ADDICTION NOT THAT SIMPLE

To The Editor: One can have nothing but praise and respect for Steve
Dalton for overcoming the terrors of meth. It is, however, a bit
disingenuous to say drinking one small beer when he was in ninth
grade caused his problem. I would posit that 90 percent of those
reading this letter would admit to trying beer at a similar age.

There are many causes for addiction: environment, peer groups,
depression, physical injury, mental and physical abuse and that's not
all. Even one's genes can contribute. None of these are destiny.
People have overcome one or several without being snared.

It would take many hours of intense therapy to root out the cause of
addiction in each case. Thus I think it's simplistic to say "it was
that Miller pony that started him down that slippery slope." Such a
simple answer tends to trivialize the deep-seated disruptions in
one's psyche that leads to addiction.

It puts the cause of addiction on a thing rather than on a complex
set of influences and genes. There may be many reasons Dalton became
dependent on meth, but one would have to look far beyond one small
bottle of beer to find the causal factors in Dalton's addiction.

Ken Blackwell

East Flat Rock