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What Causes Drug Addiction and Alcoholism?
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The Downward Spiral
No one wants to be a drug
addict or alcoholic, but this doesn’t stop people from getting addicted.
The most commonly asked question is simply - how? How could my son, daughter,
father, sister, or brother become a liar, a thief, someone who cannot be
trusted? How could this happen? And why won’t they stop? |
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The first thing you must
understand about addiction is that alcohol and addictive drugs are basically
painkillers. They chemically kill physical or emotional pain and alter the
mind’s perception of reality. They make people numb. For drugs to be
attractive to a person, there must first be some underlying unhappiness, sense
of hopelessness, or physical pain.
Before we address the
questions of cause, here is a little background information…
What Is A Drug?
In medical terms, a drug
is any substance that when taken into a living organism may modify one or more
of its functions. Drugs can provide temporary relief from unhealthy symptoms
and/or permanently supply the body with a necessary substance the body can no
longer make. Some drugs produce unwanted side affects. In large enough doses,
all drugs are toxic.Some drugs lead to an unhealthy dependency that has
both physiological and behavioral roots.
What Is Addiction?
Whether a person is
genetically or biochemically predisposed to addiction or alcoholism is a
controversy that has been debated for years within the scientific community.
One school of thought advocates the “disease concept”, embracing the
notion that addiction is an inherited disease, and that the individual is
permanently ill at a genetic level, even for those experiencing long periods of
sobriety.
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How Do Drugs Affect The Mind?
The mind is our most
important tool. With our mind, we solve the problems we face in life. Drugs do
several things that harm one’s ability to think or to be fully aware of
the present surroundings. These effects continue long after the effects of the
drug appear to have worn off.
Addictive drugs activate
the brain’s reward systems. The promise of reward is very intense causing
the individual to crave the drug and to focus their activities around taking
the drug. |
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The ability of addictive
drugs to strongly activate brain reward mechanisms and their ability to
chemically alter the normal functioning of these systems can produce an
addiction. Drugs also reduce a person’s level of consciousness, harming
the ability to think or be fully aware of present surroundings.
After
extended use, the person no longer responds to the drug in the way that person
initially responded. So for example, in the case of heroin or morphine,
tolerance develops rapidly to the analgesic (painkilling) effects of the drug.
While the development of tolerance is not addiction, many drugs that produce
tolerance also have addictive potential.
The fact remains that
there is scientific research to support all of these concepts. The question of
whether addiction is genetic, behavioral or biochemical does not have an
absolute answer. The distinguishing feature of the condition commonly referred
to as addiction is the ability of the drug to dominate the individual’s
behavior, regardless of whether physical dependence is also produced by the
drug.
There are a wide variety of treatment methods being used today,
administered based on whatever school of thought the treatment provider
believes in. With a 16% to 20% recovery rate based on statistical analysis of
national averages, the message is clear that we have a lot more to learn if we
are to bring the national recovery rate to a more desirable level.
There is another school of thought that has proven to be more
accurate. It has to do with the life cycle of addiction. This data is
universally applicable to addiction no matter which hypothesis is used to
explain the phenomenon of drug dependency.
Read
more information about alcohol and other drug addiction treatment and
rehabilitation. |
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