Pubdate: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 Source: Independent (UK) Copyright: 2002 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd. Contact: http://www.independent.co.uk/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/209 Author: Simon Carr HOW MY ORGAN OF ADDICTION JUST WITHERED AWAY ONE DAY The mystery of addiction is as deep and as dark as the human psyche. This occurred to me in the House the other day as some frontbench spokesman was talking contentedly about the need to get drug addicts out of the hands of dealers into the hands of health professionals. Health professionals don't, as far as I know, have much of a record on drug addiction. Nor do they act as quite the magnet to drug addicts in the way that dealers do. Addiction finds expression, recognition even, in squalor, misery, death by vomit. Perhaps the submission to the damage, the danger, the destruction, perhaps that's the point. The addict is communicating with him or herself in a way that nothing else can reach. But addiction varies so much it's hard to professionalise its treatment. I started smoking cigarettes at about the age of 15 and piled it on over the next quarter century. Even had I seen the floor-to-ceiling sitting room full of cartons I was to get through I wouldn't have thought twice about starting. Simon Carr - --- MAP posted-by: Derek