Comparison of Theories of Addiction: The Biological Model and the Genetic Model 845 Words Research Paper Example

To achieve this goal, we first discuss the nature of the disease concept itself, and why we believe it is important for the science and treatment of addiction. This is followed by a discussion of the main points raised when the notion of addiction as a brain disease has come under criticism. Key among those are claims that spontaneous remission rates are high; that a specific brain pathology is lacking; and that people suffering from addiction, rather than behaving “compulsively”, in fact show a preserved ability to make informed and advantageous choices. In the process of discussing these issues, we also address the common criticism that viewing addiction as a brain disease is a fully deterministic theory of addiction.

Drugs corrupt these brain regions and circuits by activating them with abnormal power and persistence, actions that trigger adaptations at the molecular and cellular levels that are aimed to compensate for the drug-induced effects. These adaptations enable a drug to gradually and progressively take control over a vulnerable individual’s life. During this Webinar, Dr. Nestler will describe these molecular, cellular, and circuit actions of drugs of abuse and how knowledge gained from this work can be used to develop more effective treatments of addiction. The prevention strategies with the most empirical support involve targeting important risk factors and bolstering important protective factors at individual, familial and community levels [189]. Multiple behavioral approaches, including contingency management, motivational interviewing, and cognitive behavioral and family therapies, have empirical support, with varying levels of data to support each approach in specific populations [183, 190, 191]. Comparatively few medications have been tested for their efficacy and tolerability amongst adolescents with substance abuse or dependence [192], and even less research has examined the extent to which pharmacotherapies might be helpful amongst non-substance addictions [193].

Behavioral Approaches

For our argument, we use the term “addiction” as originally used by Leshner [1]; in Box 1, we map out and discuss how this construct may relate to the current diagnostic categories, such as Substance Use Disorder (SUD) and its different levels of severity (Fig. 1). The biological approach to addiction looks at substance abuse and dependence as a disease. The sociocultural approach to substance use disorders says that family, society, and culture all play an important part in why people become addicts.

They do identify a core group of treatment seeking individuals with a reliable diagnosis, but, if applied to nonclinical populations, also flag as “cases” a considerable halo of individuals for whom the diagnostic categorization is unreliable. Any meaningful discussion of remission rates needs to take this into account, and specify which of these two populations that is being discussed. Addiction is a natural language concept, etymologically meaning enslavement, with the contemporary meaning traceable to the Middle and Late Roman Republic periods [115]. As a scientific construct, drug addiction can be defined as a state in which an individual exhibits an inability to self-regulate consumption of a substance, although it does not have an operational definition. Regarding clinical diagnosis, as it is typically used in scientific and clinical parlance, addiction is not synonymous with the simple presence of SUD.

Find out how important your biological makeup is to your addictive behaviors.

Some people think addiction cannot be a disease because it is caused by the individual’s choice to use substances. While the first use (or early use) may be by choice, once the brain has been changed by addiction, most experts believe that the person loses control of their behavior. The peculiar feature of these theories https://curiousmindmagazine.com/selecting-the-most-suitable-sober-house-for-addiction-recovery/ is that they support the medical model and make such groups of people like nurses, physicians, or surgeons responsible for the required treatment of addiction. These data suggest that commonly used diagnostic criteria alone are simply over-inclusive for a reliable, clinically meaningful diagnosis of addiction.