Other Addiction

The American Psychological Association defines addiction as a:

“condition in which the body must have a drug to avoid physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms. Addiction’s first stage is dependence, during which the search for a drug dominates an individual’s life. An addict eventually develops tolerance, which forces the person to consume larger and larger doses of the drug to get the same effect.”
(source: American Psychological Association, http://www.apa.org/topics/addiction/index.aspx)

There was a time, perhaps a few decades ago, when researches viewed addiction in terms of the use of drugs or alcohol. However, with new brain imagining techniques and insights into behavioral science, researchers have witnessed the same patterns of behavior and dysfunction in brain chemistry for people suffering from compulsive shopping, food addiction, gambling, sex, internet pornography, and more. The neuroreceptors that are influenced by heroin are the same neuroreceptors affected by food addiction.

These other forms of addiction are often accompanied by mental health disorders, such as mood, personality, and anxiety disorders, and are often combined with substance abuse and alcohol abuse. Left unaddressed, addiction will progress and destroy every aspect of one’s life.

Thus, addiction treatment must address all aspects of a person’s life. The best addiction treatment available today is a medically based, multidisciplinary approach.