posted 07-11-2001 07:37            

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That said, piss off

*edit - spell correctly at 8am, nah.

posted 07-11-2001 12:37            

quote:

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Originally posted by fenomas:
The issue is whether they are psychologically addictive. And your view, I believe, is that there is no such thing as psychological addiction, and my view is that there is. Is that all correct?

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That's pretty correct, though potentially misleading. My real problem isn't with whether or not you choose to call a dependency an "addiction", it's with the issue of whether you can categorize a dependency as inherent in the properties of a substance, or inherent in the properties of the individual who develops a dependency on the substance.

Your stance appears to be that [substance x] stages a hostile takeover of the psyche of the individual in question, thus producing a "psychological addiction" in which the substance itself is at fault.

My stance is that the individual is getting something he or she wants out of [substance x], and that the individual becomes dependent on [substance x] to provide that something - usually escape from the real world - which [substance x] provides. As a corollary, if the individual encounters any [substance y] which also provides the same thing the individual is looking for, and does so better or with fewer side effects or more cheaply or etc, the individual will happily switch from [substance x] to [substance y] with no problems. Neither [substance x] nor [substance y] has "hooked" the subject - the subject is seeking something which they provide, and is using them as a means to an end.

quote:

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Ah, so drugs can cause a change in thinking in the short term, but not the long term. So drinking for a night can make you decide to eat dirt, but drinking for ten years couldn't possibly affect your decision of whether or not to give up drinking, eh?

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No - intoxication affects your decision making process, but they are still YOUR decisions - YOU are intoxicated. Where we differ is in drawing a line between "me-intoxicated" and "me-sober" as distinct persons. Even if I am intoxicated, I am still responsible for the decisions I make while intoxicated - as well as the decision to become intoxicated in the first place. I am not a different person - the intoxication is, at the time, an integral part of my "self" and not something that I can view as "external".

Ditto addiction - even if you are physically addicted, say to alcohol, you're still you and responsible for the decision to overcome the addiction or cater to it. You cannot separate the addiction from yourself as though it belongs to someone else - that addiction is a part of YOU and it is your choice to attempt to remove it, or to build your life around it.

quote:

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No, I'm telling you that some people go through that cycle even with relatively conscientious eating habits, because they have a shitty metabolism, or a shitty diet, or both. Meanwhile, other people could eat cake all day long and stay thin. Chronic binge overeating can certainly cause cyclical weight gain, but the two are not linked causally like, say, alcoholism and drinking alcohol.

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Put the shovel down, Fen, the hole's deep enough already!

Stop and re-read what you just wrote: you just described binge overeating as precisely analogous to binge drinking.

MOST people indulge in chronic binge drinking throughout several years at least of their twenties... but MOST of the people who do so never become full-blown alcoholics.

So... you ready to differentiate binge alcohol consumption and binge overeating now? 'Cause I don't think you've successfully done so yet.

quote:

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I offer only one more opinion for now: that neither you nor I is competent to discuss whether such a thing as psychological addiction exists.

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posted 07-11-2001 18:20            

quote:

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Originally posted by Jimbo:
Stop and re-read what you just wrote: you just described binge overeating as precisely analogous to binge drinking.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jimbo:
Your stance appears to be that [substance x] stages a hostile takeover of the psyche of the individual in question, thus producing a "psychological addiction" in which the substance itself is at fault.

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And for the last time, please stop telling me that people should take responsibility for their actions. When I say I think drugs are addictive, it's because that's what I think, not because I harbor secret feelings that everything bad done by people is to be blamed on an evil substance that got its hooks into them. I don't know where the hell you got that idea in the first place.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jimbo:
That's like saying "I'm not competent to discuss paranoid schizophrenia - I'm not a paranoid schizophrenic!"

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Before you explode, I say that not about our discussion in general, but about the issue of "whether or not such a thing as psychological addiction exists." And if you studied psychology, then by all means say so now and I'll eat my chair cushion.

posted 07-12-2001 05:12         

quote:

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Originally posted by Jimbo:
My real problem isn't with whether or not you choose to call a dependency an "addiction", it's with the issue of whether you can categorize a dependency as inherent in the properties of a substance, or inherent in the properties of the individual.

