Sometimes, when someone is suffering unbearably, we need to take drastic steps to alleviate that suffering. But sometimes rescuing the acute situation has horrible longer term consequences. Sometimes life saving medicine is also a poison.
In the case of physical pain, an urgent response often means giving that person a powerful pain blocker, like morphine. It eases the suffering, providing immediate comfort... But, if the person survives the immediate crisis, it extracts a price: addiction. It changes the person it saves, and in some cases makes it impossible for them to return to being the person they were before they were 'saved' from their suffering. In some cases, I suspect, those saddled with that addiction and unable to break it, regret that they were 'saved', not least because they no longer admire the person they've become. Sometimes the urgent immediate fix has longer term ramifications that make the fixee regret the urgent fix.
There's a word for this: pharmakon.
Pharmakon is either a remedy, a poison, or a scapegoat. It conjures up the philosophical notion of indeterminacy.
I suspect there's a useful metaphor in this. The social utility of religion and the strategic application of unjust violence leap to mind.
Hi Dave,
Hi Dave,
I would certainly have to read more deeply than the offered Wikipedia article to truly understand the philosophical concept of pharmakon. However, your post contains a misconception that I feel compelled to address:
"like morphine. It eases the suffering, providing immediate comfort... But, if the person survives the immediate crisis, it extracts a price: addiction."
Opiate addiction does not work like that; being administered morphine in the back of an ambulance (immediate comfort, urgent response) does not an addict create. That first cigarette as a teenager does not necessarily a life-long smoker create, nor that first beer an alcoholic create and I suspect that it is the same with other addictive substances.
Pain relief in an emergency situation is an important aspect of primary care which allows the organism to embark on the journey of healing, this journey can be inhibited by the stress response to pain. I suspect you are more concerned with the unethical, delibrate, ongoing prescription of opiates when, post-emergency, other methods of pain relief would be more appropiate and would not lead to addiction.
I have withdrawn from opiate addiction countless times, my bad, I keep going back. Even so, it takes more than one instance of usage to resume the physical addiction.
Ngā mihi,
Darryl
Thanks for your insight,
Thanks for your insight, Darryl. You're quite right - one dose doesn't necessarily create the addiction. I suppose my point is that the thing which offers comfort and gives an opportunity for healing can, in many cases (usually through repeated use, but only intended to be a 'temporary fix' for the acute problem it's treating), addiction is the result. And in some cases, I'm led to understand, that addiction can be worse - somewhat lesser pain, but for a much longer time - than the acute suffering it was intended to address.
I suppose a related analogy, with which I suspect we can both relate, is the idea of the hastily knocked together software prototype being pressed into production by insufficiently informed 'business-minded' folk, ignoring the protestation of the original developers, who nevertheless feel obliged to 'fix the system' but end up having a much worse time of it in the long run.
Indeed.
Indeed.
Yes, addiction certainly can be worse than the acute suffering it was intended to address. Your added analogy is on the mark to express your point. I raise the misconception only because I am aware of instances where pain relief has been withheld due to the misconceived fear of "causing" an addiction.
Tēnā rawa atu koe,
Darryl