Responding to Stigma: "Addiction is a Choice"

“But it’s a choice. I mean, I love a slice of chocolate cake as much as the next person but I choose to go home and eat a banana instead.”

This was said by a fitness instructor who was attending the mental health first aid training course that I went to.

This is a perfect example of how a lack of understanding fuels stigma because this person clearly didn’t understand that overindulgence is completely different than addiction. You could overeat, smoke too much and drink too much alcohol every day for the rest of your life but that doesn’t mean that you are addicted to it.

I read every day, does that mean I’m addicted to books? Just because you do something a lot, doesn’t mean that you have an addiction.

I think this difference has been made clear by ‘Addiction Recovery’:

“If you’re wondering if your soda habit or porn obsession is a true addiction, you have to examine the reasoning behind it and decide if you have the power to quit.  If you are doing something just because you like it, but wouldn’t go into fits if it was taken away, you’re probably alright.  You may just want to examine and adjust your indulgences with your overall health and quality of life in mind… True addiction is a vicious cycle that is wildly out of the addict’s control and requires professional intervention to break the deep psychology associated with the behaviour.”

Comparing your ability to say no to a slice of cake to an addiction is completely insulting.

Also, I would like to add that someone can choose to eat ‘healthy’ food every day for the rest of their life but if they are doing it for the wrong reasons (low self-esteem, self-punishment, as a form of control) then they aren’t healthy either.

Mental health is just as important as physical health. If you ‘care’ more about people who are overweight than people who are underweight, or the person who eats too much cake more than the person who eats too much salad, then you have to question whether you actually care about the person at all or if your ‘care’ is simply a result of the stigma filled, overly competitive, and judgemental culture that surrounds us.


"Addiction is a health problem, not a moral one..."

-Vikram Patel

Maybe taking more drugs, another drink or another slice of cake is technically a choice, but choices are made by your brain and when you have an addiction or substance abuse disorder, your brain cannot make choices in the way that other brains can. It’s not as simple as choosing to say no to the substance because their ability to choose has been altered by their illness.

Dr. Charles O’Brien, chairman of the Substance Use Work Group of the DSM-5, has noted that the same neurobiological systems involved in processing of reward are disturbed in both food addictions and other substance abuse disorders such as cocaine addiction. So no, it’s not as simple as choosing to say no.

Comments like these will not encourage someone with an addiction to try and recover, they may actually discourage them from seeking help for fear of further judgement. So ask yourself, why say this? Is it really because you care or because you want to feel superior? 

Nobody chooses to be mentally ill or to have an addiction but you do choose to continue in ignorance and you do choose to keep spreading stigma.

"A lot of people think that addiction is a choice. A lot of people think it's a matter of will. That has not been my experience. I don't find it to have anything to do with strength."
-Matthew Perry

If you liked this post you may also like:
1. Stigma Should Not Be Your Trademark 

2. Am I Faking My Mental Illness?

3. What Is Mental Health?