Do we even know what addiction is yet? I think it is the ethical thing to do to treat it as a disease rather than blaming individuals for "making the wrong choices" while watching them die on the streets.

Technology trends to only making it worse. In the advanced world, there is little need to stay bound to function. The center of global technology, San Francisco has people laying on a street having money, food and shelter brought to them. While they abuse drugs that are only getting stronger and cheaper.

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Personally, I think we'll see breakthroughs as we continue to decriminalize drug use and explore medical psychedelic treatment options.

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Some addicts are addicted to money, and create the circumstances for those other addicts to suffer.

It's just that they're too powerful to treat, regardless of the fact that the damage they cause is magnitudes worse.

The comments here damn :( “just cure the depression and bam - no addiction fam problem solved”, educate yourself guys

I don't overeat because I'm depressed. I overeat because I love food and even when I am successful in controlling my urges, I'm subjected to it 3 or more times a day.

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If I had an award, you'd get it for this comment

Well there is 2 Types of addiction, Psychological Addiction which is the mental aspect of it. and the Physical aspect of Addiction like withdraws, the dopamine release etc.

We have ways to treat withdraws the main part of physical addiction, but what causes a lot of people to relaspe is the Psychological addiction.

Psychological addiction is so hard to treat, because it can literally become a personality trait of the persons life. and some people literally feel like they can't live or have a happy life without it.

Right now the best ways we have to treat the Psychological aspect is therapy, support groups like AA, NA, etc, and general family support and love.

I'm not sure we will ever see a full out cure to be honest, but i think the best route we could take is funding these treatment options for people who really do want help, and i know there is a lot of mixed feeling on this topic. but these centers that give out supplys and clean needles etc.

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That's a truly ignorant statement. Repellent.

A heavy physiological factor in addiction is the release of dopamine or serotonin. In many cases, getting on meds that stabilize that can help.

I actually have some knowledge of this. There are some theories to how it can be cured. We know that addiction, to some degree, is caused by a change in genetic expression within the reward center of the nervous system. Theoretically, if you can find a way to change that genetic expression and not screw anything else up in the process, you could reverse the adjustments your nervous system makes when a person consumes reinforcing (addicting) drugs. Of course the mechanism of how to achieve such a thing is currently in the air.

We first have to address poverty/wealth inequality as well as social dysfunction. Turns out you can’t cure addiction without fulfilling social needs first.

No, addiction is a societal ill. One can be addicted to exercise, food, money, tv, gaming, sex as well as ‘illegal substance’. It’s root cause it unhappiness in one’s life. Can we cure unhappiness?

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If I was rich I would still love whiskey, dumbass.

As long as we have desires, there will likely be addiction… hard to imagine what life would look like with things we enjoy

Hallucinogenics do pretty good at fixing addiction. They are working on the healing part of the drugs that won't include the hallucinogenic effect.

“I bet if my entire political world view is adopted by the government mental health issues like addiction wouldn’t exist.” That’s what some of you sound like right now.

I doubt it. As a suffering addict i feel that the problem is more "in you" than it is about physical factors that drugs tend to just cover up. As a psychological illness there is never really a "cure" just bandaids to help you get through the tough part and that is learning to live with yourself. Ive been drug free for several years thanks to prison and spiritual healing and i pray the same for every addict suffering today.

The way I see it, addiction management is pain management. Manage the pain and you curb the addiction.

Addiction isn't a craving for a chemical. Addiction is the willingness to take harmful action that distracts from some underlying pain. You can be addicted to things like work, shopping, or video games.

This will never be cured. Its like asking if 'distraction' can be cured. It is an element of the human condition.

The best that can be hoped for is effective, individual therapy that focuses on correcting the underlying issue.

