I'm not sure if I know any 'functional' families, if functional means a family without difficult times and members who don't have a full range of problems.
David SheffAnyone who has lived through it, or those who are now living through it, knows that caring about an addict is as complex and fraught and debilitating as addiction itself.
David SheffOnce and for all, people must understand that addiction is a disease. Itโs critical if weโre going to effectively prevent and treat addiction. Accepting that addiction is an illness will transform our approach to public policy, research, insurance, and criminality; it will change how we feel about addicts, and how they feel about themselves. Thereโs another essential reason why we must understand that addiction is an illness and not just bad behavior: We punish bad behavior. We treat illness.
David SheffIf you subscribe to the idea that #โ addiction is a disease, it is startling to see how many of these children - paranoid, anxious, bruised, tremulous, withered, in some cases psychotic - are seriously ill, slowly dying. We'd never allow such a scene if these kids had any other disease. They would be in a hospital, not on the streets.
David SheffThis stigma associated with drug use--the belief that bad kids use, good kids don't, and those with full-blown addiction are weak, dissolute, and pathetic--has contributed to the escalation of use and has hampered treatment more than any single other factor.
David SheffThrough Nic's drug addiction, I have learned that parents can bear almost anything....I shock myself with my ability to rationalize and tolerate things once unthinkable. The rationalizations escalate....It's only marijuana. He gets high only on weekends. At least he's not using hard drugs.
David Sheff