Regardless, there are still people out there that argue addiction is not a
disease.
As an advocate against defining addiction as a disease and a
recovering heroin addict, Slate (2016) argues in his TEDx talk, from his
website, The Clean Slate Addiction Site, that addiction is not a brain
disease, but rather a choice. He uses the descriptions of cancer and
diabetes as examples of true diseases and defines them as some part of
the body that is in a state of “abnormal physiological functioning,”
which causes undesirable symptoms. In the case of diabetes, he points
out the cells that produce insulin fail to produce it at all or only partially,
resulting in the harmful symptoms of diabetes. He uses examples from
the NIH of brain scans of normal brains versus those on meth. He claims
they are not reliable. In response, it has been proven that substance use
disorder does change the neurobiology of the brain and causes abnormal
physiological symptoms regardless of his opinion of the brain scans. As
for his description of cancer, he points out cell mutation and argues the
cells cannot choose to stop their symptoms directly and cure the disease,
as compared to the choice in being able to stop using substances, which
can stop addiction. Slate (2016) also states, “Following treatment,
addicts typically struggle longer, relapse more often, binge more, and
have increased overdose rates.” His argument is that treatment for
addiction actually causes relapse and invokes helplessness in addicts. He
feels that telling someone who has substance use disorder that they need