Is Drug Addiction And Alcohol Addiction A Disease?

Is drug and alcohol addiction a matter of will power, choice or is it a disease? Despite matters of health, and the fact that nobody expects drug addiction and alcohol addiction to happen as a result of their use, it does. Why?

Let's examine these questions in detail.

First it's important to understand the cycle of addiction. When a person takes things like alcohol or drugs, these substances alter the chemical composition of the brain. Alcohol and drugs causes the brain to release endorphins, the pleasure causing agents. As a result the person loses all his inhibitions and feels "high". The process of addiction is a sine wave phenomenon with sharp peaks and troughs. As the intoxication wee ras off, a feeling of being let down or depression can occur. He starts craving for the next fix since his body demands it. The focus is on just a single thing, the next high or rush. He spends all his energy in getting the drug or the alcohol and nothing else matters.

In other words addiction is not a behavior issue, In fact it is a disease. Once the person is addicted, refusal skills or willpower weakens, and use becomes almost a conditioned reflex.

Who are at risk for addiction? Almost everyone is at a risk; however some people are at a greater risk of addiction than the others. A lot of factors come into play as far as addiction is concerned:

1. Genetics: When drug or substance abuse runs in the family, then there is a greater chance of the person getting addicted since the chemically altered nature of the brain may be hereditary.

2. Low self-esteem: low self esteem or depression tendency may also lead to addiction. There is a simple reason for this. People who have low self confidence or low self-esteem may be searching for easy ways to feel good. Drugs/alcohol gives them that high, which makes them feel that they are better than anyone else.

3. Emotional factors: There is a high risk for addiction for people who have not had their needs for love met, or known unconditional love. Such children want to be needed and loved, which they do not find at home and hence seek in peers. Most of the times, just to please their friends, they get into drugs or alcohol and oft time develops an addiction.

Addiction is a disease that ruins a capable and intelligent human being. This disease needs treatment like all the other diseases. The catch in this situation is that the patient is unaware of his problem and may even deny it. Therefore it is crucial to handle the patient with understanding and love. With the right treatment addiction to drugs and alcohol can be cured and the persons' life put back in order.

The Disease of Addiction

In 1956, the American Medical Association (AMA) said that addiction to alcohol and other drugs for a disease. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) was followed by the AMA, in 1960. Addiction to AOD is considered a disease of the fulfillment of the following criteria:

Primary: The disease exist in and of itself. (But obviously, in addition to other diseases.)
Chronic: Do not go, heal spontaneously, or adopted.
Progressive: In the course of time gets worse.
Manifests symptomatically: Can the way a person in the physiology, behavior and lifestyle will be diagnosed.
Fatal: untreated, will lead to death.
Treatable: Good medicine, therapies, and lifestyle changes mean that the ability to live without abusing the substance.

Development of addiction begins with the voluntary choice to use drugs. No one starts They hope to be an addict, but how to use over a long period of time, to control the use proportionately reduced.

Who is first a voluntary user to a compulsive and obsessive drug users or addicts. A steadily growing number of scientific evidence suggests that the transition occurs from voluntary user addicts through a combination of processes, including the influence of a number of changes in brain neuro-transmitters (brain chemicals), which by repeated> Drug abuse.

Are due to changes in brain structure and function to the development and expression of the dependence of fundamental importance, it is a brain disease - a disease of the brain that translates into obsession and obsession with the drug.

We have finally learned that we can not separate mind and body. We understand that separate biology and behavior. Addiction prove this link. This physiological behavior view of addictionare bringing a new drug problems of our society needs? First, the fact that addiction is a disease of the brain is not a victim to the addict without responsibility.

Addiction begins with a decision to use drugs (no one thinks we can) be addicting, and the addict has been actively involved in their own treatment are working for them.

But we need to do to the moral dilemma that the addict has been overcome as a result of their own behavior, and sick with the brainDisease if it is there.

The addiction is a disease of the brain helps explain why people need to be treated, why the majority can be exercised not only by the power to stop, too.

They literally a changed brain. Because addiction is a complex bio-behavioral disorder, which are the development and expression of tightly woven into the social context, addiction treatment will inevitably many variations and techniques, and sometimes medication and behavioral therapies.

Asa brain disease, addiction is much more complicated than with a lot of drugs. Addiction has wide range of medical, behavioral and social consequences, the ability to affect almost every area of life and society function.

Thus, the treatment is not only the absence of drug use, it must restore the individual to fully functioning system in the family, the workplace and in society overall.

The best treatment combines medication, behavioral changesTherapies and psychosocial services needed in various combinations, as is appropriate in individual cases.

That she had disease of the brain helps us understand and explain why untreated addicted offenders as high post-prison recidivism rates of both drug use and crime.

If left untreated, the disease returns to the previous weight almost immediately after it released into the community.

On the other hand, the initiation of awell assessed, individualized treatment plan has to be very effective, and consider numerous studies have shown that even a single treatment sequence can dramatically later crime and substance abuse are reduced.

These facts seem to be a national trend, both the health and public safety approaches in dealing with offenders addicted to blend. Examples include diversion to treatment programs, drug courts and prison-based treatment programs.

A combination ofResearch, physicians, psychologists, and Certified Addiction Counselors are on the rise of success in treating the disease, monumental. If society can overcome the stigma associated with mental illness and addiction in particular, how it is misunderstood by leprosy, cancer and other diseases that with proper funding, addiction to a general, successfully treated ailments.