“Cure?” That’s adorable, now get back into your endless therapy/medication hole you scum! /s

No, once we cure one addiction there will be a new one. We evolve and improve, in good and bad ways

Assuming that the mind is a complex set of physically interacting systems operating on causal principles: it should be possible in theory to alter any moment to moment lived experience with:

1. A thorough understanding of those interacting systems and principles
2. Tools with fine enough effective resolution to precisely influence the physical mechanisms in question

So, maybe. But with that kind of tech I think we're opening an entirely new set of pandora's boxes, ie the ability to start directly hacking our own minds. I'm not against opening that box, but it does scare me.

Chemical dependence is not addiction. If someone is not addicted they will have no problem being "sick" for a while while withdrawals happen.

Addiction shows itself in the actual decision the continue the chemical to push the withdrawals into the future. But chemical dependence, by itself, is not addiction.

Addiction is the recurrence of behavior due to a “sublimation” (in Freudian terms) of a survival activity or instinct in a way that has no benefit (or even causes detriment) to the person that is addicted.

It has 3 main components: habituation, access, and compliance

Habituation is essentially the formation of the neural pathway that the addiction forms - usually linked to a pleasure mechanism like the dopamine or cannabinoid receptors, as well as memories and “muscle memory” behaviors.

Access is just that - a person with unlimited resources is going to be at much higher risk of addiction than someone who has few (regardless of cultural conceptions of addiction)

Compliance is the unwillingness to change - the rationalization of the behavior to make it seem “ok”

First we need to cure the ignorance of those who still consider it a moral failing or a lack of discipline as well as those that believe medication is a cure.

Well this isn’t exactly right. Certain drugs cause direct alterations to the nervous system’s reward complex. These can easily be seen with animal experimentation. Many mammals can develop crippling addictions to certain substances. So it’s not exclusively a “human” condition. It’s one that’s common among the animal kingdom.

I’ve read of some interesting treatment options recently: vaccines for opioids that make your body attack or neutralize the opioids before they can have an effect.

11 years sober from drugs and alcohol here, with almost as much time working with men in recovery. I’d say there’s something very close to a cure, but most people aren’t willing to take it.

Addiction is a biopsychosocial disorder, meaning there are biological, psychological, & social factors that contribute to its predisposition & manifestation. Any treatment that does not address these three prongs will not succeed. For example, a purely pharmacological treatment that does not address the social condition of unaffordable housing is unlikely to lead to contiguous recovery.

This is why addiction, especially substance use disorder [SUD], is nefariously difficult to treat & prevent. It is inherently extremely complex & requires the cooperation of many often disarticulated fields [social work, psychiatry/psychology, medicine, &c.]. The U.S. does not have a robust system in place to adequately foster this type of multipronged treatment, but it should.

The best way to prevent addiction from manifesting would be to address the social conditions that often surround it: poverty, precarity, lack of social support, social isolation, &c. The best way to treat addiction would be to make treatment more accessible [read: free] & for treatment to include raising a person's social circumstances rather than simply isolating them in a treatment facility for 30-90 days & then dropping them back into the same conditions where the addiction developed in the first place.

source: I am working on my Ph.D. in sociology & addiction studies & have 10, hard fought, years of sobriety.

I never said it was exclusively human. Just irrevocably human.

There are many forms of addiction and many of them can't be helped just using other drugs. One addiction I've had to witness over and over again was meth addiction. When I worked in a Jail for a few years, I got a lot of really honest and sad answers as to why people continued to use meth or would refuse treatment and just accept jail time. One man will always haunt me when he explained why he considered meth to be his "cheat codes." He knew he'd always be a bum and wouldn't ever get to travel, eat exotic foods, hold a job he loved, or just generally enjoy life. On top of being poor he was horribly depressed and lost custody of his daughter long ago. Not to mention everyone he knew or could turn to was either meth addicted or dealt meth. Meth was his cheat code to happiness. His trips would let him enjoy something tragically close to the joy he would have felt if life had been kinder to him, albeit a fleeting sensation. If everyone came to the agreement that people don't want to stay addicted to drugs and understand the social/economical pathology behind drug additions then I'd say we have a shot. As it stands there's too much ignorance and politics behind why addiction treatment in the U.S hasn't been effectively addressed. But we are making strides and I'm optimistic that at least awareness is growing.

