60,000 District
residents or 12 percent of the population, have a substance abuse problem.We are told that addiction is a disease that wants you dead, and it will go after you unless you use the tools you learn in the recovery program.
About 60,000 District, (Washington DC) residents, or 12 percent of the population, have a substance abuse problem, according to the D.C. Addiction Prevention and Recovery Administration.
Partly as a result, police say, liquor stores, food carryouts and gas stations stock items used in the illegal drug trade, including tiny rose vases that double as crack pipes, rolling papers used to smoke marijuana and small plastic bags used to package drugs.
And signs of progress are popping up. Next to the cooler of Wild Irish Rose and Thunderbird malt liquors at King’s Mini Market in Anacostia, for instance, is a sign alerting patrons that the store no longer sells crack pipes and rolling papers.
Dealers peddling heroin that they were calling “drop dead,” “lethal injection,” and “killer instinct” spread,
Like the regulars at Harry Hope’s saloon in The Iceman Cometh, she’d reached the late stage of alcoholism where no matter how much she drank, she couldn’t get drunk anymore.
Addiction whether to alcohol, to drugs or even to behaviors like gambling appears to be a complicated disorder affecting brain processes responsible for motivation, decision making, pleasure seeking, inhibitory control and the way we learn and consolidate information and experiences.