Articles about Addiction (Paraphrased)
Is Addiction Just a Matter of Choice?
There are conflicting views about addiction so we asked researchers, psychologists and addicts: Is addiction a choice?
The public says that addiction is a disease so powerful that addicts lost their free will. Also Blaming others for our "addictions" is popular today.
Jean Brochu was sick of getting addict to slot machines. He says that the government made him sick, and it led him to embezzle $50,000. He’s suing the government to restore his dignity and pay his therapy bills.
Psychologist Jeff Schaler, author of Addiction Is a Choice, argues that people have more control over their behavior than they think.
"Addiction is a behavior and all behaviors are choices," Schaler says. "What's next, are we going to blame fast-food restaurants for the foods that they sell based on the marketing, because the person got addicted to hamburgers and french fries?"
Well, yes. Actually two weeks after he said that children sued McDonald's, claiming it made them obese. They lost the first round in court, but they're trying again.
Uncontrollable Impulses?
"Impulse control disorder" is the excuse Rosemary Heinen's lawyer explained her shopping. She was a corporate manager at Starbucks who spend $3.7 million and used it to buy 32 cars, diamonds, gold, Rolex watches, three grand pianos, and hundreds of Barbie dolls.
A psychiatrist testified Heinen was unable to obey the law and shouldn't be given the 7 – year prison sentence. But the judge put Heinen behind bars, sentencing her to 48 months.
The "helplessly addicted" defense seemed to work better for the Canadian gambler. The judge gave Brochu probation and told him to see a psychologist. His mother paid back the $50,000 he stole.
Now Brochu and his lawyer are seeking $700 million on behalf of all addicted gamblers in Quebec, claiming the government is responsible for getting them addicted, too.
Calling Addiction a Disease
Many scientists say addicts have literally lost control, and that they suffer from a disease.
Drug addiction is a "disease that will waste your brain." According to studies of a health organization. They say their studies of addiction in monkeys and rats show that addiction is a brain disease.
Dewey said that addiction is a disease characterized by a loss of control. He showed kids brain scans that he says prove his point. He tells students that addiction causes chemical changes that hijack your brain.
Genetic Destiny?
Dewey and other researchers say our genes links some of us to addiction. Researchers at Harvard University believe they have found those genes in the zebrafish. When researcher Tristan Darland put cocaine on a pad and stuck it on one side of a fish tank, fish liked the feeling they got so much that they hung around the area, even after the cocaine was removed. Then Darland bred a family of fish that had one gene altered. These fish resisted the lure of the cocaine. This shows that addiction is largely genetic. The fish either respond or they don't respond to the drug.
At the Medical College of Wisconsin, Dr. Robert Risinger scans the brains of human addicts while they watch a video of people getting high on crack. It's what they call a "craving" video. He then shows them a hard-core sex film. The brain scans show the addicts get more excited by the craving videos. The drugs become more powerful than sex — because addiction's a disease that changes your brain, says Dewey.
They actually lose their free will and It becomes so overwhelming. But if they don't have free will, how come so many people successfully quit?
Is the Disease Message Harmful?
Addiction expert Sally Satel acknowledges drug addiction and withdrawal is "certainly a very intense biological process." But she is one of many experts who say the addiction-as-brain-disease theory is harmful to addicts — and wrong.
She also thinks it's unhelpful to take away the stigma associated with drug abuse. "Why would you want to take the stigma away?" she asks. "I can't think of anything more worthwhile to stigmatize."
"People need to get rid of the idea that addiction is caused by anything other than themselves," says James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, a book about his experience as an addict.
Frey says he took just about every drug, from alcohol to crack. Yet Frey says he wasn't powerless. He scoffs at Dewey's claim that addicts' brains compel them to keep taking drugs.
Many doctors agree, saying you can still choose not to take drugs, even if they do cause changes in your brain.
