What is addiction?
Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward or relief by substance use and other behaviors, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
Substance abuse is defined as a pattern of harmful use of any substance for mood-altering purposes, according to the World of Psychology.
At Addiction Frontline, we believe addiction begins in the mind, going beyond simply making a choice. The mindset is referred to as cunning, baffling and powerful. The addiction mindset does not function as simply as quitting the vice.
Sobriety requires treatment, an action following the patient’s decision. The action changes our thought process, surrenders our old ideas and makes a commitment to a new life. Transformation becomes possible - one day at a time – through giving 100 percent each day to becoming spiritually grounded and building towards our future. The solution starts now.
The definition of addiction appears complex, much like the mindset of addiction.
Without a deep dive into neurology 101, the disease reconfigures the frontal cortex region regulating reward and motivational experiences. Yuck. The elusive explanation consistently frustrates family members and friends trying to understand the destructive actions of a loved one.
Let’s try another definition. The disease of addiction wreaks havoc on brain cells affecting impulse control. Sound better?
Addiction, as a disease, sounds ambiguous because the neurological approach surfaced within the last couple decades. Addiction - as a science - reveals a portal into the mind, one of the last frontiers. The opportunity for exploration will unlock numerous scientific mysteries, an attraction for neurologists, psychiatrists, biologists and therapists.
“Within the last generation, scientists have come to understand one of the reasons why treating addiction proves difficult: It causes lasting changes in brain function that are difficult to reverse,” states the Harvard Health Publications of Harvard Medical School.
Substance abuse is not a disease. Substance abuse is a symptom of addiction. In the same way measles manifests into a rash, addiction manifests into substance abuse.
Drugs dull and desensitize the mind’s reward circuitry, disrupting an individual’s hierarchy of needs – values on love, personal fulfillment and achievement. Consequently, the individual’s compulsive drug use increases, according to Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in a 2010 guide on neurology.
“Ironically and cruelly, the drug loses its ability to reward,” Volkow writes. “But the compromised brain leads addicted people to pursue it; the memory of the drug has become more powerful than the drug itself.”
Addiction research advances. Unlike medicine or anatomy, addiction studies lack centuries of standard theories and models. In 1956, the American Medical Association officially declared addiction an illness - equal but separate from mental illness. In 2011, the ASAM changed addiction's medical status to a chronic and primary disease, creating a new working definition (top of this article).
“We know much more than we did 20 or even five years ago about how the brain responds to addictive drugs, and that knowledge is beginning to affect treatment and prevention,” states the HHP, HMS.
The bad news is addiction research needs time and growth, but the good news is addiction is treatable. The disease - like asthma or diabetes - becomes degenerative without treatment, but a person can live a successful life with proper management.
The Journal of Substance Abuse and Treatment provides research-based evidence on theoretical models for addiction assessment and treatment.
“Treatment research for individuals with substance use disorders must meet the same scientific evaluative standards as treatments for those with any other health-related condition or illness,” states JSAT policy.
Medical researchers give the same scientific attention to addiction they give to diseases like heart disease or multiple sclerosis. Currently, more effective treatment solutions undergo clinical tests.
Addiction, like other diseases, proves difficult to define because understanding the terminology often requires a doctorate in some type of bodily function. For now, understand a person suffering from addiction truly suffers from a disease.