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The FDA definition of schedule II thru IV drugs:

(2) Schedule II. -
(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
(B) The drug or other substance has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States or a currently accepted medical use with severe restrictions.
(C) Abuse of the drug or other substances may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence.

(3) Schedule III. -
(A) The drug or other substance has a potential for abuse less than the drugs or other substances in schedules I and II.
(B) The drug or other substance has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) Abuse of the drug or other substance may lead to moderate or low physical dependence or high psychological dependence.

(4) Schedule IV. -
(A) The drug or other substance has a low potential for abuse relative to the drugs or other substances in schedule III.
(B) The drug or other substance has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) Abuse of the drug or other substance may lead to limited physical dependence or psychological dependence relative to the drugs or other substances in schedule III.

Schedule I indicates potential for "severe psychological or physical dependence."

Schedule IV notes "limited physical dependence or psychological dependence"

The feds "rate" chemical compounds (and control them" based on their propensity for dependence. Therefor, according to the federal government, "dependency as inherent in the properties of a substance".

-Marcel

posted 07-12-2001 07:54         

quote:

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Originally posted by Bex:
I think codeine is schedule III but I'd have to go back and check

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Schedule III or V, depending upon the strength.
http://www.fda.gov/opacom/laws/cntrlsub/cntlsbb.htm

-Marcal

posted 07-12-2001 13:48            

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posted 07-12-2001 16:37            

Are you on 'the crack?'

I've scheduled you to talk with the father kinderspanker over at the church. He says with many hours along in a room with you while we sit at home and pray, he'll cure you in no time.

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I still say religion is a drug.

posted 07-12-2001 17:07            

Religion is the opiate of the masses.

posted 07-12-2001 18:08            

Mon- I think he said "opium" of the masses. But he only said that because he'd never seen TV.

fen

posted 07-12-2001 19:51            

"So this (Snow Crash) thing... is it a drug, a religion, or a virus?"
"What's the difference?" --Neal Stephenson

posted 07-13-2001 00:15            

quote:

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Originally posted by seonaidh:
[B]fen- because your posts never cease to either make me laugh or thrust(!) your points across with such eloquence...[B]

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Jimbo- this means I win our argument, because declarations of love from bystanders was clearly the implicit goal.

Unless, of course, you got an email from biggles that I don't know about. If so, say so now and I'll eat my taxi-driver beaded seatcover.

Seonaidh (he pasted because he can't spell it) -
As Marlowe once said in the face of such praise: "What you see is nothing- I've got a bali dancing girl tattooed on my right thigh."

posted 07-13-2001 07:32            

quote:

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Originally posted by fenomas:
Jimbo- this means I win our argument, because declarations of love from bystanders was clearly the implicit goal.

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"Declarations of love?" What kinda wussy-boy are you, fen - fellatio from bystanders is the goal of heated internet debate!

(So unless you got something from MightyMon I don't know about, I'm gonna declare this one a draw. )

posted 07-15-2001 19:33            

quote:

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Originally posted by Jimbo:
fellatio from bystanders is the goal of heated internet debate!

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How exactly does fellatio from bystanders over the internet work? Is there an RFC I could read about this? Some sort of client-server relationship, presumably.

posted 07-16-2001 23:18         

*wink*

[Edited by user: had to personalize it!]

posted 07-17-2001 18:26            

quote:

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Originally posted by seonaidh:
fen, I can categorically say that I *am* female, was born that way, am heterosexual and love fellatio.

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Um, yowza. Let me just say that I, too, am a big, big fan of fellatio. Receiving it, I mean. I would surely have written odes to the experience, were the word not so hard to rhyme. For posterity, I'd like to firmly avow my position in favor of all kinds of fellatio, extending even to that practice that Thomas Pynchon might have referred to as "sextogenarinonation", had he been so moved.

That said,
Seonaidh: um, so, off topic, no relation to the present discussion, but whereabouts do you live, exactly?
Jimbo: You'd better cozy up to biggles now, damn you, for I'll win this argument yet!