“Speak for yourself, last month my company both invented and cured restless eye syndrome.”
That quote, from the “Mommy Observation” episode of The Big Bang Theory is a great “big pharma” gag. Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz, who does research for a major pharmaceutical company, was responding to Leonard Hopfstadter’s statement: “You don’t go into science for the money.”
I am not a “big pharma” conspiracy theorist, but I think the joke nicely underscores a problem in modern society we have with trying to medicalize everything.
It is basically a marketing ploy predicated on the ridiculous premise that there is some kind of “normal” human behaviour.
This undefined idealized state is something like: always happy, but sympathetic; highly ambitious, but benevolent; rational, but warm-hearted; even-tempered, but passionate; thoughtful, but outgoing; pragmatic, but empathetic.
I could go on, but the point is, this person does not exist.
The fact of the matter is every kind of human behaviour is part of the natural variation within our species. That is how evolution works. It tries everything and the most successful strategies dominate. That, of course, is an egregious simplification and anthropomorphization, but the point is everything from the sociopathy of Donald Trump to the altruism of Pope Francis falls within the spectrum of normal human behaviour.
That is not to say that all normal behaviour is either desirable or excusable.
There is little question that without the dominance of the strong over the weak, without the tyranny of pharaohs and kings, without the privilege of the educated, we would still probably still be pounding rocks together and foraging for nuts and berries, if we were not extinct.
However, times change and, like biology, society must also evolve.
The very idea that people suffered from mental illness, as opposed to being possessed by demons, for example, or were defective of character, was an evolution.
However, we currently live in a time in which we are way too quick to label behaviour as disease. Interestingly, one of the major criticisms of the most recent edition of psychiatry’s “bible” the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders, was many of the committee members had ties to the pharmaceutical industry, which has a vested interest in medicalizing everything.
Unfortunately, the terms disease and disorder are used interchangeably, but definitions are important.
A disease is: “a pathological condition of a body part, an organ, or a system resulting from various causes, such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms.”
A disorder is: “a disturbance or derangement that affects the function of mind or body, such as an eating disorder or the abuse of a drug.”
In a nutshell, if it requires medical intervention, it is a disease; if it requires behaviour modification, it is a disorder. Disorders are normal behaviour taken to an extreme, such as Trump’s narcissism.
The problem with calling something like addiction, whether it is alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex or Pokémon Go, a disease, is that it simultaneously excuses and entrenches the behaviour.
Let’s unpack that a bit by picking on addiction, just because I have intimate personal knowledge on the subject.
If it is a disease, as many in the multi-trillion dollar recovery industry claim, but are not backed up by science, what is the cause? The cause would be drinking alcohol. Drinking alcohol is a behaviour, not an infection, genetic defect or environmental stress.
If it is a disease what are the symptoms? A compulsion to drink is definitely pathological to the addict, but not a symptom per se. It is a conditioned response that can become a physical need, but you can cure those by stopping.
What about anger, anxiety, sadness? These are often cited as the symptoms of the disease that persist after the drinking stops, but they are just natural emotions. There is no question they can be triggers to the addict, but if they are symptoms they are symptoms that 100 per cent of humanity shares.
I am not trying to diminish how difficult it is to overcome behavioural disorders. Believe me, I know, but calling them diseases is an affront to people with actual diseases.
Cancer is a disease. You can’t beat it by praying; you can’t beat it by fellowship; you can’t beat it by willpower; and you can’t beat it by waking up in the morning and saying, “I’m not going to have cancer today.”
That is not to say addiction cannot be a symptom of underlying disease such as physiological depression or schizophrenia.
Not everything is a disease and there is no magic bullet. It is hard work, but we need to start taking more responsibility for our own behaviour.
Oh, and it is okay to be angry, anxious or sad sometimes, they are symptoms of something called life.
