November 5th , 2012 The Phoenix House interviewed April, an ex-drug addict. She  shared her journey which included her history with using multiple substances, the factors that instituted her drug use, and how she overcame addiction.  April's testimony was structured like any other testimony. April began by giving a brief summary of her childhood , explaining that addiction served as reoccurring issues that has been handed-down from her mother, older siblings, and now to her. She then tells that her addiction started when she was 12 where she tells the interviewer that her use stemmed from her parent's divorce. April said that she drank heavily and smoke a lot of marijuana .April emphasized that the birth of her first child at the age of 19 motivated her to get her life together and triggered her upward mobility. April held down a job, had a nice apartment for her and her daughter, and started taking classes at a local community college. She explained that it is when she let her drug addicted mother move in with her that she started to pick up her old drug habits. April drug use exacerbated the second time. She began taking using methadone, cocaine, marijuana, and an assortment of prescription pills.  April even started dating a full-blown addict which caused her addiction to reach force due to her partner's easy access to substances. In results, April lost her job, the custody of her children, and was arrested multiple times for petty thefts. April explained that her life had hit rock bottom and she tried to seek help within a therapist. I started to think critically about addiction when April's therapist said, " There is little I can do for you while you are on all these drugs" (The Phoenix House, 3).  Why couldn’t this trained health professional simply guide April to recovery?

April's therapist statement made me think critically and questioned the complexity of her addiction , and why it was not an easy fix. I wanted to break down April's drug addiction into simpler parts and apply my own morals and intuitions. Also I wanted to research addiction from a scientific view to strengthen my argument.  I knew already that addiction has a negative stigma attach to it and is a very controversial issue. Drug abuse is a rampant problem in the Unites States. Drugs will become abused whether they are recreational, narcotics, or alcohol. When the misuses of substances are discussed society usually talk about how they are used for the wrong reason rather than being used unconsciously. I battle with categorizing drug addiction as a disease or a choice. Many researcher have reported drug dependency as a choice, while others have deemed it as a disease. I believe that drug addiction is ultimately a disease by definition, the effects of the drugs on the brain, behaviors of the addict.

To gain a better understanding of addiction , it must be properly defined.   Within the article Addictions : definitions and Implications  the author discusses how the integration of the definition of addiction, disease, and  choice/free-will is necessary to  determine factors of addictions and properly categorized them (Goodman , 2). The definition of drug addiction is a disease that  is characterized by an individual that is drug seeking and usually experiences use that is compulsive (NIDA, 2). From this definition, we simply know that a substance is involved and the addict has a uncontrollable urge to use the substance. 
