Glad to hear that you don't think you are a junkie. Hope that is a reality and not some form of denial for you.
The concept of "curing depression" is not always medically accurate one.
You might be in remission, but that is not the same as cured.
So far there has not been a medical cure for depression. There are various treatments that work on some of the people some of the time, both through attacking the problem on the purely physical level, or on the purely mental level...or a combination of both.
So the physical and/or psychological treatments work to alleviate the symptoms of depression in some people some of the time but not all people all of the time.
Some never get relief, and some try to fix the pain on their own by self medication (like RM) and some just learn to live with the symptoms.
For lack of a better analogy consider this:
A man is in a dark room, and as a result of the darkness he cannot see beauty and he feels depressed. He tries everything he can to remove the darkness so that he can see beauty and be happy, but he fails over and over again.
A beautiful women enters the dark room unbeknownst to the man, and flips on the light switch which the man couldn't see while stuck in the dark, and by a miracle the man's depression lifts as he sees the beauty of the woman.
So what was the cause of the man's depression and what was the cure? Was there a pathological cause of his symptoms, or were the symptoms purely psychological in nature?
Do some people have chemical imbalances? No doubt.
Does the mind and thinking impact brain chemistry? No doubt again.
Does it make sense that people who are unable to achieve a lasting peace of mind with drugs ignore the psychological aspect of their own mind as part of the problem?
Not to me it doesn't.
By the way, short term studies on relief from depression through the use of some drugs are not all that helpful in the long run. This is precisely why we don't see anti depressants from 50 years ago work with consistency, and most psychiatrists don't recommend older drugs because of the side effects that became known over time and the fact that the drugs did not rectify the problem.
Depression has been around as long as mankind, and there is no known drug that cures it...but people find ways to cope with it...some positive for them and their society, some destructive for them and their society.
If there were a cure for depression through a drug, people would be taking that drug and living happy lives...but that is not the reality, especially in America were we take more drugs for depression than anywhere else in the world and yet show a huge failure by the medical community to find an answer to the continuing problem.
If someone thinks they can cure their depression without having to change their mental and personal problems simply by taking a pill, well...good luck to them.
I don't see the science to support such a belief...
No, RM's condition is not like a diabetic who has to take insulin or they will surely die. I don't doubt that being drug free makes him feel like he wants to die...but that is not the same as physically needing a drug or medication to stay alive.
RM ignores the psychological aspect of his condition, because he doesn't want to change his thinking...he just wants to kill the pain with a fix.
I don't see the genius in that at all...
Quote from stephenjs:
Actually I'm not a junkie. I've had problems with depression and anxiety since I was a young child. I have been going to therapists for nearly 35 years. I was prescribed a cough syrup containing hydrocodone when I was a teenager. That medicine completely erased my depression and anxiety. I wasn't hooked on it. I had no refills. Recently I've discovered that other people have had the same experience with opiates. There is some good scientific evidence as to why people with a major depressive disorder respond favorably to these medications. It has nothing to do with addiction.