Yesterday the news of the highly contested Amy Winehouse show in Belgrade. Journalists highlight the contradiction between the altered state during the performance and the fact that this round of shows should instead have sanctioned the return to the scene in optimal conditions, after yet another detoxification.
The “ detox“Both among famous and not famous patients continues to be heralded with the aim of satisfying the fears, hopes and expectations of others. For those undergoing it, it is often just one of the symptoms of addiction. Eventually, in the paraodosso, it becomes more so than intoxication. Those who are “addicts” are not necessarily addicted, but those who are a subscriber to detoxification are much more likely.
In the diagnosis of an overeating disorder, for example, frequent recourse to diets appears among the symptoms, as well as in the diagnosis of addiction one of the criteria is the history of repeated detoxification. Dependence and therefore when you do not resolve by detoxifying yourself, and not only that, and also when, despite this, you try endlessly to resolve by detoxifying yourself.
In no addiction has detoxification been shown to affect the heart of the disease, and in fact it is not clear why it should: detox is a remedy for intoxication, as the name clearly implies. Addiction is another thing. The deeper one is in addiction, the more one has the continuous initiative to detoxify, and the belief that once the level of intoxication has dropped, the problem is under control.
This is the view of many who suffer from addiction, as well as many of those around them. Anyone, in front of a person who wants to detoxify, would approve and trust, while instead this reaction means not seeing the center of the problem, and moreover making it a moral problem. Addiction cures do not necessarily begin with detoxification, and instead must move towards the natural detoxification that accompanies reducing use and regaining control.
When you complete the detox you are not in the middle of the work, and not even at the beginning. Indeed, those who want to tell themselves and others that everything is under control after detoxification finds more and more artificial methods to do it: isolated places, closed clinics, ultra-rapid treatments, continuous and sophisticated medical assistance, etc. The system goes after these bogus expectations, and “sells” a number of treatments that, while great for detoxification, do not impact addiction.
Indeed, those who come out of detoxification may be more at risk for some accidents: for example, since a susceptibility to the substance is recovered (the addiction to the effect is lost) but the desire remains alive and uncontrollable, the subsequent intoxication can be more risky. Overdoses at the exit of the prison, of the communities, of the hospitals are typical of the history of former drug addicts.
Relapses after detox are not “new” episodes of addiction, they are the same disease as before, masked by the temporary absence of intoxication symptoms. The eternal return to detox and the addiction that spins on itself.
For this reason, addictions deserve a treatment that – apart from urgencies – affects the underlying symptoms, which are uncontrolled desire and the tendency to automatic consumption behavior of a substance or an object.
Almost all addiction treatments do not technically require that a person “be in control” and therefore stop or reduce, otherwise it would be counterintuitive. The cures themselves achieve this as a result.
Quitting may be necessary to carry out tests, to be examined by a doctor in conditions that we can interact with, but it is not the fundamental point to have an addiction under control, it is the most important and most difficult step. It ‘s just what, to the end, every drug addict sometimes succeeds in, and basically serves to recover the trust of others, some immediate resources, in an ever more fleeting and unstable way.
Those who are severely addicted come to think that if they have failed ten times, the eleventh will surely be the good one, or that “now is really the right time because I know I can do it” or because “now I’m giving it my all”. This is accompanied by absolute declarations on the future such as “I must not touch alcohol anymore”, or “I will never drink a glass anymore” which are at the same time an indication of non-control and of useless and excessive optimism.
Intentions in addicts are what no longer has power, will depends on desire, and illness alone does not come back as one would like. Faced with those who throw themselves into yet another intoxication and do it with enough “conviction” to convince others to invest in yet another failure, a different solution should instead be sought. A cure for addiction that over time allows you to rehabilitate and maintain improvements, keeping under control a disease that by definition “causes relapse”, as well as other extra-cerebral medical conditions (diabetes, hypertension, asthma).
Insights and sources:
http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/News/Spettacolo/Un-fiasco-il-concerto-di-Amy-Winehouse-confusa-sul-palco-di-Belgrade_312150007573.html
http://music.fanpage.it/amy-winehouse-costretta-a-cancellare-parte-del-tour-dopo-la-figuraccia-dal-vivo/
McLellan AT, Lewis DC, O’Brien CP, and Kleber HD. Drug dependence, a chronic medical illness: Implications for treatment, insurance, and outcomes evaluation. JAMA 284(13):1689-1695, 2000.
http://archives.drugabuse.gov/about/welcome/aboutdrugabuse/chronicdisease/
