Lie Like the Wind

So you want to attend AA but not sure if you’re really an alcoholic? That’s ok.  You don’t have to know for sure.  All you have to do is lie. That’s what everyone else does.  Confess your powerlessness. Say that you want to stop drinking but can’t.  No matter how hard you tried. Who knows what that even means?  Maybe it’s really true.  Embrace your alcoholism.  Wear it like a badge.  Re-evaluate your entire life in this new context.

Continue reading Lie Like the Wind

Undiagnosed Alcoholic?

Age 19

I wasn’t an alcoholic, but drinking alcohol always helped me with being more confident and sociable.

Age 20

The envy, rage, and feeling of inferiority I felt almost made me explode with rage right there at the party, but instead I went to the bathroom and vented to myself in the mirror of how much I hate Vincent and wanted to kill him. I drank a lot more wine that night, pouring myself glass after glass. By the time Vincent arrived after his party at Leo’s, I greeted him with drunken contempt, and drank even more wine. I drank too much.  When I got home, I began to cry because of all the emotions I experienced that night. Continue reading Undiagnosed Alcoholic?

Making Amends

From: Dale Berkley, Attorney at Law, NIH
Subject: Cease and Desist (retraction)

Dear AddictionMyth,

This whole satire thing has become tiresome.  So I would like to be completely serious for a moment.  I hereby retract my “Cease and Desist” letter regarding your satirical posts on our NIH Scientists.  It was blatantly unconstitutional and a chilling infringement on your First Amendment rights.  I blush just to think about it.  You would think I’d know better, as a Senior Attorney at a prestigious government institution.  But here’s the problem.  You see, I am an alcoholic.   Continue reading Making Amends

Red Face Club

AddictionMyth is excited to announce the inauguration of the Red Face Club1.  This is the club that you join when you feel your cheeks reddening and burning because one day you let your mouth get ahead of your brain and then just when your brain catches up you suddenly realize that google has already indexed and archived your words for all eternity, and curse the fact that you live in America which really should be more like Europe. Continue reading Red Face Club

Cease and Desist!

From: George Koob, Ph.D., Director, NIAAA, a Division of NIH
Subject: Cease and Desist
Date: May 7, 2014

Dear Mr “Addiction Myth”,

NIAAA (a division of NIH) demands the immediate retraction of the false, misleading, libelous, slanderous, and dangerous article entitled “A Conversation with Addiction Guru Aaron White, PhD”.  The ‘interview’ is a sham and both your original questions and the answers kindly provided by Dr White were modified to make him appear ridiculous and disparage the Science of Addiction.  I can assure you he is an accredited scientist and it is a legitimate field of medicine and Nora Volkow is brilliant and may win the Nobel Prize one day for curing Addiction.  So what if she sometimes practices her acceptance speech at work?  That is none of your business.

Continue reading Cease and Desist!

Welcome to the Club: How to Cure a Heroin Addiction

“I had an intense craving for heroin that lasted for days and wouldn’t go away.  So I got my hands on some.  Then I took it, and it wasn’t enough.  So I took more, but that still wasn’t enough.  So I kept taking it until I was unconscious.  Then when I woke up feeling sick to my stomach, and I felt bad because I was withdrawing, so I took more.  Then I kept repeating the cycle.” Continue reading Welcome to the Club: How to Cure a Heroin Addiction

Who Wants to Win a Nobel Prize?

It’s getting harder and harder these days to discover a cure for a deadly disease that’s worthy of the Nobel Prize.  All the ‘easy’ ones, like polio and measles, have already been taken, and all that’s left are the thorny ones, like cancer, heart disease, and AIDS.  But there’s still a juicy one ripe for the pickins: Addiction.  If you can find a cure for that, then you might as well start writing your acceptance speech.  I mean, if you can cure addiction, you’ll save millions of lives and rid the world the world of the scourge of drugs.  Yes people may still do drugs, but they won’t destroy their own lives with them.  They’ll do them for a time and have fun and move on.  Or not, but at least they’ll have to admit it’s a choice not a disease. Continue reading Who Wants to Win a Nobel Prize?