There’s so many reasons people become addicts. I live in a small town where I get to see how it effects everyone. That said it has a tendency to grab hold of those without any advantages. People work really hard to get out of the life style of addiction. Constantly coming up against hardships others don’t have. Lack of employment, housing, and support. Not to mention the mental health issues. I think if people understand the plight of an addict they might help more. I work in recovery and don’t see a cure in sight, but hopefully we can learn to not be judgmental and help those who are suffering.

Taking drugs to cure drug addiction?

Not a great plan friend.

If they made a pill you could take that would make you not a drug addict anymore I would crush it up and snort two to see if I could get high off it

Addiction is the inability to stop doing things that cause harm to you or others despite wanting to stop.

i bet theyll come up with a pill that kills your addictive personality

if they dont they will eventually do it with gene editing

Probably not. Not without fundamentally changing the way our brains work. I think we'll 'cure' addiction when we, as a society, stop treating it as a personality flaw, and start... well, treating it.

I think over time we'll devise new and better treatments to help people deal with addictions and hopefully better educate people about their bodies and how they function, but I think people will become addicted to things for the duration of human existence.

I've discovered that my addictions are triggered and fueled by my blood sugar. When I get my carbs super low in my diet I have next to zero cravings. Bummer part is I need to gain weight so I eat alot of carbs and have a burning desire to smoke weed all day.

I think certain aspects of addiction are physiological in nature fueled by are unusual carb intake as of the last couple generations

The cure for addiction would be to rewire the brains of addicts, so no. There won't be a cure until we start genetically engineering people to not be susceptible to addiction, which is probably a good 100 years off.

The idea that there are two types of addiction is not supported in the research or literature on addiction. It is true that there are both physiological & psychological aspects to some substance use disorders, but not all addictions come with withdrawal, for example.

The most current understanding of addiction is that it is a biopsychosocial disorder. Meaning there are biological, psychological, & sociological aspects to any addiction.

There is also a lot of conflicting research on the efficacy of AA & NA. While these programs saved my life, some research suggests that their success rate is much lower than previously thought & rather, it is AA/NA's dominance, & the paucity of other available treatment options that leads to its perceived efficacy.

I think looking for a "cure" is the incorrect approach, to be honest. It would make more sense to aim to mitigate the risk & predisposition of addiction while making biopsychosocial treatment modalities accessible & free.

source: 10 years of sobriety, working on Ph.D. in sociology & addiction studies

I am an ex addict/alcoholic and by the grace of god I’ve been clean 7 years, and none of those even come close to a cure for the mental aspect of it, and fall short of the physical aspect as well. Some of which become a substitute addiction in themselves, but because of Alcoholics Anonymous and other programs, I have a wonderful life which have never been possible, I would never preach the program to anyone else, but it has worked for me and countless others and if you are out there suffering I urge you to seek help and give it a try

Genetic predisposition is only one aspect of addiction. There are still psychological & sociological risk factors that need to be taken into account if we want to "cure" it, though I am not convinced that "curing" addiction is what the goal should be as the language of a cure belies the necessity to raise people's social circumstances, which isn't as sexy as, say, a genetic intervention that doesn't require us to question the allocation of resources & services under capitalism.

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A couple of trials in Brazil found that as few as two treatments with ayahuasca basically cures all addiction and kills fear of death. They were looking into using it as a method of reintigrating prisononers back into society as well adjusted individuals. I'm not sure if the practice has held up to the modern day. The actual trials were maybe 8ish years ago.

I’m not talking about genetic predisposition (albeit certainly a factor). When you take a physically addicting drug it can cause alterations of genetic expression. In other words, your body will uptick, or reduce, the number of various receptors within the nervous system. This same effect is what causes withdrawal. Some drugs are physically addicting because they cause physiological alterations in the nervous system’s reward complex.

