Addicted to Us

I am convinced that drug addiction, like sex addiction, and perhaps like all addiction, is a sociological condition, not a psychological one. Which is to say that it is induced by pathological conditions in our social system, not by individual psychosis. It is a grave mistake to place the blame for addiction on the addict. Such a person clearly is not in conscious control of their own behavior, and said lack of control can be relatively simply traced to their social experience and background. Native Americans have an extremely high susceptability to alcoholic addiction. Some studies have pointed to genetic vulnerability, but these studies have not withstood scientific scrutiny. Currently there is no commonly accepted theory for their vulnerability to alcohol. Perhaps the solution could be found by studying the social impact on the disease. For example, what is the addiction rate of genetic Native Americans who are isolated from the Native American culture. I predict it would be much lower than other Native Americans. Maybe I'm talking out of my hat (in fact, I am), but if Native American alcoholism can be tied to sociological conditions, then what other forms of addiction could be similarily explained? The implications would clearly be stagering. So, perhaps for once we should listen to what an addict (me) says, and take a look at ourselves as a society instead of pointing fingers (which is all our so-called criminal justice system seems good at). Blaming the addict only exacerbates the problem by incouraging the self blame and the shame that is invariably associated with all addiction. This habit of blaming the addict may actually be the the social construct that causes the addiction. We should at least question addiction in this social context. But, since any general solution for addiction would cause a significant collapse in a whole sector of our present economy namely, the “Correctional Complex”, the more valid my suggestions may be, the less likely they would be seriously researched. And that is the result of another perhaps even related disease called capitalism. And since just mentioning that word gets my blood pumping, I'll stop now before I start exhibiting the symptoms of my own addiction to judgementality.