On the subject of addiction being cured, here's something.
SE said that it depends on what you're addicted to. This may be true, but I remember a conversation I had with my dad a couple years ago. My dad was addicted to just about every substance you can think of--he smoked pot and did heroin and lots of stuff in between. And he drank constantly. He went to rehab for a month when I was twelve and quit everything cold turkey, and never went back.
My dad went to AA and NA meetings for a little while, but after a few years he got frustrated with them and quit going. His frustration was that they kept telling him he couldn't be cured. He told me that he no longer had the desire to go out and buy drugs or alcohol. He's struggled with cigarettes for years and never been able to quit, but he doesn't even feel tempted by the rest of it anymore. Granted, he's not cured in the sense that he'll never be able to go out and casually drink, but he is in the sense that it's not a struggle for him not to drink anymore.
I think for some people, the temptation will always be there. But I don't think it's fair to tell people who don't feel that temptation anymore that they can't be cured.
Three years ago when I was going through a depressive episode I started cutting myself. I started using physical pain to manage the emotional pain I was going through, and became dependant on it, so that every time I went through an episode, I would cut myself to deal with it. Recently I quit, and while I've been able to be depressed and not cut, I've yet to succeed at being depressed and not wanting to. I've been managing it using other means--distracting myself, keeping sharp objects in storage, etc.
But I have hope that I won't be dealing with the temptation for forever. I think I can be cured--that the temptation can go away. I've been working on dealing with the other influences that cause me to feel that way, and it's gradually getting easier. Very, very gradually.
This is a really long post, so I'm going to stop now.
