The idea that addiction is a disease was reinforced by decades of trying to help people with strategies that don't work. ... Pellagra is only cured with Vitamin

The idea that addiction is a disease was reinforced by decades of trying to help people with strategies that don't work. ... Pellagra is only cured with Vitamin B3; scurvy is only cured with Vitamin C. Treating diseases of nutritional deficiency with anything but the missing nutrients is an exercise in futility. Addictions are not simple like Pellagra or Scurvy, but when you figure out what a specific person actually needs, they can rapidly recover. I've done it twice - my alcoholic friend is doing quite well; my poly-addict (opiates/cocaine/alcohol) would be doing quite well if she hadn't been captured and court-ordered to endure palliative Psychiatric treatment. The Alcoholic became an alcoholic when she discovered that Vodka helped her anxiety more than Xanax. Benzodiazepienes lose effectiveness after about 4 weeks - when a person who is addicted to this class of drugs tries to quit, their anxiety is worse than it was before. She was peri-menopausal at the time, which was probably a huge factor... As for the poly-addict.... When I met her, I said to myself, "this woman is 'high as a kite'..." As the months went by, she gradually invited me into her world, and I learned that she really was self-medicating with the street pharmacy. She latched on to me like a life preserver. After almost six months of my influence, and a little non-quantifiable hocus-pocus, she called to share three insights, spread over 3 days: - "I wish I wasn't a drug addict..." - "I should only use substances which are legal!!! *Alcohol is legal...* " - "I hate methadone, I hate everything about it." Before these insights, drugs were fine, because they'd always been there to help when she was suicidally depressed. Her alcoholism started a month after she began treatment with Methadone... The problem with methadone is that it has all of the addiction of heroin, but none of the thrill. So after six months, she was doing rather well. But alcohol is hard to kick on your own, and she was taken to the hospital as "psychotic"... The psychiatrists got hold of her - it's been a disaster. . They pretend that the symptom of withdrawal from substances ("psychosis") justifies the use of so-called anti-psychotics in perpetuity. Robert Whitaker has looked at the evidence, and has concluded that there is no benefit to the routine use of these drugs [1]... [1] http://www.madinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/The-Case-Against-Antipsychotics.pdf http://www.madinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/The-C... The mental health field needs a clean-sheet redesign. Nothing else will help. (edits: formatting, clarity )