Having A Better Understanding For Addiction
For those who have an addiction, or for those affected by the addiction of a loved one or close friend, it’s clear what an addiction means in “real” terms. Difficult to define exactly, it has become popular to think of almost any behavior that has a compulsive quality as an “addiction.” Addictions come in all shapes and forms.
According to research gathered at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health in Ontario, more than half of people with substance use disorders also have mental health issues such as anxiety or depression. The relationship between mental health issues and substance use is convoluted. Some people with mental health problems use different substances to self-medicate, but end up making things worse.
The body develops a physical tolerance to the substance or activity, so people with addictions so people must take larger and larger amounts of a substance to feel the same effects. Some of the common characteristics of destructive addictions are the substance activity or activity that triggers must initially cause feelings of pleasure and changes in emotion or mood. The removal of the drug or activity causes painful withdrawal symptoms. More than physical tolerance, an addiction develops physical and psychological dependence separate from the need to avoid the pain of withdrawal.
The answer lies in the brain. Repeated drug use alters the brain-causing long-lasting changes to the way it looks and functions. These brain changes interfere with your ability to think clearly, exercise good judgment, control your behavior, and feel normal without drugs. These changes are also responsible, in large part, for the drug cravings and compulsion to use that make addiction so powerful.
The complication is the brain and it doesn’t realize what it is that is causing the ecstasy reaction. So when this flutter of activity goes higher the creation of dopamine for the negative behaviors and substances like drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc., it neglects the natural survival instinct reaction mechanisms, replacing them with the ecstasy instead.
The cycle of quitting the addictive behavior, going through withdrawal, and relapsing may become self-reinforcing. That initial exposure must occur for addiction to develop, but addiction does not always develop. Some of other kind of addiction always causes psychological, chemical, and anatomical changes in the brain along with behavior changes. Addiction develops after an initial exposure to the addicting substance or activity.
Research have shown that the risk of substance use disorders is higher for people who have a close relative with addictions. Few people inherit a vulnerability to the addictive properties of drugs. It’s been argued that in some cases, using substances to self-medicate is a learned behavior to cope with stress. Even if a person has a genetic vulnerability to addiction, it does not necessarily mean he will become an addict.
You need the support from family members who are non-judgmental, a person with addictions is more likely to stay in treatment and have a successful outcome. They play a strong role in substance abuse recovery. There is always a reason why a person develops an addiction. More often than not other factors that are behind addictions include chaos in the family unit, poverty, having physical, emotional or sexual abuse in the past or present to deal with or conflict.
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