Addiction is a loss of control characterized by the compulsive practice of behavior, where there is damage or deterioration of the quality of life of the person due to the negative consequences of the practice of the behavior addictive.
In addiction there is denial or self-deception that appears as a difficulty in perceiving the relationship between addictive behavior, personal deterioration and use despite the damage. In the following Psychology-Online article we offer the opportunity to understand what is an addiction: its definition and why it happens.
The description of addiction is somewhat controversial, since different societies have different criteria for evaluating it. That is why we will start by describing some concepts involved in addictions and thus be able to differentiate them:
- The use of a substance has no clinical or social significance, that is, the term "use" simply means use without medical, social and family effects. It is an isolated, episodic, occasional consumption without any habitual rhythm without tolerance or dependence.
- The habit it would be the habit of consuming a substance because we have adapted to its effects. There is therefore a desire for the product but it is never urgently desired. There is no tendency to increase the dose and there is no significant physical or mental disorder when the substance is not available. The search for the substance is limited and never signifies a behavioral disturbance.
- The abuse consists of the consumption of a drug that damages or threatens to damage the physical, mental or social well-being of an individual. It is an inappropriate use due to its amount or purpose.
- The dependence was defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1964 as a state of periodic or chronic intoxication produced by consumption repeated use of a natural or synthetic drug and characterized by a dominant desire to continue taking the drug and obtain it for any half. In dependence there is a tendency to increase the dose and there may be abstinence syndrome for stopping drug use. In the following article you will find how drugs are classified and what are their effects.
According to the WHO, an addiction consists of the repeated use of psychoactive substances that cause the consumer a compulsive desire to consume and a great difficulty interrupting consumption. However, the term used for this is dependence. Currently, behavioral addictions such as pathological gambling are also considered.
In addictions, the cognitive symptoms observed in the impaired executive functions which are the capacities that allow us to develop an effective and socially adapted behavior. Among them are goal setting, planning and programming, behavior inhibition, memory, temporal estimation and abstract reasoning. These functions are related to the prefrontal lobes and are necessary for effective and adequate daily social functioning.
One can also refer to within the cognitive aspect the intrusive thoughts or ideas obsessive type in the addicted subject. These ideas are involuntary, invasive, repetitive, and disruptive that persist or remain for a long time. long periods despite attempts to escape them (for example, repeated images of the consumption).
Behavioral symptoms are other aspects that appear in addictions that probably arise in response to the cognitive aspect. These symptoms are seen in behaviors such as imperious search for substance, the use of the substance despite its consequences with the purpose of alleviating the anxiety that is produced by intrusive thoughts or with the objective of reducing the physiological symptoms (excessive sweating, headaches, motor restlessness / tremors, nystagmus, trouble falling asleep, increased or decreased frequency cardiac arrest, nausea, vomiting, dilated pupils, chills, clenching of the teeth, dry mouth, increased perception of the senses, dizziness, among others). Here you will find more information about the drug addiction.
Symptoms of an addiction can be organized as follows:
1. Deficit control
Represents the person who consumes large amounts of the substance or does so for a longer period than planned, expressing lack of control to give up consumption despite your constant attempts and wishes. The person uses a large part of their time to get, consume or recover the effects of the substance. These people also express feeling intense anxiety for consuming the substance.
2. Social decline
The addicted subject loses or expresses a deterioration in his social relationships (friends and family), also leading him to breach of your responsibilities whether academic, work or family. They maintain consumption despite the fact that it can cause problems in their social circle, they even ignore that consumption has led them to abandon the activities that they previously enjoyed doing.
3. Risk consumption
The addicted subject maintains the consumption even though he knows that this exposes him to accidents, causing or exacerbating physical or psychological illnesses.
4. Physiological aspects
In addictions it is important to mention the presence of tolerance and withdrawal:
- The tolerance can be explained as a considerable increase in the dose or quantity of the substance to achieve the desired effects, or as a considerable reduction of the effect when the usual dose is consumed (for example with the two cans of beer the subject no longer perceives or does not achieve the effects that when beginning of consumption was perceived, therefore he needs to consume more since the organism of the addicted subject could be said to have got used to the substance and tolerates better dose).
- The abstinence occurs when habitual and prolonged use is interrupted and concentrations of the substance in the blood and the subject manifests variable physical, cognitive and behavioral symptoms in each substance. In this period it is possible that the subject consumes the substance to alleviate the symptoms.
DSM 5 (2013) explains that the appearance of pharmacological tolerance and withdrawal, expected and normal during medical treatment has implied a misdiagnosis of addiction even when only those symptom. People whose symptoms only appear as a result of medical treatment, that is, tolerance and withdrawal as part of the prescribed medical treatment, should not be diagnosed based solely on these symptoms. However, the medications that have been prescribed can be taken inappropriately and therefore a diagnosis could be made. substance use disorder if other compulsive substance-seeking behavioral symptoms are also present.
One of the great causes of addictions that is exposed in psychoanalysis is the Low tolerance to frustration formed by constant exposure to the pleasure my parents present me to. We will be subjects unable to tolerate the pain or frustration that may surely appear in daily life, therefore the Substance use will give me hope to skip that inevitable period of pain or frustration from lifetime.
That exposure to constant pleasure to which my childhood experiences led me where I cried and they gave me the taste or where I felt frustrated and they solved it for me, it formed in me cells or a structure to my neurochemistry. Every time they indulged me my reward system was activated and it was produced dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with addictions.
Neurotransmitters being substances in our body can become an addiction, if there is a increased dopamine there is pleasure I will need to repeat over and over again this sensation that this substance produces in me unconsciously: I will actively seek something that reproduces my childhood experience of avoidance of frustration and evocation of pleasure.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
