Addiction

What is addiction?

Addiction is a disease. Thanks to recent developments in the understanding of the neurobiological basis of addiction, we can now say this with confidence. Addiction operates in the brain, overstimulating the reward pathways so that the addict initially experiences pleasure and, crucially, avoids feeling negative emotions such as anxiety, depression, anger or perhaps a reaction to past trauma. The addict's ability to 'self regulate' (a brain function) is compromised such that managing extreme emotions or the ability to be aware of and control, for example, chemical intake, becomes almost impossible. It is not the addict's fault that they cannot control their using, but it is their responsibility. With any addiction, tolerance builds and the intake has to increase, and often be supplemented by engagement with other addictions, to achieve the same effect. Eventually, it stops 'working', and the addict is left feeling exposed, humiliated and vulnerable – this is often referred to as 'rock bottom', and although it can be a major turning point for many, for others it ends in tragedy. The popular belief that you have to wait until the addict is 'ready' before treatment will be possible is mistaken: intervention works, but it must be planned and executed with care.

Of course environmental factors have a huge influence on the development of the disease. Traumatic events – irrespective of size – can be the vehicle on which addiction may travel through a person's life. For example, where there is a divorce in a family and children are involved, it is not the divorce itself that causes the problems, it is how it is managed and experienced that is significant.

Addiction is also widely acknowledged to be a family condition, passed through the family like a musical ability: it is a culturally learned way of dealing with emotions that causes more trouble than it solves. If there is addiction in the family, then all other family members need to be alert to the possibility of the presence of that influence, and learn how to work a preventative programme. Once addiction takes hold, it causes widespread devastation – to moral values, family relationships and any possibility of peace, trust and hope. It is an insidious and relentless destructive force that operates through emotions, and it is imperative that those who care about the addict invest some time in learning how to be around the illness without unwittingly enabling it.

When an addiction develops, a person is using something outside of themselves to cope. In the absence of that substance or behaviour, the person is left with no coping skills around their emotions and this is where treatment comes in. We aim to stabilise the using process as a priority so that we can access and treat the person and then start working towards a maintainable abstinence, and a productive happy life.

Recovery is possible and it is important to know that there are many recovering addicts, all over the world, who are happy and fulfilled. Once abstinent, much of the work we do at Charter is about working on self-concept and developing coping strategies for a full range of emotional experience, so that people can leave treatment prepared and inspired to fulfil their potential.