The Addiction Philosophy Map
November 2016
In conclusion, anxiety may trigger alcohol consumption. Alternatively, alcohol intake may also cause the development of anxiety symptoms. Indeed, clinical observations show that increased quantities of alcohol consumed per drinking session are associated with in- creased symptoms of anxiety in the sober state (75), and withdrawal from alcohol, which can be conceptualized as a rebound phenomenon of the CNS from recent alcohol consumption, has been shown to be anxiogenic in both humans (406) and in rats (196).
Anybody who plunges into the study of the problems of alcohol addiction very quickly meets such phrases as “the alcohol addiction is an illness” or depending on the literature chosen to its opposition from the traditional one “the alcohol addiction is debauchery” to a more sophisticated one “the alcohol addiction is a rational choice”. This debate could be considered useless, because from a philosophical point of view it's no matter how you name the phenomenon its essence remains unchanged, however, is not so simple. The contraposition illness – not illness isn’t a dispute of two friends, but a well-heard echo of at least two (actually much more) scientific and viewpoint paradigms.
When the personal cost of drinking or drug use becomes noticeable, it can still be written off or excused as merely atypical. Addicts tend to orient their activities around their addictive behavior; they may forego friends and activities where drinking or drug use is not featured. Some may isolate themselves; others may change their circle of friends in order to be with people who drink or use in the same way they do. They engage in faulty yet persuasive alcoholic reasoning, willing to take anything as evidence that they do not have a problem; no amount of reasoning will persuade them otherwise. Each time the addict makes a promise to cut down or stop but does not, the chains get more constricting. (“In the Cave: Philosophy and Addiction - NYTimes.com”, 2)
The novel of John O’Brien Leaving Las Vegas is, in my opinion, the shrillest novel I’ve read from the scope of drinking stories. Traditionally, it’s called a suicide note, for in two weeks after finishing the book the author shot himself. With regard to a human’s attitude to the alcohol two tendencies usually take place when drinking is at odds with other aspects of human life, at first there’s a desire to achieve harmony, to arrange drinking sessions in a way that they do not interfere (or in addict’s illusion even help) other aspects of life. Then a long and, as a rule, unsuccessful fight begins for the values attacked by alcohol.