Why Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Death Is So Scary
It is clear that the root causes of drug addiction, like those of many multifactorial diseases, are frustratingly elusive — exceedingly nebulous mixture — of genetics, exposure, culture, conditioning, personality and environment . . .
Addiction obviously runs in families, but plenty of addicts come from families with no history of the illness. To be sure, availability plays a role, too—but having access to crack doesn’t make someone a crack addict.
The science addiction treatment and recovery is also hazy: Alcoholics Anonymous, is the most widely used form of post treatment support in the country, has no set structure or methodology, which makes it tough to evaluate its effectiveness. There’s also the fact that its core principle involves anonymity—that members never publicly acknowledge their presence in the program—makes broad longitudinal studies difficult, In-patient treatment “rehabilitation” centers, like the one Hoffman checked himself into last year, have been accused of obfuscating their success rates. Addiction relapse prevention efforts are clearly a life-long mandate for anyone suffering from such illness . . .