Week # 6 Discussion Reply

Be sure to reply later than 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 18 (100 words minimum for each reply). Your replies should also refer to material assigned for this week. Good luck!

As I listened to the presentation of Dr. Nora Volkow on Alcohol Dependence a Brain Disease, I was really concentrating on the statistics of the models. What got me most of the slides were with the alcohol, marijuana and tobacco that 12 years old and older are using. Even though we have discussed this in our earlier discussions, but it still amazes me. Far as the discussion, do I think that alcohol dependence is a brain disease, I think so. I think so because if your brain gets too much of what it is receiving, it will want it more and more. It is all about the individual and how they are controlling the use of alcohol or drugs or sometimes it maybe the brain pattern of the individual. For an example, my cousin went to a party and someone put acid in his drink, he had mental issues immediately after that. I used to drink socially but started to drink heavily, I never craved to drink, and I stopped on my own. An individual can get addicted to anything, such as porn, food, drinking, smoking, drugs and sex, et, but it is the behavior that comes into play behind it and that is when it becomes abusive.

I think the brain models doesn’t say much at all. If the brain models were shown at a treatment center or a 12- step program, I don’t think that will make an individual want to stop their addiction. I think it takes the individual to want to make up in their minds to realize that the addiction has become abusive and they are/will harm not only themselves or others. But one comment I do have about the presentation itself. Is when Dr. Volkow kept saying that “these are the numbers”. I have learned in statistics that numbers can change all the time and that they also can be misleading.