Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong | Johann Hari | TED · TED
本演讲探讨成瘾的真正原因，挑战传统观念，并提出新的解决思路。适合练习听力理解与话题讨论。
One of my earliest memories is of trying to wake up one of my relatives and not being able to.
我最早的记忆之一，就是试图叫醒我的一位亲戚，但却没能成功。
And I was just a little kid, so I didn't really understand why, but as I got older,
那时我只是一个小孩子，所以并不真正明白为什么会发生这样的事；但随着年龄的增长，我逐渐明白了其中的缘由。
I realized we had drug addiction in my family, including later cocaine addiction.
我意识到我的家族中存在药物成瘾的问题，后来还出现了可卡因成瘾的情况。
I'd been thinking about it a lot lately, partly because it's now exactly 100 years since drugs were first banned in the United States and Britain,
最近我一直在思考这个问题。部分原因是，如今距离美国和英国首次禁止毒品使用已经整整过去了100年。
and we then imposed that on the rest of the world.
然后我们把这种做法强加给了世界其他国家。
It's a century since we made this really fateful decision to take addicts and punish them and make them suffer,
自从我们做出那个具有重大历史意义的决定——将吸毒者视为罪犯并加以惩罚、让他们承受痛苦以来，已经过去了一个世纪了。
because we believed that would deter them; it would give them an incentive to stop.
因为我们相信这样做能够阻止他们继续从事那些行为；这会促使他们停止自己的行为。
And a few years ago, I was looking at some of the addicts in my life who I love,
几年前，我关注了一些我深爱的、患有成瘾问题的人。
and trying to figure out if there was some way to help them.
并试图找出是否有什么办法可以帮助他们。
And I realized there were loads of incredibly basic questions I just didn't know the answer to, like,
我意识到有很多非常基础的问题，而我根本不知道它们的答案。比如……
what really causes addiction?
究竟是什么导致了成瘾呢？
Why do we carry on with this approach that doesn't seem to be working,
为什么我们还要继续采用这种似乎根本不起作用的方法呢？
and is there a better way out there that we could try instead?
有没有更好的解决办法，我们可以尝试一下呢？
So I read loads of stuff about it, and I couldn't really find the answers I was looking for,
所以我阅读了大量相关资料，但始终没能找到自己想要的答案。
so I thought, okay, I'll go and sit with different people around the world
于是我想，好吧，我去和世界各地的不同人坐在一起聊聊天吧。
who lived this and studied this and talk to them and see if I could learn from them.
那些亲身经历过这些事情、研究过这些现象的人……我可以和他们交流，看看是否能从他们身上学到些什么。
And I didn't realize I would end up going over 30,000 miles at the start, but I ended up going and meeting loads of different people,
一开始我并没有想到自己最终行驶的距离会超过 3 万英里，但事实确实如此。在这段旅程中，我遇到了许多各种各样的人。
from a transgender crack dealer in Brownsville, Brooklyn,
来自布鲁克林布朗斯维尔区的一名跨性别毒贩……
to a scientist who spends a lot of time feeding hallucinogens to mongooses to see if they like them -- it turns out they do,
对于一位科学家来说，他花费大量时间给獴鼠喂食致幻剂，以观察它们是否喜欢这些物质——结果发现它们确实喜欢。
but only in very specific circumstances -- to the only country that's ever decriminalized all drugs, from cannabis to crack, Portugal.
但仅限于非常特定的情况——也就是在唯一一个将所有毒品（从大麻到强效可卡因）都合法化的国家：葡萄牙。
And the thing I realized that really blew my mind is, almost everything we think we know about addiction is wrong,
让我真正震惊的是：我们几乎认为自己所了解的关于成瘾的所有知识都是错误的。
and if we start to absorb the new evidence about addiction, I think we're going to have to change a lot more than our drug policies.
如果我们开始认真研究有关成瘾问题的新证据，那么我认为我们需要改变的不仅仅是药物政策——还有很多其他方面也需要调整。
But let's start with what we think we know, what I thought I knew.
不过，让我们先从我们认为自己所知道的事情开始吧——也就是我原本以为自己所知道的事情。
Let's think about this middle row here.
我们来思考一下这一行的中间部分吧。
Imagine all of you, for 20 days now, went off and used heroin three times a day.
想象一下：在过去的20天里，你们每个人都每天服用三次海洛因。
Some of you look a little more enthusiastic than others at this prospect.
在面对这个前景时，你们中有些人看起来比其他人更加热情。
Don't worry, it's just a thought experiment.
别担心，这只是一个思想实验而已。
Imagine you did that, right?
想象一下你真的那么做了，对吧？
What would happen?
会发生什么呢？
Now, we have a story about what would happen that we've been told for a century.
现在，我们有了一个关于“如果某种情况发生会怎样”的故事——这个故事已经被人们传讲了一个世纪之久。
We think, because there are chemical hooks in heroin, as you took it for a while, your body would become dependent on those hooks,
我们认为，由于海洛因中含有能够与人体受体结合的化学物质（这些化学物质会“钩住”人体受体），当你长期使用海洛因时，你的身体就会对这些化学物质产生依赖性。
you'd start to physically need them, and at the end of those 20 days, you'd all be heroin addicts.
你会开始在生理上对海洛因产生依赖；20天结束后，你们所有人都会成为海洛因成瘾者。
Right?
对吧？
That's what I thought.
我正是这么想的。
First thing that alerted me to the fact that something's not right with this story is when it was explained to me.
第一个让我意识到这个故事有些不对劲的地方，是在有人向我解释这个故事的时候。
If I step out of this TED Talk today and I get hit by a car and I break my hip,
如果我今天从这场 TED 演讲中走出来，然后被一辆汽车撞到，导致髋部骨折……
I'll be taken to hospital and I'll be given loads of diamorphine.
我会被送往医院，然后会接受大量吗啡（diamorphine）的治疗。
Diamorphine is heroin.
二甲基吗啡其实就是海洛因。
It's actually much better heroin than you're going to buy on the streets, because the stuff you buy from a drug dealer is contaminated.
实际上，这种海洛因的质量要比你在街头买到的要好得多；因为从毒贩那里买到的海洛因都已经被污染了。
Actually, very little of it is heroin, whereas the stuff you get from the doctor is medically pure.
实际上，其中所含的海洛因成分非常少；而从医生那里获得的那种海洛因在医学上来说是纯度很高的。