Addiction, Risk, and Resources

Abstract

Addiction is a contemporary social issue bound to the myth of self-control and control of the other, which is typical of the contemporary “market ideology” society. In its broad definition it includes not only the use and misuse of “substances” and addictive behaviors, but also the concept of risk. There is a continuum between “addicted behaviors” and behaviors that are not “addicted” but may induce and/or be related to both physical and psycho-social problems on a micro- to macrolevel.

Different studies have documented substantial changes in the consumption of tobacco, drugs, alcoholic beverages, as well as “junk foods” during the last decades in various countries. All too often politicians, health administrators, and local providers believe that consumption prevention programs are able, per se, to effect such changes. In fact, the impact of factors such as international trade, globalization and societal values, among many others, are considered relevant. On the other hand, sufficient place must be given to national and community-based preventive initiatives.

Keywords:

• addiction
• control
• dependency
• failure inter-dependency
• risk prevention
• shame
• immorality
• “the other” and the negative other

Notes

Notes

1. This concept and posited process and status (“being at risk”), which is increasingly used in the literature, is associated with selected individuals, groups, and networks, generally implying the existence of a “vulnerability”—whatever its etiology. Unfortunately, at the present time, its dimensions (linear–nonlinear; complicated–complex, etc.) and the critical necessary conditions for it to operate (begin, continue, become anchored and/or integrated, change as relevant de facto realities change, cease, etc.) or not to operate are not known in an adequate generalizable way.

2. The reader is reminded that the medical model of disease is but one of numerous other models. These include, among other models: biochemical-based models, actuarial, functional, experiential, social, political, religious–spirit–animism, economic- and consumer-based models. Secondly, each have their own critical definitions, criteria, goals, and agendas; constituencies; indicated and contra-indicated techniques and services; “healers” and change agents; preferred sites for intervention; temporal parameters; and stakeholders.

3. A new concept and process, secular morality, has been posted in Morality and Health (Brandt and Rozin, Routledge, 1997).

4. Readers interested in an historical basis for “mutual help” can refer to Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (Kropotkin, New York University Press, 1921).

5. The reader is reminded that built-in limitations of concepts and the written word can easily mislead one to “homogenize” heterogeneous groups of people as well as to fall into the trap noted by the general semanticists that the map = // = the territory. “Alcoholics” are not a homogeneous group of people.

6. The Buddhist saying expresses this “opportunity”: Fall down seven times, get up eight times, that is the road to perfection.

7. Rittel's thesis that failure may be built in to intervention when the targeted problems are not usefully recognized and categorized into two types: “tame problems” and “wicked problems.” The former are solved in a traditional known and tried “waterfall paradigm”; gather data, analyze data, formulate solution, implement solution. The latter wicked problems can only be responded to individually, each time anew, with no ultimate, repeatable solution. (Rittel, Horst, and Douglas Noble. [1989]. Issue-based information systems for design [Working Paper 492]. Berkeley, CA: The Institute of Urban and Regional Development, University of California).

8. The term “community” has become something of a policy buzzword that has been attached to a diverse range of ideas and initiatives. It means various things to a range of individual and systemic stakeholders. “Shared geography,” as an often regarded simplistic, common denominator minimizes the range of other “sharing” options, which range from actual objects to beliefs, values, membership in, identification with, association with from a micro- to a globalized macrolevel.

9. Whereas the ongoing research funding tradition is usually granted for 3 years (first year is to “tool up”; second year is to collect data; third year is to analyze data and to communicate findings [at conferences, publish, etc.]) individual–systemic–network–community–cultural lifestyle changes have a pace and temporality whose dimensions and “demands” differ from institutionalized, beauracratic needs and “habits.”