Health Information Blog

Has your life spiraled out of control on account of a drug problem? If yes, you may feel isolated, helpless and ashamed. Or perhaps you’re worried about a friend or family member’s drug use. In either case, you’re not alone. Addiction is a problem that many people face.

The good news is that you or your loved one can get better. There is hope, no matter how terrible the substance abuse problem may seem and no matter how powerless you feel. Understanding and learning about the nature of the addiction, how it develops, what it looks like, and why it has such a powerful hold on an individual, will give you a better understanding of the problem and how to deal with it.

What people often underestimate is the complexity of drug addiction, that it is a disease that impacts the brain and because of that, breaking the addiction is not simply a matter of inner strength and willpower. Several people don’t understand why individuals become addicted or how drugs change the brain to foster compulsive drug abuse.

They mistakenly view drug abuse and addiction as strictly a social problem and may characterize those who take drugs as morally weak. One very common belief is that drug abusers should be able to just stop taking drugs if they are only willing to change their behavior. Through scientific advances we now know much more about how exactly drugs work in the brain, and we also know that drug addiction can be successfully treated, to help people stop abusing drugs and resume their productive lives.

There are at least two ways that drugs are able to do this: (1) by imitating the brain’s natural chemical messengers, and/or (2) by over stimulating the “reward circuit” of the brain. Drugs are chemicals that tap into the brain’s communication system and disrupt the way nerve cells normally send, receive, and process information.

Prolonged spells of drug abuse can cause changes in other brain chemical systems and circuits as well. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that influences the reward circuit and the ability to learn. When the optimal concentration of glutamate is changed by drug abuse, the brain attempts to compensate, which can impair cognitive function.

Drugs of abuse facilitate unconscious (conditioned) learning, which leads the user to experience uncontrollable cravings when they see a place or person they associate with the drug experience, even when the drug itself is not available. Brain imaging studies of drug-addicted individuals show changes in areas of the brain that are critical to judgment, decision making, learning and memory, and behavior control. Together, these changes can drive an abuser to seek out and take drugs compulsively despite adverse consequences-in other words, to become addicted to drugs.

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