A recent Newsweek cover story (March 3, 2008) was on alcoholism and other addictions. Some startling and potentially life-changing advances are being made in treatment of addictions. In particular, the following grabbed my attention:
"Geneticists have found the first few (of what is likely to be many) gene variants that predispose people to addiction, helping explain why only about one person in 10 who tries an addictive drug actually becomes hooked on it. Neuroscientists are mapping the intricate network of triggers and feedback loops that are set in motion by the taste—or, for that matter, the sight or thought—of a beer or a cigarette; they have learned to identify the signal that an alcoholic is about to pour a drink even before he's aware of it himself, and trace the impulse back to its origins in the primitive midbrain. And they are learning to interrupt and control these processes at numerous points along the way. Among more than 200 compounds being developed or tested by NIDA are ones that block the intoxicating effects of drugs, including vaccines that train the body's own immune system to bar them from the brain. Other compounds have the amazing ability to intervene in the cortex in the last milliseconds before the impulse to reach for a glass translates into action. To the extent that "willpower" is a meaningful concept at all, the era of willpower-in-a-pill may be just over the horizon."
This news left me unsettled and questioning. As a recovering alcoholic I cannot help but look at this from a personal angle. It makes me think about the psychology of the disease; the sociology of being an alcoholic in today's society. It would be a major paradigm shift were we to treat alcoholism with pills and vaccines which would all but guarantee to eradicate the addiction. But will these medical responses be sufficient? Or will the alcoholic be left with yet another empty space needing to be filled with some other addicting substance or behavior?
As alcoholics, the quick easy fix is always a HUGE temptation; it is the first thing we look for! Taking a pill, well, cool! It would be just like taking a drink - something we are good at! But are we "cured" by just not drinking? Or is there something else that contributes to long term sobriety which is more than a pill or vaccine? Is curing alcoholism really just this simple?
If there were such a silver bullet, it would be welcomed by so many friends and family members of alcoholics. The havoc we wreak on their lives would be over. Our alcoholic insanities would come to an end. But who will decide if an alcoholic should, yet again, "take the cure?" The family? Medical personnel? Treatment counselors? WAIT! What about the alcoholic? We are a very sorry lot at our bottoms and are not likely to even realize how sick we are. The misery and despair are normal, the hangovers and blackouts just as familiar and routine as breathing. We are generally the LAST to see that we are desperately ill. We don't know or care that our alcoholism will ultimately kill us. So, who decides?
At least we will have time to ponder the many questions that the discovery of a cure for alcoholism raises. The article predicts we are about 10 years away from any miracle medical cures for the alcoholic. And ponder it we should. Are we really fixing anything or are we just creating new social, behavioral, psychological, spiritual problems? Would I give up the miracle of my sobriety for a pill which would guarantee that I will never drink again? Would I lose the constant marvel of living in each day because I would no longer need to stay in the moment, sober and trusting that my god will take care of me. What would my life look like today without having to have bared my soul, looked at myself in a mirror that illuminated every bit of my part in the alcoholic life. Would I still have discovered the colors of the world as my soul, my heart, my mind began to slowly come to? As I came to believe? To trust that there was a reason for my life that transcended my alcoholism? Can a pill offer me the new way of life that I have been living one day at a time for the past 14 years?
Good questions.
