they are demonstrable and observable, not hypothesized.
American author, researcher and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard studied the effects of toxins on humans for decades and developed numerous steps to rehabilitating an individual after being exposed, whether to illicit drugs, pharmaceuticals or damaging environmental substances. His research and developments are the basis for what is called the Narconon drug rehabilitation and education program.
The program uses a drug-free social rehabilitation methodology comprised of an extensive sauna detoxification protocol and a series of life skills courses that addicts learn to apply to their lives and overcome the barriers to living a clean and happy life.
Though there are many factors leading and contributing to an individual's addiction, it does not have to be made so complex that nobody can understand it. There are simple solutions available.
The Narconon program has grown to operations in 37 countries and is rapidly expanding because it gets results. Several governments throughout the world have recognized this approach to be the most effective and it is time that the United States demands results from substance abuse treatment and prevention as well. Without results we are simply throwing more money and lives down the drain on ineffective treatment concepts.
Michael Bertrand is a staff member with Narconon of Oklahoma, Inc., a treatment center for drug addiction and alcoholism. Narconon Arrowhead is located on 216 acres of wooded land, adjacent to beautiful Lake Eufaula and Arrowhead State Park, in rural southeastern Oklahoma. To find out more information or to get help for a loved one in need, call 1-800-468-6933 or log on to www.stopaddiction.com today.