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Understanding Addiction

The cause of addiction partlylies within oneself i.e. within one's genetic materials. More clearly some people born withDNA polymorphism in their genes (approximately 10%)in comparing to other people which make these people vulnerable to develop addiction when use substances. This is clearly shown in research i.e. those people who try drugs not all get addicted, only few or 10% of people develop addiction. These 10% of people are actually genetically vulnerable to develop addiction.

The cause of addiction also partly lies within the environment where an addicted person live i.e. weak laws & enforcement, availability of drugs, lack of parental monitoring, poor school performance, deviant peer influence, lack of brought up in religious environment, parental & social attitudes towards drugs, chaotic neighborhood and lack of pro-social activity etc.

These genetic and environmental factors works in a complicated fashionto initiate addiction and after initiation of substances/drugs,genes play more and more important role to develop and maintain addiction and environmental factors gradually become less and less important because once gene of a vulnerable person get expressed by initiation of a drug or substance it (gene) become the uncontrolled or unseen factor for a person to maintain the addiction.

After a substantial period of use i.e. starting with nicotine, cannabis, alcohol, a person gradually enter deep to these drugs or move towards one or more other hardcore drugs i.e. yaba, phensidyl, heroine and injection etc. It takes months even years to develop full blown addiction. When a person came for addiction treatment we can assume that this person's brain has changed structurally and functionally from normal because of his long term insult on brain by these offending drugs. We can call this stage a "crossing over" or shift to the dark side. At this stage drug become as important as food, sex and water to these addicted people for survival. Merely a short term treatment cannot revert to these brain changes towards normal. A substantial period of treatment even months or years required to resume brains functions towards normal and to regain one's motivation, drive, executive functions to decide to take or not to take drugs.

Now we understand that,no one choose to develop addiction. Addiction is a primary illness that happen because of our gene and environment. It is not occurred as a result of some other problems i.e. marital problem or caused by bad boss or bad teachers. When a person get addicted he continually use substance/drugs even knowing that use is causing harm at individual, family and social level. He is unable to quit drug because of physical and mental withdrawal phenomena and intense drug cravings. He gave priorities to take drugs in expense of personal, social or family life and spend most of his daily life in procuring drugs, using drugs and recovering from the effects of drug.

Without help most people suffering from addiction cannot stop using even when facedwith severe consequences like losing their jobs, their family and even on their life. Treatment is requiredno matter which stage of addiction the patient is -to stop progression within the same drug or from one drug to other drug and to stop addiction. Because of high relapse potential,a substantial period i.e. months or years in house residential treatment is required for addictionto re-establish chemical imbalance within the brain andto regain brains normal function to live as a human being without drugs.