Are genetics totally at blame for how anyone is?                                                   

 

Many people have a skewed view on some of their problems. They are told that addictions, depression, obesity, personality disorders, etc are completely genetic and outside of their control other than with the use of powerful drugs.

 

 

Addiction

Twenty-five percent of the population has a POSSIBLE gene that is POSSIBLY involved in pleasure seeking behaviors called the A1 allele. Less than one-fifth of these people become alcoholics. So less than five percent of the population are alcoholics AND have this disease while a little over ten percent of the population is considered alcoholic. Therefore, less than half of alcoholism is even remotely genetic, remember this gene definitely does not make you enjoy alcohol more than others and is only maybe linked to pleasure seeking behavior.

 

While conventional treatment methods result in a 3% success rate after five years, programs that do not teach the disease concept, and instead teach choice, have success rates of 86% after five and even ten years (Baldwin Research Institute 2003). This seems to prove that alcoholism is really more of a mental thing. People don’t recover if they are told they have a disease whereas the people who are told they have a choice wouldn’t be able to recover if it really was a disease.

 

History and science have shown us that the existence of the disease of alcoholism is pure speculation. Just saying it’s so, doesn’t make it true. Nevertheless, medical professionals and American culture lovingly embraced the disease concept and quickly applied it to every possible deviant behavior from alcohol abuse to compulsive lecturing. The disease concept lead to a prompt evolution of pop-psychology. Research has shown that alcoholism is a choice, not a disease, and stripping alcohol abusers of their choice, by applying the disease concept, is a threat to the health of the individual.

 

It is speculated that the disease concept originated in the 1800's with a fellow by the name of Dr. Benjamin Rush. He believed alcoholics were diseased and used the idea to promote his prohibitionist political platform. He also believed that dishonesty, political dissention and being of African American decent were diseases as well. The “disease concept” was used throughout the late 1800’s and early 1900’s by prohibitionists and those involved in the Temperance Movement to further a political agenda. Prior to this time, the term alcoholic did not exist. Alcohol was freely consumed but, drunkenness was not tolerated.

 

 

 

Obesity

20% of children born from two obese parents have no obese problems. Therefore you can make the assumption that being at an unhealthy weight is your choice; otherwise, it would be 0%. The main reason obese children offspring from obese parents is due to the fact that they grow up with an unhealthy life style. Change your habits. Get out there and do something about it.