Do You Think That Anorexia and Addiction Is a Choice or Disease?

I think that anorexia is a choice because anorexia is an eating disorder which is promoted due to the pressure of being and remaining skinny. Individuals suffering from anorexia choose not to eat and choose to be obsessed with their weight. Yes, they may be pressured by society that they can not handle but its not entirely an outside source that causes people to suffer from anorexia. Now, if you do not care and do not pay attention to society in pressuring you into being skinny then you will not suffer from anorexia. The secret is how you handle your mind. Therefore, in the end you are responsible.

Drug addiction on the other hand can be a choice as well as a disease because once you start taking certain drugs your body needs them constantly and withdrawal will cause problems. I consider it a choice because the person choose to take the drugs knowingly or unknowingly of its consequences. Its a disease because people wanting to not be addicted if they withdraw completely there is a possibility that they can be hospitalized. This is just my opinion!

I have life experience in both situations and here is my opinion:

Anorexia-
It is disease/disorder that is not chosen and begins for reasons that are not chosen:
It can stem from something, conscious or subconscious. For instance: Pressure from parents to be a “certain weight” for those who start certain extra curricular activities at a young age [ballet, modeling, athletics, etc.]; constantly being put down for the way they look; a parent who complains about their own appearance and consistently diets throughout an anorexic’s childhood, a parent who teaches their own anorexic ways to their children growing up, etc.)
It can stem from various insecurities, low self esteem, worthless, inadequacies, wanting to control, etc.
Most commonly a person with anorexia may also have mental disorders making it more difficult to recover or to regard recovery as an option. BDD (Body Dismorfic Disorder), OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), Perfectionism (not a perfectionist like wanting all A’s on a report card, the more extreme OCD type where you get severe anxiety if things arent just right ), PPD (Paranoid Personality Disorder), SAD (Social Anxiety Disorder), different levels of depression and several others. All of these aid to the disease and feelings that keep a person stuck in it.
Usually an anorexic will have BDD if nothing else. I just want to explain that BDD is what causes them to see themselves they do, and no one but another anorexic/bulimic or a therapist will understand it. You see yourself bigger than you are, or with other flaws that are not there and it causes you to be needlessly concerned & self conscious. Say you photo-shopped yourself and added some pounds to make you look chubby/fat to where you’d say “Goodness! I HAVE to loose weight!” and plastered a life-size version of that fat photo-shopped you on every reflective surface you use to see yourself but no one else can see that photo. What they see isn’t real in the reality of others, but very real to them. It is so real that it is confusing when people tell you otherwise. BDD can be so bad that you wont believe/accept when people tell you how good you your pretty, etc. You may think they’re just trying to be nice, lying to get on your good side or they want something from you.

As for me, I didnteven realize I was anorexic until 5yrs had passed and for 2 more years I didnt do anything about it, my mind doesnt work like everyone elses. It was simply a routine; the way I lived my life. So much that I saw it as something I had to do. If I didnt, the consequences would be worse: anxiety (jitters, palpitations, numbness, not able to breathe, crying, hyperventilating), preoccupied mind for not doing what I was “supposed to do”, stress, etc. My health was the farthest in my mind and not considered a “consequence”. To me, the other things were much worse than the headaches, weakness, slow heartbeat, dizziness and blurred vision. I’d rather have the physical symptoms than the emotional trauma any day. Im in recovery now.

Drug Addiction:
It starts as a choice. The more they chose it, the more the choice to stop is taken away. They chose to take that first shot, that first however many pills, that first sniff. I believe that it really depends on the individuals strength of mind that decides how much time has to pass before it is not a choice anymore.
I, myself have never tried it, but I grew up around it. A family member of mine has been an addict for 40yrs, and I think the addiction is an escape or a way to feel good for that moment. They have shown that they control it, that it is a choice. They are out on the streets addicted for months at a time, supposedly “unable” to break free for even a day, and yet when a court date rolls around they are miraculously clean “trying to get their life together” and “sobering up”. Its obvious that they are able to sober up when it is needed to keep them from prison, but otherwise they say the call is “too strong” to deny.
For others it is possible that they allow it to control them and lose control of them-self to it. It overbears their mind. They see how hard it is to live a life with responsibilities, how scary it is to be the one responsible for another life, to work for a living, to be mature, so they run to something that makes them unable to do those things. They use it as an excuse as to why they cant do it. They search for something, a reason, so they dont have to deal with it, thus drugs. They –who want to run so badly, who are terrified of life– succumb to drugs and cannot get out.