Your question assumes that the brain disease model has taken us away from the moral model. In one sense, of course, it has. The moral model treats drug use as morally wrong and judges people, including people with addiction, for using drugs. The brain disease model claims that people with addiction cannot help using drugs because they have a brain disease that compels them to use. To this extent, they shouldn’t be judged, because they have an excuse. But notice the moralism implicit in this line of thought. We only need an excuse when we do something morally wrong. Like the moral model, the brain disease model invites — even if it does not explicitly state — the idea that drug use is morally wrong.
Before we talk about a “psychology first” orientation and what it can offer us, I want to say directly and plainly that I think we must recognize and reject the tendency in all of us to moralize drug use.
There is nothing intrinsically morally wrong with using drugs. Yes, of course there are particular contexts in which it is morally wrong to use drugs. For example, it is wrong to drink and drive. It is wrong to use drugs in ways and at times that compromises your ability to look after your children, whether you are addicted to drugs or not. But there are many, many cases of drug use, both in addiction and apart from it, where absolutely nothing is done that is morally wrong. Remember, caffeine and nicotine are drugs. Alcohol is a drug. Many of the drugs we find on the streets are pharmacologically identical to the drugs used in hospitals and for medical purposes. It is simply a mistake to think that drug use is intrinsically morally wrong, however deep in our history the mistake goes.
I make this point repeatedly in the book. I believe it is imperative to keep it clearly in mind if we are to be in any position to understand what addiction is and how best to address it and treat those people who struggle with it.
With that said, let’s…
Auteur: Chandler Dandridge
