Currently, 23.5 millions of Americans suffer from alcohol and drug addiction. Other people suffer from addictions like gambling and gaming. For the past couple of years, addiction has been viewed as a type of disease. In fact, Dr. Volkow of the National Institute on Drug Abuse said, “Addiction is a disease—a treatable disease—and it needs to be understood.”
Associating addiction as a disease, however, has some neuroscientists shaking their heads and scolding.
One neuroscientist who has a problem with doctors and other medical professionals comparing an addiction to a disease is Marc Lewis, a psychologist, former addict and author of “The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction is Not a Disease.”
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According to Alternet, “Lewis’s argument is actually fairly simple: The disease theory, and the science sometimes used to support it, fail to take into account the plasticity of the human brain. Of course, ‘the brain changes with addiction,’ he writes. ‘But the way it changes has to do with learning and development—not disease.’”
The article points out that many behavioral addicts are looking toward the 12-step model Alcoholics Anonymous uses to help people kick their alcohol or drug addictions. Behavioral addicts look to this model in hopes to curb their own addictions, but not cure it. According to the article, this model is a reason why addictions are associated with disease.
Addictions are associated with disease even more with the help of the healthcare industry intervening. To help get rid of an addiction, someone can be charged by an insurance company for treatment or checking into rehab centers, drawing more and more people to think of addictions as a medical condition instead of a mindset or habit.
Alternet said, “To have a disease—instead of, say, a dangerous habit—is to be powerless to do anything unfortunate, rather than foolish or weak or degenerate. Something innate in your body, particularly in your brain, has made you exceptionally susceptible to getting hooked.”
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In his book, based on several case studies regarding addiction, Lewis wrote: “Addicts aren’t diseased and they don’t need medical intervention in order to change their lives. What they need is sensitive, intelligent social scaffolding to hold the pieces of their imagined future in place—while they reach toward it.”
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