Monday, August 27, 2007

She doesn't mention the word addiction

I came across an extremely interesting and thought provoking article today. It's the story of a baseball player, although not really a story about baseball. His name is Josh Hamilton and when he was drafted by a major league team, he was very highly thought of, signing a multi-million dollar contract coming out of high school. You can read the article for details on his story but it really is amazing.

I've always been interested in the topic of addiction as it has impacted many family members and friends. What causes people to become addicted, particularly to drugs and alcohol? I guess that takes us back to the whole nature vs nurture debate, of which I know little. My experience of addictive behavior has been mostly as a somewhat removed observer, meaning I've never actually lived with someone addicted to drugs or alcohol. To me, that means I've never really witnessed closely the behavior of one of these addicts. With that perspective in mind, my observations of nature vs nurture has been somewhere in the middle, although I have seen the nurture aspect play a much stronger role in the equation. Most of the people that I have seen become addicted have come from homes that had an abusive parent or a home that was fairly turbulent (ie, divorce, moving frequently, etc). I guess where it gets more difficult for me is that there are plenty of people in those situations that don't fall prey to addiction.

I personally feel like I could have potentially become addicted as I have the sort of personality where I really become obsessed with certain things, I call it my "manic nature". But I just never went that way for whatever reason. I guess it was Nancy Reagan, she told me to just say no :-)

As far as school, it is getting more and more real by the minute. Classes start tonight for fall semester. I have to get my student teaching application in by mid-September. I have to take a couple of state tests in the next few months, the first of which I have perused and have absolutely no idea how I'm going to pass. I have orientation later this week at the junior high where I will spend 5 days this semester (and another orientation in the next couple weeks at the high school where I will do the same).

It's all systems go folks!!!!

Until next time.

Ace

2 comments:

jasongerwig said...

I've given this subject matter a lot of thought as well, especially since it's affected family members.

I think the dividing line is control...when you start to do something, a lot of people can stop, and turn it off...with addiction, you recognize you want to stop, but can't. It's pretty scary.

Ace said...

Hmmm, that's interesting. I guess I've never been in that position so I don't feel qualified to make a judgment on someone experiencing that. But it does sound scary, and terrible.