Addiction: Disease or Choice?

Sometimes it can feel like both, but let’s find out

The Pyramid of Luxuries

The Bespoke - $1,000 Mobile Phone Shopping Spree

The Ultra High End - $100 Massage Gift Card

The Superpremium - Port of Chania

The Premium Core - Momofuku Chili Crunch

The Accessible Core - Addiction: Disease or Choice?

The Affordable Luxury - Online Social Ideas

The Everyday Luxury - Online Social Time

The Bespoke

Click on the banner to enter The Bespoke Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: $1,000 Mobile Phone Shopping Spree [ARV $1,000]

• Odds: For every 130 Ducky Tran premium member by the time of judging, I will give out one (1) Shopping Spree

• Contest Period: July 3, 2024 at 10 AM CST to July 30, 2024 at 10 PM CST

The Ultra High End

Previous Contest Winner

The winner of Issue 33 Ultra High End contest is VU from ARLINGTON, TEXAS! Here’s his submission for “photo of a new discovery”:

Congratulations VU, you won 18 packs of Krave Jerky. Time to discover new jerky flavors! Check out the other submissions:

This Week’s Contest

Click on the banner to enter The Ultra High End Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: $100 Massage Gift Card [ARV $100]

• Odds: For every 70 Ducky Tran premium members by the time of judging, I will give out one (1) $100 Massage GC

• Contest Period: July 10, 2024 at 10 AM CST to July 16, 2024 at 10 PM CST

This week’s focus is mental wealth. The pinnacle of mental wealth is peace of mind and the ability to control oneself purposefully. However, there are stressors throughout our daily lives that intrude into this peace of mind and as we age our minds will degrade. By living a healthy life, physically and mentally, we can maintain our mental health and allow it to prosper for a longer time.

Mentally, we can train our minds by reading, educating ourselves, and maintain healthy relationships without family and friends.

Physically, we can exercise, eat well, and maintain a safe lifestyle. Sometimes our stresses convert into a form of tension in our bodies and it may take some physical intervention to help relax our tensed muscles.

This week I am giving out a $100 massage gift card so you can get any tension you’ve built up to be relieved. Don’t forget, all the pillars of wealth are connected and we should not neglect one for another. Physical and mental wealth have strong ties to each other and should be seen as a pair, not separate.

The Superpremium

This week’s Superpremium topic is Port of Chania. This Venetian-style Grecian port is just beautiful! When I was in Crete, I would walk this port many times a week. Not only was it a lively place to be during the day and at night, but the food at the port was just amazing. Check out some of the items I had:

The port is full of life during cruise season due to the European cruises docking nearby. The colors of the buildings and the amazing sunrise and sunset over the cool port area is inviting. Just sitting at a restaurant to people-watch is fun, but the accompaniment of amazing food and lovely weather just tops it off. I’m not sure of its current economic-nature, but the last time I was there everything was affordable. There are many vendors on the streets due to the touristy-nature of the port; however, it didn’t feel scammy like Rome or Paris. Definitely a place to visit, but make sure you have a bit of time to enjoy the long meals and soak in the views.

The Premium Core

Obviously, everyone loves FREE. But I’ve had a lot of fun finding out what Ducky Tran members like and getting feedback. So, this week, I’m going to be giving out another freebie, Momofuku’s Chili Crunch!

My wife and I have been going through multiple jars of this stuff in the last few months. Many of you may have different versions of this chili crunch, chili oil, or chili spread; however, this one is definitely my favorite, so far. It has all the umami, texture, and spice that you would want in a chili crunch/oil.

We put this stuff on everything! Eggs, rice, dumplings, soups, and noodles. Essentially, any hot foods that isn’t sweet can take a spoonful of chili crunch.

But I won’t just recommend it, I’ll give it to you!

Deal #1: I’m giving out a jar of Momofuku’s Chili Crunch to each member that sends an email to [email protected], in the email let me know 3 things:

1. Have you had chili crunch or chili oil before.

2. If yes, what is your item you like to eat it with. If no, what do you plan to eat it with.

3. Guess the price of a jar (don’t cheat, unless you already know).

There is a limited number of jars, only 8. So, move quickly, the last freebie of Irvins chips ran out very quickly!

The Accessible Core

Addiction: Disease or Choice?

I want to first point out that I have no definitive answer to this question. I just want to pose an in-depth conversation about the topic and shed light on it to those that may have little knowledge or understanding of the topic. I will be using this research article as the basis of most of my statements.

The Oxford definition of disease is “a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially on that has known cause and distinctive group of symptoms, signs, or anatomical changes.”

From GMP Medical, an illness can be a perceived notion of unwellness from self-diagnosis, but disease must be diagnosed by a medical expert.

This means the question at-hand is: Is addiction a science-based diagnosis of illness, or is addiction a choice, or both, or neither?

Disease

1. Addiction has been labeled a disease in the past as to not put blame on the victims.

2. Addiction is labeled a disease so there can regulations that can be placed on the causal products.

3. Addiction is labeled a disease because of the impaired conditions a person may be susceptible to, disabling them from make logical, sane decisions.

4. Addiction is labeled a disease because paired with some brain disorders or long-term causal product usage, it can re-wire your neurological system and cannot be reverted.

Choice

1. Addiction has been seen as a choice because after being cured the individual can relapse willingly.

2. Addiction is labeled a moral failure, or choice, because even knowing the effects of certain causal products, like alcohol and drugs, an individual may still make the choice to use them.

3. Addiction is labeled a choice because some temptations to use the causal products again, it can be resisted but may cause debilitating mental and physical stress. Nonetheless, still being able to be resisted.

4. Addiction is labeled a choice because many addictions have no causal products but normally just self-stimulated neurological activity that results in the addiction.

I tend to sway 70%/30% towards addiction being a choice; however, there are many arguments for all sides. And like most things, it just depends on the situation.

I do believe by allowing for it to be labeled as a disease has its benefits such as regulation, safety, and product availability; however, at the same time, I can see it as a scapegoat for something much more detrimental, like accountability and greed. No matter which way you see it, addiction is a reality. No one can escape it, because by definition it’s neither good or bad, but just a state of being.

So, this means being addicted to being happy (regardless of causal product usage or not), being addicted to caffeine (even though some study say caffeine has no addictive properties), or being addicted to alone (not having intrusions in your life), are all still addictions, even if it is diagnosed or not.

The Affordable Luxury

Issue 33 Community Poll Results

Here’s the results from last week:

1. All but one member believes all addictions can be resisted, the one member stated “narcotics”. So, if all addictions can be resisted, it cannot be a disease since diseases aren’t something we can just resist through will-power?

2. This next one is a 50/50 split. Half believe addiction is both a learned behavior and disease; the other half believes it to be a learned behavior only.

3. No members voted for the Grapevine North Pole Express as a prize, so I will remove that from the prize pool for now.

This Week’s Community Poll

Here are this week’s poll questions:

The Everyday Luxury

I will attempt the online social, but we first will decide what event to host then I will find a date that fits everyone’s schedule the best. Let me know what time block is generally the best:

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