Mccauley's Model Of Drug Addiction

Earlier this year a wonderful young man passed away. To allow his family to remain anonymous only the first name of this individual is provided. This young man’s name was Joe and he brought a smile to everyone that he interacted with. Unfortunately, Joe had an addiction to heroin. The addiction started first there was marijuana, then acid and other hallucinogenic drugs, after those it was cocaine, and then lastly heroin. It is unfortunate that in Joe’s family addiction was a disease that many members had. The sad part of this story was that Joe was trying to get clean. The year before, he left Pittsburgh and entered rehab. Once he returned home, Joe relied on the wrong people to help him stay clean. Other addicts who were trying to get clean …show more content…
Anyone can become an addict at any point in their lives. Knowledge can help prevent some people from addiction, but stubborn people will continue to think it will never happen to them until it is too late. Kevin McCauley argues that the disease model is able to be used with addiction thanks to new discoveries about the brain. An effect of drug use is that the midbrain becomes bigger than the cortex, thus having more control over the whole body. The disease model says you have something wrong with an organ and in response an infection occurs which causes symptoms to appear as well. The brain is the organ being affected, specifically the midbrain, which is the amoral, limbic, reflective, unconscious survival brain, the defect is a decrease in dopamine receptors due to drug use, and the symptoms are out of control drug use to receive higher levels of dopamine (McCauley). This model would allow doctors to view addiction as an infection in the brain rather than just a weak willed person. An addict does not have the benefit not to crave the drug due to the fact the midbrain, once addicted, finds the drug necessary for survival. There are many people who would say addiction is not a disease but a choice. Those people are looking at it in an objective manner without even scraping the surface of the true issue. Daniel Akst, a writer from New York’s Hudson Valley, wrote in an article that addiction is a choice (Akst). While indeed the first act of engaging in drug use is voluntary the spiraling downward effect is the result of addiction taking over a person’s brain. Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus Thomas Szasz disagrees with that fact that addicts do not have control and insists that the reason people now call addiction a disease is so that pharmaceutical companies can make a profit off of it. (“Addiction Is Not…”). Mr. Netherton provided further insight to Professor