What are addictions?
Contrary to what is commonly portrayed in modern day media where addiction is simply a lack of willpower and a spiral of all the wrong decisions, addiction has been classified by the American Society of Addiction Medicine as a chronic brain disorder which changes our brain chemistry as it develops, something which takes a significant amount of effort and even a whole lifetime to recover from.
(Dianova, 2021)
Addiction can be classified into two main categories: substance addictions and non-substance addictions (Behavioural addictions). Substances are drugs which have the potential to become addictive and besides ones that are commonly known like alcohol and cannabis, everyday consumables like caffeine can also be addictive to a certain extent. Although the DSM-5 only recognises gambling and internet-gaming as disorders due to a lack of research, any activity that stimulates the brain’s reward system has the possibility to develop into a behavioural addiction, for example overeating, television compulsion and thrill-seeking activities.
How and why do addictions form?
A part of our brain called the reward pathway was evolutionarily a way to reinforce behaviours and actions that helped us survive by releasing dopamine through neurons into the areas of the brain which controlled behaviour and memory. Substances take advantage of this pathway by flooding it with copious amounts of dopamine, approximately 10 times more than a naturally occuring reward. With prolonged use of a substance, we start to build up a tolerance to the overwhelming amounts of dopamine until natural rewards no longer have an affect on our behaviour and damages our prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain in control of our decision making, decreasing it’s activity and in return impairing our ability to think rationally and causing addiction to spiral further.
The road to recovery
Although substances make a significant impact on our brain chemistry, it is possible for it to recover from addiction and its effects. New studies have shown that in 14 months of abstinence, dopamine transporter levels (DAT) in the reward pathways return to a normal level of function, remarkable recovery in behavioural disinhibition and a near normal level of prefrontal-cortex function.
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