HUMAN. NATURE.

The Drunkard's Progress

I have the greatest job. Today I took the Addiction Severity Index interview. No matter how heavy a social drinker you might be, this test will make you feel like the LUCKIEST PERSON ALIVE.

I’ve been reading (and, really occasionally, writing) about addiction for the past few days. And today I stumbled across a reference to the Addiction Severity Index. Cool! I gotta see this!

But it’s not so cool. It’s enormously sad. Especially if you’ve been reading all week about how biology more or less decrees that you’re doomed to a lifetime with a screwed up brain, while I’m going to enjoy my glass of wine scott free.

People with insufficient dopamine receptors in their brains just have a crappy deal. The receptors on their stupid ventral striata are so dull that they don’t realize when they’re being stimulated. So the dopamine system keeps banging on a bell — a really loud, harsh, painful bell: GIVE US! GIVE US! GIVE US!

Drug and alcohol craving isn’t a yearning for a joyous experience, research now suggests. It’s a craving to make the hideous noise of the dopamine bell stop. It’s craving an end to a gritty discomfort. Your average addict — nicotine, alcohol, caffiene, cocaine,  ice cream, sex, winning the lottery — doesn’t feel like a million bucks when she finally feeds the dopamine system what it’s been clanging for. She feels, typically, like a failure.

It’s just so unfair. And so fierce. Addiction is a progressive brain disorder like Alzheimer’s. The addict’s life, without treatment, spirals into chaos. And so the questions on the Addiction Severity Index aren’t amusing at all.

How many times in your life have you been treated for drug abuse? (The failure rate is only moderately more successful than the treatment for Alzheimer’s. And so it’s not “have you,” but “how many times.”)

How many days were you paid for working in the last 30?

How long was your longest full time job?

How many times have you been hospitalized?

How many times have you been arrested?

Do you have a close relationship with the following people: Spouse? Children? Friends?

How many days in the past 30 have you had serious conflicts with other people?

And on, and on. The questions are all grim. All about loss and pain and conflict and sadness. None of them are, like, do you sometimes have trouble deciding where to go on vacation? Have you bounced a check this year? Do you dislike Brussels sprouts but have to eat them anyway to be polite?

For all the addicts in and out of my life I’m going to try to complain about NOTHING for the next 24 hours. I got a brain that’s immune to the mountains and rivers of addictive crap that surround us in the 21st Century. I’m going to spend some time just being glad about that.

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