Figure: Addiction causes you to become dependent on an activity or substance and you can abandon all other parts of your life that are important to you. Eventually you start to fade away as a functional member of society.
Since the beginning of our school lives we have heard about addicts. The thing that came to my head every time I heard this was “Why would anyone even do drugs?”. After growing older I could see how some people could get pressured into drugs, but then I would think “Why would people keep doing drugs even if they know that they can kill them?”. Drugs keep people from experiencing healthy family lives, keep some from working, and experiencing a normal life in general. This addiction can be attributed to a broken reward system in the brain and the cycle of addiction that keeps bringing people back to the drugs.
Cycle of Addiction
Drug abuse and addiction is a vicious cycle that feeds into itself. It starts with usage of the drug. Then as you use more and more you start to build up a tolerance to the drug, which takes more of it to give you the same effects. This means that the brain has adapted to the drug and “put up defenses”. At the same time, it takes less of the drug to make the pathway go through into your brain. This is sensitization. It means that there is a change in the pathway of the brain to make this effect easier to acquire. It is now dependent on the drug. Eventually you stop taking the drug and there are feelings of withdrawal which are the brain trying to adapt back to the way it was before this stimulus entered it and made changes. Sometimes the brain can become clean and is no longer dependent upon the drug. However, there are still cravings and environmental factors that cause individuals to acquire the drug and get a relapse, starting the cycle over again. Since that pathway has already been made into a priority in the brain it is really easy to go back into the cycle of abuse.
http://ccbhc.org/drug-abuseisstill-a-growing-problem/
Reward System
The reward system in a normal, healthy brain gives doses of pleasurable dopamine as a reward for certain activities. This dopamine binds to receptors and once the activity is over the dopamine is taken away, or goes through reuptake. Many drugs block this process of reuptake and the dopamine remains bound to receptors for a longer time. The drugs may also cause a release of dopamine without an activity taking place. The dopamine receptors get used to having this much dopamine and do not associate it with activities that would normally bring it this dopamine since it is getting supplied by the drug. Along with that the receptors are building up a tolerance to the dopamine resulting in the need for more drugs to duplicate the same sensation when originally taking the drugs. More drugs are then needed to cause the same feeling.
https://www.care2.com/greenliving/3-prescription-drugs-that-do-more-harm-than-good.html
How can we stay away from drugs? This seems like a pretty easy question to answer: Just don’t do drugs. This is getting harder and harder as prescription drugs are so commonly used in our world today. They are very addictive as well and there is no discrimination for who can become addicted. If you are ever prescribed drugs, use them as directed and if you no longer need them, stop using them. You can do this by bringing them to a local DEA, National Drug Prescription Take-Back events, or DEA registered collectors, which are generally pharmacies or drug stores.
dopamine in the frontal cortex, the nucleus accumbens, and ventral tegmental area increase, and give the person a sense of euphoria. Drugs of abuse have a way of making this euphoria or “high” last for a prolonged time. Cocaine, for example, blocks dopamine re-uptake thus causing the reward to stay in a person’s system for longer. When a drug of abuse is taken for a long time the amount of dopamine decreases, and the “high” decreases. The individual will begin to crave their drug of choice, and if they are unable to gain access to that drug they will begin to experience withdrawal. To satisfy their cravings, due to the rewiring in the brain, a person will take more of their drug of abuse in order to experience a high, and without even noticing the person has become ADDICTED.
Addiction occurs when a person is physically and mentally dependent on a specific substance. Most the time, the substance is a drug. Drug addiction has always been depicted as a choice. From the outside, it has always seemed that getting rid of an addiction should be as easy as stopping the intake of the drug. However, research into drug addiction has shown that it is actually a disease of the brain. Drugs alter a very important pathway in the brain called the reward pathway by blocking the reuptake of signaling molecules, thus increasing reward signaling. Altering this pathway creates long lasting changes in the addict’s brain, which makes it very difficult for addict’s to stop their drug intake.
Dopamine binds to dopamine receptors in the synaptic space, which stimulates the neuron, creating the pleasurable sensation. Once the action potential that releases the dopamine is over, dopamine is removed from the synaptic space back into the transmitting neuron via a dopamine transporter. This ensures that the reward is cognitively linked to the stimulus.
drug addiction, you, like many other people, would create the image of a “junkie” in your mind. This is part of the problem with addiction, one of many problems that will be discussed later. Many people believe that addiction is a choice; little do they know that drugs have the ability to rewire a brain, forcing people to seek those drugs above all else.
D2 receptors creating the rewarding effects of drugs or natural rewards. Under normal conditions, the reward pathway controls an individual’s responses to natural rewards, such as food, sex, and social interactions1. This pathway is important in determining an individual’s motivation and their incentive drive1. Stimulation of the reward pathway tells the individual to repeat what it just did to get that reward1.
