ADDICTED BUT NOT CONTROLLED

 Addiction is the repeated involvement with a substance or activity, despite the substantial harm it causes, because that involvement was and may still be pleasurable and/or valuable. According to Horvath (2004), “addiction is the repeated involvement with anything, despite excessive costs, because of craving.”

People with addiction lose control over their actions. They crave and seek out drugs, alcohol, or other substances no matter the cost – even at the risk of damaging friendships, hurting family, or losing jobs. What is it about addiction that makes people behave in such destructive ways? And why is it so hard to quit?

Scientists have shown that addiction is a long-lasting and complex brain disease and that current treatments can help people control their addictions but with the risk of the addiction returning, which is called relapse. This helps to explain why people need much more than good intentions or willpower to break their addictions.

“A common misperception is that addiction is a choice or moral problem, and all you have to do is stop. But nothing could be further from the truth,” says Dr. George Koob, director of News In Health’s (NIH) National Institute on Alcohol abuse and Alcoholism. “The brain actually changes with addiction, and it takes a good deal of work to get it back to its normal state. The more drugs or alcohol taken, the more disruptive it is to the brain.”

Scientists have shown that the power of addiction lies in its ability to hijack and even destroy key brain regions that are meant to help us survive. A healthy brain rewards healthy behaviours like exercising and eating with a feeling of excitement but when addiction sets in, the normal brain processes begin to malfunction.

Addiction tends to run in families, and certain types of genes have been linked to different forms of addiction, but not all members of an affected family are necessarily prone to addiction. “As with heart disease or diabetes, there’s no one gene that makes you vulnerable,” Koob says. Growing up with an alcoholic, being abused as a child, being exposed to extraordinary stress, can contribute to the risk of addiction.

While control is an extensive topic on its own with many interpretations, the difference between the theory of “control” and the definition of “will” is polarizing.

Think of “will” as motivation. This could be striving to make the right choices, like dieting or taking on a challenge. However, someone’s will is not directly related to control when dealing with addiction.

In terms of “control”, it is someone’s ability to make a choice. While this may sound like splitting hairs, the difference between the two are actually heavily studied by neuroscience which has shown that people who have an addiction have a reduced ability to make the correct behavioural choices.

However, just because they do not possess the ability to make these right choices, doesn’t mean they don’t have the will to do so. Though they may try and fail, the motivation still exists inside of them.

 

Written by:

NNEJI NKEIRUKA EUNICE
Code No.: OS/20A/0807
Course: Mass Communication
Institution: Ecole Superieure DE Management Universite (ESM), Benin Republic
State of Origin: Imo