Addiction is a complex brain disease that harms an individual’s physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being for the worse. Unfortunately, there are many that hold inaccurate assumptions about addiction and addiction recovery. Drug addiction involves your body developing a physical dependency on a certain substance. In this article, you’ll learn more about the science behind addiction so you can better understand what occurs in the brain and body when an individual is struggling with addiction.
At Outpatient LA, we are a leading outpatient drug rehab that helps patients break free from addiction and achieve long-lasting sobriety. We help patients not only overcome addiction but improve their mental health and well-being so they can lead a healthier, happier quality of life. Gone are the days of suffering in silence with your addiction- help is available. Contact us today to learn more about how we can support your road to recovery.
Addiction Is A Brain Disease
As mentioned above, addiction is a brain disease that involves an individual’s inability to control their abuse of a particular addictive substance, despite knowing the harmful impacts the drug abuse has on their health and quality of life.
When your body begins to consume an addictive substance, it experiences a surge in dopamine. Dopamine is essentially a pleasure or “feel good” hormone that your body naturally releases when it experiences pleasurable experiences, such as eating food. However, when you experience spikes of dopamine externally, such as when you get a dopamine spike from abusing a drug, over time this lowers your body’s natural release of dopamine because your body begins to expect the spike of dopamine it receives when it abuses drugs or alcohol.
The Brain and Body Develop a Dependency on Drugs
As the brain and body adapt to the consumption of addictive substances, it will inevitably lower its natural production of dopamine due to the expectation of you abusing drugs. This causes your body to not only develop a dependency or addiction to the addictive substance, but you also will experience difficulty controlling your consumption of the drug. For example, what may have started out as you experimenting or using a drug recreationally can over time turn into an addiction and inability to quit abusing the drug.
Not only will your brain and body adapt to the drug, but you will experience short-term withdrawal symptoms when you don’t satisfy your body’s developed dependency on the addictive substance. Plus, you’ll experience significant cravings and urges to abuse the drug and tolerance as your body will adapt to needing more and more of the drug to achieve the same desired effect. Inevitably, uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms and intense cravings to abuse the drug can make it difficult for an addict to quit and achieve long-lasting sobriety.
Not to mention, even if an addict does get clean and achieve sobriety, this does not mean sobriety is guaranteed for life. In fact, 40-60% of people treated for substance use disorders will relapse. This is why it’s critical if you are struggling with drug addiction to seek professional support so you can safely and effectively overcome your addiction and achieve lasting sobriety. At an addiction treatment center, you’ll be able to detox safely and progress along your recovery journey so you can learn effective coping strategies to get and remain clean.
Help Is Available
As you can see, the science behind addiction reveals that addiction is so much more than just having “enough willpower” to quit. Addiction involves altering your brain chemistry where your brain and body learn to expect and become dependent upon that addictive substance to achieve a desired effect. Not only can addiction interfere with your health and quality of life for the worse, but drug addiction in some instances can lead to life-threatening consequences.
At Outpatient LA, we offer leading addiction treatment so you can effectively overcome addiction once and for all. We understand each patient’s recovery journey is different. That’s why we offer a variety of treatment programs and options to ensure you receive the personalized care you need to lead a healthier, happier life. Contact us today to learn more about how we can support your recovery journey.