addiction and disease

what is it that separates the two?  we have so many different names for a lot of similar things.  Mental Disorder, Addiction, Dependency, ect.  there are so many things that plague everyone now days.  we have to justify events and actions to ourselves.  some people can say yes, some can say no.  it is a force of habit that moves our wishes into reality and actions.  our decisions guide us.  our decisions are what make us.  the most important thing to remember is that they are our decisions.   there is no destiny or predestination.  

it sounds crass and insensitive of me to say this, but that is what kind of person i am, im not sure i believe in addiction.  i dont believe in mental disorder.  i believe in strong and weak.  the strong can say no to the urges that tempt them and the weak cannot.  i believe that the weak and the strong are both necessary to life on this planet, from a social point of view.  humanity has to have a downtrodden and a heroic.  this balance is what keeps life interesting.  

yes, i do not understand how people can not say no to their habits (wow, convoluted sentence much?).  drunks who cant say no to the drink, junkies who know the junk will kill them and keep shooting, gamblers who lose their houses for one more roll of the dice or flip of the card and bulimics who puke themselves into oblivion.  i dont get it.  i am trying to see both sides.

i try to understand what it is that drives people.  there is only so much you can understand someone elses motivation.  there is only so much anyone can grasp from another persons psyche.  people have their own motivations and desires and those are only theirs to deny or accept.  i know there are a lot of reason that people do what they do, lots of which has to do with who they are and how they were raised.  sadly, people are products of their environment.  people are subjected to all types of conditioning and programing at home by their parents and teachers.  if we can rise above our shortcomings, we can argue the predestination thing as being non existent because of that.

in the end, it is all about choice.  choice and free will.  better yourself or die just the same as you have always have been.  in the end though... it is a choice.  it is your choice, it is my choice and no matter what is happening in our lives, it is our decisions that guide us down whatever path we have chosen for ourselves.