Why is addiction not a disease

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. Parts of the brain make up our reward system. They're in charge of rewarding us when we do something we like—eating a piece of our favorite pie, hanging out with friends, going for a run, for instance. That reward comes in the chemical dopamine, which the brain releases when we do something enjoyable.

Dopamine makes us feel good and want to keep doing what we're doing. It also teaches the brain to repeat the behavior. Cues trigger the reward system, fuel cravings and create a habit loop. The smell of pie baking can have you salivating and anticipating the taste delight that's coming. Addiction fuels habits too—craving a cigarette every morning with coffee or wanting a hit when you drive past the house where you used to do drugs. When you take a drug, your brain releases a flood of dopamine, way more than it would when you're eating your favorite pie, for instance.

Your brain overreacts and cuts back on dopamine production to bring it down to a normal level. As you continue to use drugs, your body produces less dopamine. Things that brought you pleasure—that pie, friends, and even drugs—don't anymore. Once you're addicted, it takes more and more drugs just to feel normal. Research has shown how addiction changes the areas of the brain in charge of judgment, decision making, learning and memory, and controlling behavior.

Those changes can lead to a good student flunking out, a wife lying about draining the family savings account or an overdose in a grocery parking lot, with kids watching from their car seats.

Once substance use changes the brain, willpower changes too. If you try to quit using substances, your brain tries to protect you from the pain and intensity of withdrawal symptoms.

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. Recently, the supremacy of the disease model was highlighted by an article in the New England Journal of Medicine. There is good reason to ask whether addiction actually is a disease. If it is, then we might expect it to have a specific cause or set of causes, an agreed-on repertoire of treatment strategies, and a likely time course.

We might wonder how the disease of addiction could be overcome as a result of willpower, changing perspectives, changing environments, mindfulness or emotional growth. There is evidence that each of these factors can be crucial in beating addiction, yet none of them is likely to work on cancer, pneumonia, diabetes or malaria. Neuroscience is a young discipline, and the distinction between brain development and brain pathology remains muddy think ADHD, autism, depression — ideal terrain for drawing arbitrary lines in the sand.

They involve overactivation of a part of the brain that directs goal pursuit the striatum in response to cues predicting their preferred rewards, and long-term desensitization in response to rewards more generally.

One result has been a volley of counter-attacks: how dare I pull the rug out from under the feet of addicts who rely on the disease label to get help and avoid stigmatization?

On the contrary, I think it increases their burden. Instead of medical interventions, we implement inventive, humanistic, often community-based measures, including education, social and psychological support, financial aid, access to special programs, specialized personnel, and other public resources.

Nor must we call these problems diseases to justify funding for prevention and intervention. At the next attempt, he was excelling at clinical psychology when he made the front page of the local paper. He'd been busted raiding a pharmacy for goodies, hopefully Demerol or Methedrine. That was careless; he'd been successfully pulling off three or four break-ins a week. That was 34 years ago. He details his early exploits in 's Memoirs of an Addicted Brain, with the sort of thrilling detail that ought to give you some kind of biochemical response.

His new book, The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not a Disease, cements his image as a rock star of neuroscience by loudly challenging the status quo. The prevalent theory in the United States, and to some degree in Australia, is that addiction is a chronic brain disease — a progressive, incurable condition that can be kept at bay only by fearful abstinence.

There are variations of this disease model, one of which became the basis of step recovery and the touchstone of the vast majority of rehab programs. Lewis argues that addiction — or dependence, as we would call it in Australia — is the result of "deep learning", probably triggered by stress or alienation.

It can duly be unlearned by forging stronger synaptic pathways via better habits. The problem is, there's a lot of vested interest — and financial investment — in perpetuating the disease model. There's consensus on the science, at least. As Lewis explains to Fairfax Media, repeated alcohol and drug use causes tangible changes in the brain.

At the same time as the release of dopamine, nicknamed the feel-good chemical, is being ramped up, there is a decreased activity in areas of the brain responsible for judgment and decision-making. Lewis disagrees. Such changes, he argues, are induced by any goal-orientated activity that becomes all-consuming, such as gambling, sex addiction, internet gaming, learning a new language or instrument, and by powerfully valenced activities such as falling in love or religious conversion.

And while the American Medical Association may have classified alcoholism as a disease in and obesity in , it hasn't gone so far as to similarly smote love or Catholicism. Please reach out across any of our platforms to share your stories and ideas, ask for help and to keep the movement growing.

The Movement of Recovery website is primarily a vehicle to source and share information for people looking for help from addictive behaviours and information for families and the loved ones affected by addiction. We are not affiliated with any institutions but our team has professional and qualified practitioners who have worked for years in the field. We can provide information about your circumstances to get help. R website offers insight and public awareness with an aim to lessen the walls and break through stigma attached to addiction and recovery.

R website is also source to compare, connect and contact all professional practitioners and caters to any kind of program of addiction behaviour. R website is a vehicle of transparency where donations received to help the Movement of Recovery will flow directly into furthering the cause and regular updates will be provided on projects being undertaken via our website. You too can have your say. The Movement Of Recovery website is a vehicle to inspire to all cultures and individuals to find freedom from addiction.

The love and guidance shown to a broken man like myself was exactly what was required. Keep on keeping on brother sharing the love and the light as you help those without hope. Sending love and gratitude. Hey recovery folks, my name is Jason and I'm in recovery, I follow the MOR page and participate when I can, what I really love about the page is it's always positive and encouraging, even at times when I feel a bit down with life, I really like how people talk their truth and keep it recovery centered, I'm sure the movement of recovery page is a massive inspiration to folk in recovery and entering recovery, keep up the good work, love the posts and live feeds.

I hope you find your momentum with the movement of recovery journey once more. Best of Luck with the next chapter as I'm sure there's many more people out there just like me who you're inspiring.