Addiction Is a Disease Research Paper

Addiction as a Disease:

Addiction is a term that has traditionally been used to refer to psychiatric syndrome that is caused by illicit drug use. Actually, addition is the only psychiatric condition whose symptoms are regarded as an illegal activity. In most cases, this term is described on the basis of drug use, which is the main focus of many research and treatment programs. Generally, drug addiction has significant negative effects on individuals using the drug and those around them such as family and friends. Family and friends are usually forced to watch their loved ones wilt away in illicit drug use. While addiction has traditionally been regarded as a psychiatric condition, there are numerous debates that have emerged on whether it's a disease or merely an immoral act by a selfish individual. My standpoint is that addiction is actually a disease because of the observations I have made on how illicit drug use takes control of the addict. I have watched my brother battle prescription drug addiction and eventually passed away from an overdose at the age of thirty-two years. As a result, I believe that addiction is a disease because it changes the functioning of the addict's brain. In essence, studies have demonstrated the effects of chemical substances on the brain and how addiction affects feelings, thoughts, and actions.

Understanding Addiction:

For more than two decades, there has been extensive debate and controversies on how to understand the extreme use of consciousness-altering drugs or substances. In some quarters, the excessive use of drugs has been understood as a bad habit, immoral act, sin, and crime. On the other hand, the extreme use of drugs and substances has been regarded as a disease, especially as a disease of the brain (Dingel, Karkazis & Koenig, 2011, p.1366). However, many individuals do not understand the process with which an individual becomes addicted to illicit or prescription drugs. As a result, these people wrongly assume that drug abusers and addicts lack moral principles or the willingness to stop using these drugs. They believe that addicts can stop abusing drugs by simply choosing to change their behaviors.

In the recent past, the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs has been viewed as a disease in various scientific and medical circles. The shift in view of addiction is influenced by the current medicalization framework in which problems and behaviors have become described and treated as medical problems. Medicalization has shifted the consideration of drug use and abuse from being regarded as a choice to an understanding that the addict is suffering from a disease. Actually, the framework has in turn contributed to the development of biomedicalization concept that incorporates medicalization of bodily processes, behaviors and characteristics. This concept enhances the understanding of addiction as a disease because of its emphasis on how new technologies and drugs creates a new individual and combined technoscientific identities (Dingel, Karkazis & Koenig, 2011, p.1367). Therefore, the context of widespread biomedicalization is the basis for the emergence of the idea of addiction as a disease of the brain.

Addiction Is a Disease:

In contrast to the belief that addition is merely an immoral act, it's a complex disease that requires more than good intentions and strong will to overcome. The difficulties in quitting drug addiction are attributed to the fact that it alters the way the brain functions. Excessive drug use and abuse change the brain in manners that promote compulsive drug abuse, which make it difficult to quit even when the addict is willing ("Understanding Drug Abuse and Addiction," 2012). This implies that addiction can be described as a chronic, frequent relapsing disease of the brain that causes compulsive drug pursuit and use though it has significant health effects on the addict and his/her family and friends.

One of the major reasons why addiction is a disease is because of the changes it causes on the normal functioning of the addict's brain. While the initial decision to take drugs may be voluntary or brought by necessary factors such as illness, the ability of the addict to control himself/herself is affected by the brain changes brought by excessive use of these drugs. The addicted individual's self-control is hindered since he/she loses ability to resist strong desires and inclinations to use or abuse drugs.

Secondly, the consideration of addiction as a disease is evident in the recent growing body of research in neuroscience and genetics regarding this issue. In the field of genetics, some professionals argue that addiction may be genetically predetermined as demonstrated in numerous researches on the hereditary risk that contributes to it. Similarly, neurobiologists and neuroscientists have identified physiological aspects of addiction based on its effects on brain function (Miller et al., 2013, p.73). The new empirical findings across genetics and neuroscience have led to the conclusions that addiction is indeed a disease of the brain. Third, addiction is a disease because of the increased clarity that complex physiological procedures that are involved in the development and maintenance of addictive behaviors. Genetic and biological predispositions for risk of addiction are demonstrated in findings that people with the highest risk for developing addictions are those with family histories of this condition.

According to Ritcher (2013), the fundamental issue is not whether addiction is a disease but on why this question is still asked. He argues that there is indisputable neuroscientific evidence demonstrating that addiction is a complex disease usually shown by changes in the function and structure of the brain. Generally, the impact of addiction on the brain makes it difficult to exercise conscious control over some behaviors and usually require behavioral and pharmaceuticals treatment procedures to manage the disease.

Biological Evidence that Addiction is a Disease:

Drugs consist of chemicals that enter the communication system of the brain and interfere with the manner in which nerve cells usually transmit, receive, and process information. Excessive drug use and abuse leads to addiction which in turn cause disruption in normal functions of nerve cells in two ways. One of the ways is by imitating the ordinary chemical messengers of the brain while the second one involves over stimulating the brain's reward circuit. Some drugs disguise the brain's receptors and stimulate nerve cells to send abnormal messages whereas others may prevent the usual recycling of brain chemicals or result in release unprecedented huge amounts of ordinary neurotransmitters, particularly dopamine.

Most of the biological studies on addition have focused on the involvement of dopamine in the drug addiction process because of the ability of drugs to enhance the concentration of brain dopamine (Goldstein & Volkow, 2002, p.1643). While the involvement of dopamine in addiction can be limited through functional or structural changes in the circuits, there are morphological changes in the frontal lobe in varying ways of addiction to drugs. Based on the findings of various studies, there is a cumulative effect of substance abuse on frontal volumes because of negative correlations between the duration of drug abuse and usual prefrontal volumes (Goldstein & Volkow, 2002, p.1643). The increase of dopamine because of prolonged and excessive use or abuse of drugs hinders the suppression of the amygdale by the medial prefrontal cortex. This could possibly contribute to a dis-inhibition of affective responses that are sensory driven.

Notably, the increase in dopamine also result in a brain saturated in the chemical or neurotransmitters, particularly in sections that control feelings of joy, movement, motivation, and emotion. This in turn produces euphoric impacts in reaction to psychoactive drugs because of the overstimulation of the brain's reward system. As a result, a reinforcing pattern emerges that teaches individuals to replicate the rewarding behavior associated with the excessive drug use and abuse.

As an individual continues to use or abuse drugs excessively over a prolonged period of time, his/her brain adapts to the irresistible surges in dopamine through generating less dopamine or lessening the number of receptors of this chemical in the reward system. In essence, both of these ways decreases the impact of dopamine on the reward circuit, which in turn lessens the ability of the addict to enjoy the drugs and life events that were enjoyable previously. Furthermore, it forces the addicted individual to continue use or abusing drugs in efforts to reinstate the normal dopamine function. However, the greatest challenge faced by addicts in this process is that large amounts of drugs are now needed to accomplish the same high dopamine, an effect that is commonly known as tolerance.

Addiction is a chronic reversing disease that needs to be treated like other diseases since it affects the functioning of an addict (Stanbrook, 2012). An individual's continued use or abuse of drugs causes changes in other brain chemicals and circuits. In some cases, addiction contributes to impaired cognitive function by affecting brain segments that are critical for decision making, memory, judgment, and learning.

Conclusion:

Addiction is a condition that develops from a simple immoral act or increased dependency on drugs for normal functioning of the body. While it has traditionally been considered as….....