As with other things, how people view and treat addiction has changed over the years. While substance use disorder and treatments for substance use disorder have never really been simple, new ways at looking at addictions and treating them have provided increasingly effective help for people.
- In the past: People viewed addiction as a moral failing.
- In the present: People view addiction as a complicated medical and psychological condition.
According to our modern views, there’s a lot less judgment and blame attached to addiction these days. In the past, people would’ve said that addicts are weak or morally inferior. These days, we acknowledge that addicts have problems, just not moral ones.
Instead, the problem of addiction is more medical and psychological than moral. Drug and alcohol use affects the brain. The brain controls what happens in the body. Therefore, it is not farfetched to state that addiction is a mental and physical condition.
And free will and morals? Since addiction hijacks the brain, it can change the way that people think and act. It can have an impact on morals, but this doesn’t mean that the addicts lacked morals in the first place. It just means that addiction is so powerful that it can affect every aspect of a person’s being.
That doesn’t mean we can’t change back if we’re addicted to something. Most of the effects of substance use disorder are reversible. We can treat addiction and we do treat addiction. In addition, we’re also constantly developing different ways to treat it. While we used to judge addicts, punish them, and even send them to jail, treatment today is much different.
Depending on the treatment, today’s rehab facilities are not prisons but more like hospitals or spas. They acknowledge the complexity of addiction and take professional measures to treat this complexity. Just as importantly, the centers realize that life after rehab is important. They take measures to help their patients continue their sobriety for the rest of their lives.
In other words, people who long for the good old days probably aren’t talking about views on addiction and addiction treatment. Addiction treatment is better now than it has ever been and it’s even getting better.