Genetic predisposition and narcotic alteration of genetic expression are two different concepts.

Congrats on your 11 years, just got 7 myself

They're working on a drug for this. And they've started working on a drug for that one too. They've even started on a drug to "cure" that one as well...

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I kind of disagree. Maybe it's semantics, but when addicts choices are driven by chemical dependence, that's a vastly different "choice" than someone who's addicted to, for example ham sandwiches.

Correct. I am dependent on my antidepressants, & if I stopped taking them, I would experience unfun physiological symptoms, but I am not "addicted" to my antidepressants.

This difference between dependence & addiction led to some confusion during the first wave of the opioid crisis; many people were displaying the physiological symptoms of opioid dependence without the social or behavioral aspects that also need to be present to formally diagnose a substance use disorder. But this is a whole other can of worms, honestly!

Yes, there are a lot of effective pharmacological treatments for opioid use disorder, but these treatments only address the biological aspect of this particular addiction. Any treatment modality that does not address the full biopsychosocial spectrum of factors will not succeed on its own.

Well said. The biggest addiction I've had in my life was always video games. When I got older and wiser I realized when I was a kid, video games were an incredible escape from my parents' bad marriage and it always stuck with me. Anytime life got rough and started choking me out, I'd turn to video games. Then as I started going into adulthood the addiction became exercise. I've liberally smoked cigarettes, drank a lot of booze, done my fair share of cocaine but none of those things hooked me like video games & exercise. I did those things because of the social elements of a party phase as a young adult. I often wondered if I could ever not be addicted to something. Of course, that all changed when I had a random spiritual revelation. Now I'm no longer addicted to anything because of a realization that life is hard, it's supposed to be hard and you're not always supposed to have a good time. Not even mostly have a good time. Life happens and you're supposed to cherish the good times & memories, but mostly life is about force marching through the adversity & growing. We only get one shot at it. That realization really helped me and specifically helped me shed the notion of what "happiness" is supposed to be. Plenty of happiness was abound in my life but I always wanted more.

There is also a lot of conflicting research on the efficacy of AA & NA. While these programs saved my life, some research suggests that their success rate is much lower than previously thought & rather, it is AA/NA's dominance, & the paucity of other available treatment options that leads to its perceived efficacy.

Something else about these programs is their tautological approach. If AA works for you, you're an alcoholic, if it doesn't, it is either because you didn't work the program or because you could actually "drink like a gentleman," aka you weren't an alcoholic in the first place.

What this does is taint the sample such that only those who find success in AA are counted, whereas those that don't are dismissed as not qualifying for the program. It makes it hard to get accurate statistics on how successful AA is compared to other treatment options.

Congrats. Quite a life huh?

Never thought it would be possible at first honestly, but I work on it everyday still

Thanks for explaining this! I will look into this more as my research only looks at genetics in terms of their role in predisposition rather than expression. Interesting!

I cant disagree on that, I’m just grateful it still works for me

Yup. Can’t say I’m cured. But the likelihood of me drinking are much less today than they were yesterday.

Except that there are neurological changes to the brain in people who are addicted to food that mirror those present when someone is addicted to a substance. The pathology creates neurological changes, not necessarily the substance itself. It is easier for us to accept chemical dependence as more legitimate only because of our social history with pharmaceuticals, but people with eating disorders, for example, display brain changes, too!

Hypnosis can work. But not everyone is as susceptible to it then others and not everyone has as strong implant of the hypnotic suggestion as others , so when some may be easy to break the hypnotic state others it will be near imposable.

Go to an NA meeting and explain to everyone that, because the structural changes in their neural pathways resemble those found in people with non-chemical dependencies, this means that chemical dependence to an addictive substance is not the primary impetus driving their addictive behavior.

