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What is Addiction

Advances in neuroscience have identified addiction as a Chronic Brain Disease with strong genetic, neurodevelopmental, and sociocultural components.

Drugs of abuse exert their initial reinforcing effects by triggering surges of dopamine in the brain, thereby “coating” the neuroreceptors at the front of the brain instead of being received by them. 





The frontal lobe is the home of much of what makes us human. It plays a role in everything from movement to intelligence, helps us anticipate the consequences of our actions, and aids in the planning of future actions. This part of the brain is the newest from an evolutionary perspective, and is the last to develop, making the frontal lobe both highly malleable and susceptible to developmental damage.

Once the neuroreceptors are coated, it damages neurological pathways and disrupts the brains ability to make a logical decision or even a choice that’s in our best interest.  The younger the brain, the more susceptible to damage as the frontal lobe is not fully developed until the age of 25.  Just as prolonged alcohol abuse causes cirrhosis of the liver, prolonged drug abuse becomes a brain disease.

Numerous studies have confirmed that more than fifty (50%) percent of addictions are a result of genetic predisposition. For instance, children of drug addicts are 7 to 9 times more prone to developing an addiction. It appears their brain is prewired for drug abuse, alcohol abuse or any other substance abuse, and even after successful therapy, they may relapse into some other form of addiction. However, even those who have a  lower predisposition for dependencies may end up with some kind of addiction.








How does that happen? By abusing any addictive substances and connecting it with joyful feelings, we are training our brain to associate that substance with happiness and, as a result, it makes us pursue that abuse more and more which finally leads to an imbalance in the brain’s chemistry, especially the dopamine levels, which leads to addiction.

This process makes addictions hard to treat because the brain itself needs rewiring. The brain’s chemistry has changed, which means that treatment must be performed on cellular level,  rebalancing and repairing brain chemistry and dopamine levels.  this is done through lifestyle changes, nutrition, exercise, sleep, hydration, and cognitive reframing.







Addiction isn’t just about the drunk sitting at his local bar, it’s not just the junkie shooting up in a back alley, and it isn’t the executive snorting cocaine in the bathroom just to make the high pressure of their stressful job easier.  Addiction is about real people, real families, and the lives it destroys.

It’s the individual stories that make it hit home…stories that make you understand that addiction isn’t a moral failing.  It isn’t the result of lack of discipline.  Substance abuse starts as a temporary solution to a problem or underlying cause, then it becomes an addiction.  Then addiction becomes a brain disease, making it extremely difficult to reverse.

Lack of exercise, bad eating habits, and poor sleep patterns can lead to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure, yet those preventable diseases don’t carry the same judgmental stigma as addiction.  You don’t see people shaming someone because they have diabetes or a heart condition that could have been prevented.  You see them encouraged to seek medical help.  And you don’t see them cast aside if they don’t have the willpower to tame their sugar cravings, to eat better, or to exercise more.  Addiction recovery is hard.  Hard on the addict, hard on society, and hard on the loved ones who have been affected by the ripple effects.  So, we give up too easily, look down our noses, and cast the offender aside.


The man who was abused or neglected as a child doesn’t understand that he’s drinking to fill the void of feeling like he never really mattered.  The women who was raped and traumatized knows that using drugs isn’t the best way to dull her emotional pain, but she doesn’t know any other way to get through it. The young man who was prescribed pain killers for a root canal, then found he felt like he fit in better with his friends at school when he was high. The young child who’s home alone, hungry and scared because mommy is out somewhere scoring her fix. 

Stories like this are endless.  The sad reality is that, regardless of the underlying cause, untreated, substance abuse will lead to addiction, which will lead to a brain disease, making it almost impossible to quit.