Posted by Christ_empowered on August 2, 2011, at 17:00:50
In reply to It really sucks when you classified as an addict, posted by rjlockhart04-08 on August 2, 2011, at 14:47:46
In the name of "helping" the "addicted," I think the mental health profession often does more help than good. "Once an addict, always an addict." Right? I'm not so sure. I was called an addict at one point by a psychiatrist, only to end up with a better shrink (who knew my history and carefully prescribed benzos for a while) a couple years later. I don't have the urge to pop Adderall or downers, and I certainly don't get into trouble pursuing the next "high" or "hit."
I can't help but wonder if all this "I'm an addict and I always will be," this so called "acceptance" stage of addiction treatment, isn't doing more harm than good. I mean, reading your letter, you talk about how your addiction will be the death of you. Why do you say that? Personally, I think a lot of your problem is that you're currently stuck with a doc who treats you like an addict and reinforces this idea that you're always going to be a certain way. It doesn't have to be that way.
I had drug "issues" (I call it "excessive use," not "addiction," but...whatever), and I got over it despite being labelled and mistreated by the mental health industry. And of course they're going to be especially hard on Rx drug users/patients; do you think psychiatrists want to admit that a lot of what they do is prescribe addictive drugs to vulnerable people, potentially setting them up for trouble down the road? Hell no my friend. They'd rather blame it all on you, possibly add more diagnoses to your records, and let that be that. Because, after all--there aren't any bad *psychiatrists*, just bad/manipulative/disordered "mental patients" out to get a fix.
poster:Christ_empowered
thread:992604
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110728/msgs/992616.html