Self‐Deception and Responsibility for Addiction

Levy, Neil

doi:10.1111/1468-5930.00242

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Levy is explicitly interested in issues of moral responsibility and by association the moralization of addiction [58]. He offers a complex picture of the causes of addiction and its maintenance putting strong emphasis on the “social conditions” outside of the individual addicted person’s control that contribute to their state.

Addiction is not a brain disease, but there is a good case for saying that it is, nevertheless, a disorder which may require treatment (which may be medical or psychiatric, though other kinds of treatment may be appropriate in addition or instead), for which the sufferer is not to blame and the sufferer from which is an appropriate recipient of compassion [53; p.6]

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Section: Alternatives To the Disease Model And Their Treatment Of Mormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In another challenge to the disease model, Neil Levy argues that instead of a brain disease, addiction is better understood as a “disorder of belief” [ 52 ]. Levy is explicitly interested in issues of moral responsibility and by association the moralization of addiction [ 58 ]. He offers a complex picture of the causes of addiction and its maintenance putting strong emphasis on the “social conditions” outside of the individual addicted person’s control that contribute to their state.…”

Section: Alternatives To the Disease Model And Their Treatment Of Mormentioning

confidence: 99%

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Addiction and Moralization: the Role of the Underlying Model of Addiction

Frank

Nagel

2017

Neuroethics

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Addiction appears to be a deeply moralized concept. To understand the entwinement of addiction and morality, we briefly discuss the disease model and its alternatives in order to address the following questions: Is the disease model the only path towards a ‘de-moralized’ discourse of addiction? While it is tempting to think that medical language surrounding addiction provides liberation from the moralized language, evidence suggests that this is not necessarily the case. On the other hand non-disease models of addiction may seem to resuscitate problematic forms of the moralization of addiction, including, invoking blame, shame, and the wholesale rejection of addicts as people who have deep character flaws, while ignoring the complex biological and social context of addiction. This is also not necessarily the case. We argue that a deficit in reasons responsiveness as basis for attribution of moral responsibility can be realized by multiple different causes, disease being one, but it also seems likely that alternative accounts of addiction as developed by Flanagan, Lewis, and Levy, may also involve mechanisms, psychological, social, and neurobiological that can diminish reasons responsiveness. It thus seems to us that nondisease models of addiction do not necessarily involve moralization. Hence, a non-stigmatizing approach to recovery can be realized in ways that are consistent with both the disease model and alternative models of addiction.

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Section: Alternatives To the Disease Model And Their Treatment Of Mormentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Alternatives To the Disease Model And Their Treatment Of Mormentioning

confidence: 99%

Addiction and Moralization: the Role of the Underlying Model of Addiction

Frank

Nagel

2017

Neuroethics

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“…People struggling with addiction are neither powerless over their addiction, nor are they fully in control [ 33 ]. I argued that what would help their recovery best is a model that acknowledges both their agential capacities, as well as the challenges imposed on their agency.…”

Section: Towards a Model Of Addiction That Supports Recoverymentioning

confidence: 99%

How to Recover from a Brain Disease: Is Addiction a Disease, or Is there a Disease-like Stage in Addiction?

Snoek

2017

Neuroethics

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People struggling with addiction are neither powerless over their addiction, nor are they fully in control. Lewis vigorously objects to the brain disease model of addiction (BDMA), because it makes people lose belief in their self-efficacy, and hence hinders their recovery. Although he acknowledges that there is a compulsive state in addiction, he objects to the claim that this compulsion is carved in stone. Lewis argues that the BDMA underestimates the agency of addicted people, and hence hinder their recovery. Lewis’s work offers us a very much to be welcomed neurobiology of recovery. It offers addicted people a hopeful and respectful narrative for their recovery that treats them as agents rather than as damaged brains. However, I argue that overestimating people’s agency can also result in people losing belief in their self-efficacy. Lewis’s strong focus on the agency of addicted people might not match their experiences of struggle, hence reinforcing their feelings of guilt when they fail to control their use. I propose to replace the notion of addiction as a disease with a notion of a disease-like stage in addiction. I call this stage the duress stage in addiction, in which the addictive behaviour is largely impervious to the agent’s values and to available techniques of self-control. However, the agent can overcome this stage by developing new techniques of self-control, by building on their self-concept and belief in self-efficacy, by changing their environments and habits, and by engaging in projects that are meaningful to the agent.

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“…This protected the fragile self-esteem by avoiding the reality of the situation but was itself destructive and was a deliberate tactic in reducing the discomfort of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957). Although this held an individual in addiction for a time (Levy, 2003) it could not last forever, and was in fact an "internal con game" that had a time limit (Tenbrunsel and Messick, 2004 …”

Section: The Fragile Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

The psychosocial experience of role reversal for paraprofessionals providing substance misuse and offender treatment: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

James

Harvey

2015

Journal of Forensic Practice

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2014),"Maintaining the flow of talent through apprenticeships", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 13 Iss 2 pp. -http:// dx.If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Many ex-offenders and substance misusers are employed in the treatment and intervention of offenders. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this role as a protective factor in the maintenance of desistance. Design/methodology/approach -Seven paraprofessional employees of a substance misuse service were interviewed using semi-structured interview and analysed by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Findings -Four super-ordinate themes emerged: "The Fragile Sense of Self"; "Hitting Rock Bottom"; "Belonging and identity" and "Maintaining the role reversal". These themes captured the journey of moving through crime and substance misuse into desistance and employment.Research limitations/implications -The sample size is small; therefore generalisation is reduced. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) could be considered subjective. Further research should attempt to explore similar ideas with different populations and using different methods. Practical implications -This work suggests that practitioners and policy makers should look at the vital importance of paraprofessional employment in relation to desistance from crime. Social implications -Offenders and substance misusers are often left without direction or a fixed new identity, and return to the only life they have known. This study suggests that paraprofessional employment might provide a sense of belonging and identity that could benefit the ex-offender, their clients and society. Originality/value -This is an opportunity to advance knowledge in the area of paraprofessional employment as an aid to "recovery" and lifelong desistance.

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Self‐Deception and Responsibility for Addiction

Cited by 10 publications

References 1 publication

Addiction and Moralization: the Role of the Underlying Model of Addiction

Addiction and Moralization: the Role of the Underlying Model of Addiction

How to Recover from a Brain Disease: Is Addiction a Disease, or Is there a Disease-like Stage in Addiction?

The psychosocial experience of role reversal for paraprofessionals providing substance misuse and offender treatment: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

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