Addiction Changes The Way The Brain Processes Information

Almost half of all Americans know someone addicted to the pain pills they are prescribed to. Heather VanderSloot knows the thoughts an addict has because four years ago she was an addict.

Addiction is a “chronic and relapsing brain disease portrayed as an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief

Cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, alcohol, opium, tobacco, hypnotics, just to name a few. Addiction is a chronic disease that affects the chemicals in the brain. It dysfunctions the circuits in the brain that deal with memory, reward, sex, motivation, behavior, relationships and emotions all mostly resulting in substance use or other behaviors to fulfill those circuit rewards. This world is in a current addiction epidemic on drugs. Let’s try to understand addiction to make it a little clearer.

Addiction, it is all around us, affecting people from all walks of life, it is not limited to certain social classes or lifestyles. It is found in every ethnic group, regardless of gender or age. It affects our neighbors, our friends, and our family either directly or indirectly. Although substances such as alcohol and illegal drugs are two of the most common addictions we hear about, there is a wide range of substances and even activities such as gambling and shopping. There is some debate whether addiction is a brain disease or a choice.

Second Main Point: As mentioned before, opioids are highly addictive, but why? Why don’t people just stop taking the drugs when they realize they have a problem? The

Many people believe the misconception that an addiction is a moral problem and not a disease. To better understand the reasons why an additicition is in fact a disease; I will identify several types of addictions, and the problems associated with them. I will examine reasons why certain people are more susceptible for developing an addiction. Also, I will determine why many addicts deny their problems and many recovery methods addicts use to fight their illness. Researching these issues, will help aid my claim that addiction is a disease.

Many people have developed an addiction due to an injury and which were prescribed painkillers to manage and treat the pain. Prolonged use leads to dependence and once a person is addicted, increasing amounts of drugs are required to prevent feeling of withdrawal. Addiction to painkillers often leads to harder drugs such as heroin due to the black market drug being cheaper. Prescription drugs remain a far deadlier problem and more people abuse prescription medication than cocaine, methamphetamine heroin, MDMA and PCP combined. Drug abuse is ending too many lives too soon and destroying families and communities.

Opioid use has to begin somewhere. Patients that are prescribed opioids for pain treatment run a risk of developing dependency on the prescribed medications. Numerous individuals who take the opioids for extended amounts of time may begin to progress towards higher tolerances of the prescribed medicines. Due to this higher tolerance, individuals may feel like they need to take more than what was prescribed. Eventually this can lead to craving opioids in order to function or to “feel better” throughout the day. In fact, it has been estimated that between twenty-one and twenty-nine percent of patients that are prescribed opioids for chronic pain misuse them and close to ten percent develop an opioid use disorder (https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-overdose-crisis, 2017). “Some people experience a euphoric response to opioid medications, and it is common that people misusing opioids try to intensify their experience by snorting or injecting them” (https://www.samhsa.gov/disorders/substance-use, 2015). This means of drug intake, generally leads to the exploration of more easily acquired drugs with stronger effects.

Addiction is happening due to the addictive property of the drug, opiates attach to the body’s receptors that reduce the perception of pain. Although, the addiction must start somewhere, and it typically begins with a prescription written by a doctor. Over prescription and greedy drug companies are believed

Addiction is a condition that the patients lose control over drug use. The patients tend to overuse and grave for opioids despite the harmful impact on themselves and on the society. (Kaye et al., 2017, S95)

Many people do not know what causes addiction or why it happens. Addiction can be defined as the condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing, or activity. A lot of evidence of drug use shows that there is a lot of contributors that cause addiction. In particular, there is psychological, social, and biological factors that contribute to addiction.

More and more people are sucked into the horrible addiction. An addiction is an actual disease that occurs in the brain. Many times these drugs affect the brain and in result, cause the addiction to occur. More and more there are people coming into the hospital from a heroin overdose, are released from the hospital, go back out, and inject the drug. The drug is so powerful that these individuals do not see what is happening to them as they slowly kill themselves.

Addiction can have very harmful effects, but the truth is that there are people all around us struggling with this every day. After reviewing causes, treatment, and remission of this disease I hope that you now have more information on addiction and its’ effects.

What if I was to tell you that everything you know about addiction is untrue? What if I was to say that our pre-conceived views on addiction were based on ignorance. It’s pretty simple really, it’s about CONNECTION NOT addiction.

-Drug addiction is a complex brain disease. It is characterized by compulsive, at times uncontrollable, drug craving, seeking, and use that persist even in the face of extremely negative consequences.