Posted by lc bob on April 29, 1999 at 20:11:30:
In Reply to: Re: clusters and addicts and alcoholics posted by an alky CHer's perspective on April 28, 1999 at 22:44:02:
gotta cover some ground here ...
first, my apologies to David. what i wrote still stands ... but since you are a CHead it doesn't apply to you. in my defense i think you should have mentioned your CH. 'nuff said.
second, i agree this is a thoughtful response. signing it and/or providing an email tag would make it more credible and worthy. lack of such makes it somewhat suspect. 'nuff said.
third, i beg to differ. this is not the only subject that turns the board into a firefight. you'd need asbestos glasses to field responses to proposals that MSG or tobacco or caffiene or depression or pot or poetry or hazel eyes cause CH. i refer you to some equally virulent firefights regarding some of those issues on this board. it is, however, the only subject that is offered by pundits to support the "you caused it yourself" argument. the suggestion that "methinks he doth protest too much" is well taken ... defense of an addiction is the very definition of addiction. but the objections here are more the result of "experts" passing off CH as a self-induced affliction than they are a result of addiction defense. it occurs to me that if the medical "experts" published a theory that CH is caused by squeezing too many zits on your face (producing the lowly regarded divot-faced "symptom" of CH) we'd take hostile exception ... even though there'd be those who quit squeezing and simultaneously found their CH evolving to/from episodic and/or changing the intensity of attacks. that one can cap the sap and experience modified CH may be due to differing stress levels or a change in eating habits or a modification of depression/serotonin in the body ... indirect results of going dry. just as CH-triggers and CH-suppressants are individually unique - lifestyle change solutions may be similarly non-universal where CH is concerned. people are said to be intoxicated by love, laughter, nitrous oxide, a good job, a tv program and a whole host of other world goods that are not poisonous. there are those here that would suggest that continuing CH in sobriety means one should stop eating MSG-laced foods, and if you don't you're an ass. that, of course, would be ludicrous ... but no more so than telling an episodic CHead that he needs to quit drinking in remission.
i remain calm ...
-lcb