If someone you loved were to be diagnosed with a disease such as cancer, your first course of action would be to help them find the best medical treatment. Though you might turn to prayer or meditation to aid in the healing, you would not use that alone or instead of medical care. Addiction, like cancer, is a disease that affects countless people throughout the world. Like any other disease, addiction must be treated at its physical root.
Drug and alcohol use affects the reward centers of the brain. These substances raise the levels of certain neurotransmitters, which are the chemical messengers of the brain, including serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. Chronic use of drugs and alcohol over-stimulates the brain until it is unable to support itself with its own chemicals. This leads to depression, intense cravings, withdrawal, and deeper addiction.
Surprisingly, addiction is not the actual use of drugs or alcohol, or even the occasional abuse of them. Addiction, due to chemical imbalances in the brain, is the uncontrollable desire to use the substances regardless of the negative consequences that might result. Often times, bad behavior is what people associate with addiction, because it is the effect of substance abuse. However, the number one obstacle to recovery for an addict is overcoming physical cravings. Despite addiction’s physical root, the most common treatments for this disease only focus on its psychological, behavioral and social aspects. Due to existing misconceptions about addiction being a lack of will power, few treatments attack this physical form of the illness.
Like other life-altering diseases, addiction affects more than just the afflicted person. As loved ones and community members, we are all touched by the affects of addiction. And as a community, when we treat addiction as a disease, we allow ourselves the opportunity to let the healing begin.
Elizabeth Sanders
Public Outreach
ExecuCare ARC
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