Drug Addiction for some refers to a disease while many believe that it is just a matter of will or choice. We take addiction to be learned behaviour. However the contemporary science has tried to shed light on the pathological background of the addiction, giving a new thought to the world. It suggests that like another disease, it is a brain disease that develops over time. Repeatedly using drugs brings certain fundament structural and functional changes in the brain that continue long even after the individual stops using them.
The evidence suggests that these long-lasting brain changes are responsible for the distortions of cognitive and emotional functioning that characterize addicts. It is as if drugs control the brain’s natural motivational control circuits, resulting in drug use becoming the sole, or at least the top, priority for the individual.
There is much public debate on this brain-based view of addiction as some people wrongly think that it somehow releases the addicts from responsibility point of view, for their own behaviour. However in spite of this belief, the biological and behavioural explanations are not only an alternative way to understand this phenomenon, they are in fact an incorporate part of the whole picture.
Throwing the responsibility of turning addicts cannot be solely left on the genetics and the brain chemistry as genetic characters might determine to what extent an individual is susceptible to the substance abuse. But they do not destine the person to turn one.
Addiction initiates voluntarily however an array of cellular and molecular changes in specific brain circuits is clearly evident in cases of all chemical addictions and some also are typical of other compulsive behaviors such as compulsive overeating.
Once the characteristics of this illness are confirmed, the treatment approaches like any other brain disease, addresses the entire individual, combining the use of medications, behavioural therapies, and necessary social services and rehabilitation and the family therapy to enable the patient to return to successful family life, mental health services, education and vocational training, and housing services.
Accepting addiction as a brain disease would also stop the society to view criminal justice and health approaches as mismatched opposites. We know that between 50 percent and 70 percent of those arrested are addicted to illegal drugs. Studies indicate that if addicted offenders are provided with well-structured drug treatment while under criminal justice control, the rates can be reduced by 50 percent to 60 percent for subsequent drug use and by more than 40 percent for further criminal behaviour.
This new approach doesn’t attempt to erase the personal responsibility of the addicts to participate in and take ownership for their own recovery. However this brain disease does not erase self-control, but it does significantly erode one’s ability to exert control over his or her behaviour. This helps explain why an addict cannot simply stop using drugs by sheer force of will alone and must receive treatment like any other mental disease.
The message from the now very broad and deep array of scientific evidence is absolutely clear. If we as a society ever hope to make any real progress in dealing with drug problems, we are going to have to rise above the moral outrage that addicts have “done it to themselves” and develop strategies that are as sophisticated and as complex as the problem itself.
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