I would, except that is not what I said, nor was it the point of my comment. Your retrograde defensiveness over whose addiction is "real" clouded your ability to understand what I was trying to point out. Moreover, chemical dependence is not the only thing that drives addictive behavior, but I suspect you were not replying in good faith.

I guess I want to clarify, I take no issue with treating eating disorders and other dangerous, addictive behaviors with the severity they deserve. Dying from anorexia isn't more of a failure of willpower than overdosing, or anything like that, and I'm not trying to gatekeep a psychological disease. I understand that's a fine line.

What I mean to suggest is that chemical dependence is absolutely the biggest factor driving addictive behavior in millions of people, and to say that addiction is just the psychological component feels inaccurate to me, and like it could be used as rhetoric to shift blame back onto users (which is often the discussion) as opposed to the pharmacological forces driving the behavior.

If someone is chemically dependent, but they abstain from using the chemical, are they addicted to it?

Addiction would still exist if those things weren't there

Didn’t say that. Said it can’t be cured for good without addressing those things.

I mean addiction as in smoking too much crack

Chemical dependence is a necessary but insufficient precondition for addiction. Addiction is a biopsychosocial disorder & one needs a particular constellation of biological, psychological, & sociological symptoms or risk factors to be diagnosed.

Anyone who says that addiction is purely biological, or purely psychological is missing part of the puzzle.

Being chemically dependent on something doesn't necessarily mean you're addicted to it.

Take the example I wrote about elsewhere in this thread. I am chemically dependent on my antidepressants. Meaning, if I stopped taking them, I would experience deleterious physical symptoms. However, I am not "addicted" to these medications as such, because, for one, I am not abusing them [I take them as prescribed], & taking these medications does not impact my ability to live my life or meet social or familial obligations, &c.

So, chemical dependence needs to be present to diagnose a substance use disorder, but chemical dependence on its own is insufficient in terms of meeting the criteria of substance use disorder.

Addiction & substance use disorder are different, too. Eating disorders are process/behavioral addictions, but not substance use disorders as there is no, well, substance involved per se.

It depends on why they are abstaining from the substance! I am copying my reply to your other comment as it is relevant here, too:

"Chemical dependence is a necessary but insufficient precondition for addiction. Addiction is a biopsychosocial disorder & one needs a particular constellation of biological, psychological, & sociological symptoms or risk factors to be diagnosed...
...Being chemically dependent on something doesn't necessarily mean you're addicted to it.
Take the example I wrote about elsewhere in this thread. I am chemically dependent on my antidepressants. Meaning, if I stopped taking them, I would experience deleterious physical symptoms. However, I am not "addicted" to these medications as such, because, for one, I am not abusing them [I take them as prescribed], & taking these medications does not impact my ability to live my life or meet social or familial obligations, &c.
So, chemical dependence needs to be present to diagnose a substance use disorder, but chemical dependence on its own is insufficient to meet the criteria of substance use disorder."

There are way more people addicted to alcohol than crack. And it destroys a lot more people.

And if you say like a rich man smokes weed and drinks a ton thats fine because that's just extra money for him but most addicts aren't that wealthy and mostly middle to low class and they destroy themselves more just because they broke up with a girl or people around him pressured him to smoke this and that and oh yeah i removed the original post cus people take it too literally

i never meant all drugs had both components, and i dont wanna go into details on what i did in the past, but i dealt with physiological & psychological addictions seperatly before.

Even if the success rate is low, its still success is it not?

and yeah i agree on thinking their will never be a cure and my post went over there should be funding to provide these treatments and supplys to people.

> chemical dependence

off personal expirence i'd have to disagree, i had chemical dependence on a drug i was prescribed, never really had a psychological, & sociological aspect to it. and it was hell getting off it.

just because you dont have the psychological, & sociological aspects does not mean its wont be hard and you can easily fail by taking another dose to get rid of the nasty withdraw feelings