"You can look at brains all day," Satel says. "They can be lit up like Christmas trees. But unless a person behaves in a certain way, we wouldn't call them an addict."
Environment and Choice
Some researchers cite experiments that they say prove that addiction is a matter of choice. In Canada, researchers observed that the rats in cages chose morphine while the rats held in a nicer environment preferred the water.
Whether you get addicted also depends on how you're treated. "It’s just the human world” and "Individuals that have no control in their job show a greater propensity for substance abuse than those that have control," Nader says.
These comparisons suggest that addiction is a choice not a disease that takes away free will. The message from the treatment industry is that drug users need professional help to quit. What they seldom say is that people are quitting bad habits all the time without professional help.
Quitting Is the Rule, Not the Exception
It’s seldom to hear people who just quit on their own. It's not easy to quit. But quitting is not the exception, it's the rule. Most people who've used heroin or cocaine have quit. But the drug research establishment insists most addicts are enslaved, that they don't have free will. Yes, it does, says Schaler. Schaler also says the use of the word "disease" is important, particularly in terms of the money "addicts" are spending to get help.
Treatment Trap?
Some experts say the treatment industry is taking advantage of people in desperate situations. We tell people, 'You can never get over an addiction on your own. You have to come to us and buy something to get over an addiction.' It's not true, and it's dangerous to tell them that," says Peele.
Former addict Frey agrees that it is his fault for his addiction and his fellow addicts says that it is the user’s decision and it is the way they chose. Frey and other former addicts say choosing is what it takes, making that decision. Frey says he still gets drunk. Now he just does it differently. "I get drunk on doing something that feels good and right."
Your Brain on Drugs: Dopamine and Addiction
Addiction is a powerful force that can take over the user’s lives. Addiction was thought to be a weakness of character, until recently research has increasingly found that addiction to drugs is a matter of brain chemistry.
The director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Dr. Nora Volkow, said that the way a person becomes addicted is related to how a drug increases levels of dopamine, which modulates the brain's ability to perceive reward reinforcement. The brain gets pleasure sensation when dopamine levels are elevated makes the motivation for us to become very proactive. Dopamine is what conditions us to do the things we need to do.
Addictive drugs floods the brain with dopamine as much as five to 10 times the normal level needed. With these levels, the user's brain begins to associate the drug with an outsize neurochemical reward. Over time, by artificially raising the amount of dopamine our brains using drugs make it think is "normal.”
“A drug increases the dopamine in limbic areas of the brain and is going to understand that signal as very reinforcing, and will learn it quickly," says Volkow. " The next time you get exposed to that stimuli, your brain already has learned that that's reinforcing, and you immediately will desire that particular drug." The consistently high levels of dopamine create plastic changes to the brain, desensitizing neurons so that they are less affected by it, and decreasing the number of receptors. It leads to the process of addiction, wherein a person loses control and is left with an intense drive to compulsively take the drug.
Volkow said, the dopamine-producing drugs are so addictive because they have the ability to constantly fill a need for more dopamine.
Adam Kepecs, a neuroscientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory says that addiction to drugs basically "hijack" the brain's enjoyment and reward mechanisms.
If you take an addictive drug, you can never learn to expect it because the drug itself will release an extra kick of dopamine. And when that happens, the value of that drug keeps increasing because now you’re learning that and crave for more to meet the expectations of using it.
There are other components to addiction like genetics and age of exposure. And research indicates that if a person is exposed to drugs in early adolescence they are much more likely to become addicted than if they were exposed to the same drugs as an adult.
Takeaway
One of the key functions of the dopamine is to create pleasure that our brains associate with necessary physiological actions like eating and procreating. We are driven to perform these vital functions because our brains are conditioned to expect the dopamine rush that accompanies them.
Addictive drugs flood the brain with dopamine and also to expect artificially high levels of the neurotransmitter. The user's brain requires more dopamine than it can naturally produce, it becomes dependent on the drug but actually never actually satisfies the need it craves.
