Is Addiction Really a Disease?

Individuals struggling with drug addiction often feel they cannot function normally without their drug of choice. This can lead to a wide range of issues that impact professional goals, personal relationships, and overall health. Over time, these serious side effects can be progressive and, if left untreated, fatal. There’s no cure, but treatment can help you stop using drugs and stay drug-free. Drug misuse is when you use legal or illegal substances in ways you shouldn’t.

Midbrain dopamine neurons are central in the mesolimbic circuitry for both natural rewards and drugs of abuse [18, 36]. The VTA is known to be a central hub integrating numerous inhibitory inputs as GABAergic synapses represents 50–80% of all synapses onto VTA dopamine neurons [37,38,39]. GABAergic inhibition of dopamine neurons is mediated by both fast ionotropic GABAA receptors and slow metabotropic GABAB receptors [40].

Effect on Your Brain

Highlighting the importance of temporal aspects, studies of withdrawal period after chronic administration of cocaine, showed that synaptic AMPAR levels increase during the first week of withdrawal and persist elevated for weeks [70,71,72]. When you’re addicted to drugs, you can’t resist the urge to use them, no matter how much harm the drugs may cause. The earlier you get treatment for drug addiction (also called substance use disorder), the more likely you are to avoid some of the more dire consequences of the disease. As with other diseases and disorders, the likelihood of developing an addiction differs from person to person, and no single factor determines whether a person will become addicted to drugs. In general, the more risk factors a person has, the greater the chance that taking drugs will lead to drug use and addiction. Risk and protective factors may be either environmental or biological.

In other cases, mental health symptoms are not apparent until after addiction has taken hold — sometimes, these conditions are exacerbated by drug use. On the other hand, willpower is not enough to change the behavior of a person with a https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/what-happens-when-you-stop-drinking-alcohol/ drug addiction. As their bodies are already chemically dependent on a substance, they would need pharmacotherapy. The process usually starts with a medically supervised detoxification period to manage the symptoms of drug withdrawal.

Substance Use Disorder (SUD)

Research has revealed a potentially dangerous interaction between cocaine and alcohol. Taken in combination, the two drugs are converted by the body to cocaethylene. Cocaethylene has a longer duration of action in the brain and is more toxic than either drug alone. While more research needs to be done, it is noteworthy that the mixture of cocaine and alcohol is the most common two-drug combination that results in drug-related death.

It releases large amounts of dopamine in response to the drug, producing feelings of euphoria. The brain connects this feeling with the drug and sends out strong urges to use the drug again. Drugs like heroin and marijuana have structures that look and act like neurotransmitters that naturally occur in our brains. The receptors in our brains think that they are normal cells and lock onto them. They begin to send messages throughout the brain as a normal neurotransmitter would.

Medical Professionals

Jason's friends know he has been experimenting with drugs and now they're worried he has become addicted. When you use a drug, it travels into your brain and changes how your brain cells work, and even affects how nerve cells send, receive, and process information. Services span from outpatient therapy and medication appointments to more intensive inpatient treatments. The brain’s reward system activates when we do something we like—eating a piece of our favorite pie, hanging out with friends, or going for a run, for instance. Addiction changes the way the brain works, rewiring its structure. Drugs and alcohol hack into your brain's communication system and interfere with how nerve cells send, receive and process information.

Previous experiences such as exposure to drugs of abuse, stress, visual or sensory deprivation can change the ability of synapses to undergo subsequent plasticity in response to LTP and LTD induction protocols. This concept of modification of plasticity capability is referred as metaplasticity [67]. Drug abuse happens when drugs, including alcohol, illicit drugs, or any psychoactive substances, are misused to get high or inflict self-harm. It is also known as substance use disorder (SUD) since people who abuse drugs experience significantly altered thinking, behavior, and body functions.

What environmental factors increase the risk of addiction?

Research estimates that genetics account for 40 to 60% of a person’s likelihood of developing an SUD. Recognizing there’s a problem is the first step on the road to recovery, which often takes tremendous courage and strength. If you’re ready to face your addiction and are willing to seek help, you have the opportunity to build a satisfying, drug-free life for yourself. Whether you choose to go to rehab, rely on self-help programs, get therapy, or take a self-directed treatment approach, support is essential.

A dependence is present when users develop a physical tolerance to a substance. They may experience withdrawal symptoms if they stop using the drug altogether. Usually a dependency is resolved by slowly tapering off the use of a particular substance. People with mental health disorders are more likely to develop an SUD than the general population. Certain substances affect brain circuits that affect stress, reward, and self-control.

Addiction fuels your brain's response to do whatever it takes to stop the cravings and discomfort. That can mean overruling the will to "just say no" by taking a drink or using a drug. Addiction is a chronic, lifelong condition that can completely disrupt what is drug addiction a person’s life. While it is possible to treat addiction and maintain lifelong sobriety, achieving initial sobriety without outside help and intervention from medical professionals is extremely difficult, and also lessens a person’s chances of success.

Introducing drugs during this period of development may cause brain changes that have profound and long-lasting consequences. Help from your health care provider, family, friends, support groups or an organized treatment program can help you overcome your drug addiction and stay drug-free. Drug addiction information indicates any type of drug can be abused or cause drug addiction. Drug addiction involves easily accessible drugs like tobacco and alcohol, as well as illegal drugs like cocaine and heroin.

How to Help a Drug Addict

Children of parents with a substance use disorder are at higher risk for impaired social, educational, and health functioning, as well as being at higher risk for using drugs themselves. Also important in the treatment of drug dependency is helping the parents, other family members, and friends of the addicted person refrain from supporting addictive behaviors (codependency). Whether providing financial support, making excuses, or failing to acknowledge the drug seeking and other maladaptive behaviors of the drug abuser, discouraging such codependency of loved ones is a key component of recovery. A focus on the addicted person's role in the family becomes perhaps even more significant when that person is a child or teenager, given that minors come within the context of a family in nearly every instance. Adults exposed to negative events as children are at higher risk of developing drug abuse and addiction disorders. In addition to poverty, examples of such negative events include lack of parental supervision, the presence of parental substance abuse, witnessing domestic violence, or being the victim of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse.