Stages of Drug or Substance Addiction
So far, we have talked about the behaviours and symptoms of an addicted person. The hardest thing to overcome in addiction is the psychological dependency to the substance or the behaviour. That is, overcoming the emotional pull of using a substance or engaging in an addictive behaviour to make you feel better.
Everyone experiences emotions. We all experience the feelings of sadness, stress, boredom, tiredness, anger and confusion to name but many. All people at some point in their lives will “do something” to help themselves “feel” better, thereby creating a “pleasure pull effect” as explained in the video below. We’ve all experienced comfort eating where we can’t resist the temptation of a big bar of chocolate to make ourselves feel better when we are feeling low. Many people enjoy a glass of wine after a stressful day at work to unwind. These are examples of people responding to a cue or reacting to a behaviour.
The difference between these people and people suffering from an addiction, is that these people can do this ‘just once’ and have some control over when and how much they do it. However, people with addiction problems lacks this control over the “pleasure pull effect” and find themselves doing this to a point where it gets out of hand. Hence they find themselves in a constant situation of abuse as a result of pleasing their pleasure cravings. This is often aggravated because they are in a continuous state of feeling of anxiety or depression, anger or low self-worth, built up over years.
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Tolerance
Many people start using alcohol and drugs out of curiosity. For alcohol, most people can remember as a teen watching their parents or other adults have an alcoholic drink or being drunk, and wonder when their turn would come. Many people in their teens start to smoke cannabis because they are curious what the effects might be like.
At the start, drugs for many people would seem rewarding and pleasurable. However with repeated and increasing use over time, 'users' become 'abusers' as they develop a tolerance for the substance or behaviour. This means that they now require more and more of it to get the same feeling or effects. So, for drug users, they will need more of the drug to get the same high. For alcoholics, more alcohol to get drunk. For gamblers, it will be more money or a different form of gambling to get the same buzz. The CNN video clip below further explains the development of tolerance in addicts which further leads to physical dependence.
Although tolerance is a common effect of many addictions, a person does not need to have developed a tolerance to be addicted!.
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Physical Dependence
As abusers take more and more of a drug or alcohol, it gets to a stage where the person becomes physically dependent. The person now experiences physical withdrawal symptoms on trying to stop taking the alcohol or drug for few hours. Such withdrawal symptoms are only stopped by taking more of the substance or drug thereby resulting in a vicious cycle. At this stage, they will need a medical detox as it is dangerous to stop abruptly.
Besides physical dependency, there are also mental or psychological factors that are present in addiction!.
Hence people in denial of an addiction problem will say that they don’t have a problem because they don't have severe withdrawal symptoms. However, these psychological factors are very important in determining whether someone has a problem with addiction or not.
What else do we know about Drug and Substance Addictions?
As explained in the texts and videos above, addiction affects the brain by creating neural (brain nerves) networks that produce chemicals that encourage us to repeat the compulsive harmful behaviours associated with addiction. All forms of addictions create similar effects in the same areas of the brain. Addictions are also interactive. That means one type of addiction can trigger or replace another addictive behaviour.
As explained in the texts and videos above, addiction affects the brain by creating neural (brain nerves) networks that produce chemicals that encourage us to repeat the compulsive harmful behaviours associated with addiction. All forms of addictions create similar effects in the same areas of the brain. Addictions are also interactive. That means one type of addiction can trigger or replace another addictive behaviour.
