18:41 13 May 2016
The National Institute for Drug Addiction defines addiction as a ‘chronic, relapsing brain disease’ while a plan on how to fight the epidemic published on Hillary Clinton’s website defines substance use disorders as ‘chronic diseases that affect the brain’.
However, a number of scholars, including Sally Satel, a lecturer in psychiatry at Yale, found the definition too narrow a perspective from which to understand the complexity of addiction. She argued that although the brain is involved in the process, addiction is not a problem of the brain but the problem of the person.
Although she admits that the repeated use of drugs and alcohol do change the brain with respect to the circuitry involved in memory, anticipate and pleasure, she argued whether brain changes that occur in the process block the factors that sustain self-control for people.
However, her theory raises some questions. If addiction is a choice, why would anyone “choose” to engage in such a self-destructive behaviour? To which, she answered: people do not choose to use addictive drugs to become addicts, they do so because they want immediate relief.