I remind you again: I was there when the medical model was taking hold. I wasn't part of the conversation that pushed it forward, but I remember it.

Addiction is not a mental illness.

You wake up one day and you may be suffering from schizophrenia, or Alzheimer's, or depression.

You don't wake up one day and suddenly find yourself craving meth, or heroin, or crack, for no fucking reason.

The purpose of the medical model is:

1. To get people in treatment, because it sometimes kinda maybe eventually might work. Where prison simply doesn't.
2. To help society and politicians support treatment rather than criminalization.

I'm all on board for that.

But what I absolutely draw the line at is the dangerous fucking nonsense that addiction is a mental illness, as if personal choice has nothing to do with it. Because that makes addiction more difficult to treat, and it makes it more likely that family and friends will enable an addict, rather than pressure them to deal with the addiction.