How many physicians did I see that kept telling
>me it was psychological? Dozens of ignorant men. "Psychological"
often is a
>bad substitute for total and complete ignorance, and it is very common
for
>women to be treated as though their symptoms are "all in their mind."
Just catching up, and wanted to highlight this.
Along similar lines, laziness combined with ignorance can be very bad. When I was considering some kind of additional help with my addiction situation I asked around about therapy/psychiatry, something beside the behavioral wisdom approach of rehab and AA. Many intelligent people I respect had one thing to say. Good therapists, shrinks, whatever, are more difficult to find, and more expensive, than bad ones. And bad ones can make matters worse.
What bothered me about the traditional treatment center approach is they ask that you don't question why it all happened, what leads one to addiction, but rather how it can be avoided in the future and dealt with now. A terrible narrative occlusion, or even occlusion of narrative occlusion, in my book. What also bothered me was an almost aggressive anti-intellectualism and dismissal of other approaches. This is an operational approach, of obvious, if dubious, functionality. But then why such a high relapse rate (80% for IV heroin users)?
What lead to my relapse was a kind of situational depression, with no appettite and very little sleep, among other things. This all was compounded by the insecurity of my material conditions, and there were definite psychocultural, as we're calling them, influences.
-Alec
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