Drug Addiction – is it a Disease or a Choice?

When people will be compelled to take certain drug or substance, in spite of knowing its undesirable consequences he is considered to be addicted to drug.

In medical terms, addiction is considered as a medical disorder that can affect the brain that changes the behavior pattern. There are many different illicit and also prescription drugs and alcohol that can fuel such addiction.

Whether drug addiction considered as disease?

Addiction definition may vary from individual to individual and also in terms of medical point of view.

However, most of the experts’ term it as a condition which is as long-term and relapsing where an individual will seek compulsively and use them despite knowing their consequences.

Couples rehab centers have found that even if one of the couples is addicted to any particular drug then he or she may also influence the other partner to become addicted to those drugs.

The addiction really becomes disease when

• Addiction will change the brain responses in certain situations involving stress, rewards and self-control.
• All these changes can be long-term and may persist even after the person stops using those drugs.

If you compare a disease like heart disease and drug addiction then we will be able to understand why drug addiction is also considered as a disease. You will find that:

• Because of both addiction as well as heart disease, regular functioning of certain organ in our body may get disturbed. For example, heart will be disturbed due to heart disease and our brain will be disturbed due to addiction.
• Both of these can result in lower quality of life as well as increased premature death risk.
• Both addiction and few heart diseases are preventable with healthy lifestyle and also avoiding poor choices.
• Both are treatable to prevent any further damage.

Couples therapy for addiction has also found that treatment for all such addictions will be more important than the individual taking the decision of stopping use of drugs.

However, few people will argue against the above argument and they will not consider addiction as a disease because of following reasons.

• Addiction is generally not transmissible from one person to the other.
• Addiction is not degenerative, autoimmune or hereditary.
• Addiction is usually self-acquired, which implies that the person gives such condition willfully.

Usually, the addiction may start either by taking doctor’s prescription to treat certain medical problem or when someone induces them to take the drug to experience a special kind of experience.

In fact, the National Institutes of Health considers addiction as a kind of moral failing.

Though nobody forces them to start taking the drugs, but it is quite difficult to imagine that someone will be willingly ready to ruin their relationships, health and many important things of their lives.

Certainly, if overcoming the addiction were so easy and simple to stop, then problem of addiction could be much simpler to address and also relapse would not have been so common.

No matter in which way addiction can be defined or what term should be used, but it is quite clear that addiction is really a big problem in the USA which has affected millions of people.

Another indisputable fact is that a number of drugs among the illicit and prescription can be quite addictive.