David Sheff Drug Addiction Summary

David Sheff stated an explicit thesis throughout this book and that was: What do you do if a family member is addicted to methamphetamine? Methamphetamine (also called meth, crystal, chalk, and ice) is an extremely addictive stimulant drug that is chemically similar to amphetamine. It takes the form of a white, odorless, bitter-tasting crystalline powder. David’s son, Nic, takes him and his other family members for a crash course in Drug Addiction 101 having been to four different rehabs and over 20 relapses. At first David and his current wife, Nic’s Stepmother, Holly could not determine what type of substances Nic was abusing because at first he was doing the typical adolescent behaviors of experimenting with drugs such as, alcohol and

David writes how he felt as though he was to blame in some way although he was a great father, even after divorcing Nic’s mother. A doctor explains to David that addiction is a disease and the symptom of that disease is using the drug and being out of control, powerless against the drug; the doctor also explains that insurance companies cover disease, addiction being one of those diseases because if it wasn’t your insurance company surely would not cover rehabilitation. But if we are to scrap the disease concept and replace it with something valid, our new explanation must retain all the beneficial aspects of the disease concept. It must not allow moralizing or any other negative attributions to people suffering with addictions. In fact, we'd hope an alternative explanation would have more value than the disease label, by giving people with addictions something the disease concept lacks: an understanding that is useful for treating the problem. This question has been discussed in Module 1 amongst my cohorts and I with the majority stating addiction was a disease and those few who questioned this, only did so because someone they truly loved became an addict hurting their feelings which in turn clouded their