The gratuitous form of acceptance as the pathway to the resolution of substance abuse (Acceptance)

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the second of two articles about substance abuse and the discussion of acceptance as a two‐pronged description of human thinking, with the primary care physician the intended audience.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is about the presumption of acceptance as an enabler of the learned addiction‐oriented life style.FindingsAccording to the World Health Organization (WHO)'s Global Status Report, there are about 2 billion people consuming alcoholic beverages worldwide, with about 76.3 million diagnosed as having alcohol use disorders.Research limitations/implicationsThe approach in the article differs from that taken in the discussion of relapse, where substance abuse is presented as a subset of addictive‐oriented thinking with respect to a defined group of persons. Here, there are two parallel tracks, with neither limited to any definable subgroup of a population. The first is a continuation of the focus on substance abuse as a subset of addictive‐oriented thinking. The second, however, has addictive‐oriented thinking as the superset of the learned addiction‐oriented life style.Social implicationsThe potential pool of need in the paper is the 2 billion people as the superset of addiction‐oriented living, on this view of relapse and acceptance as the “why” of substance abuse, as a subset of addictive‐oriented thinking.Originality/valueWhile the paper is in line with the WHO's position that substance abuse is the most serious health problem globally, the advocated approach to the resolution of addiction is the efficiency of the relationship between the primary care physician and the patient.