Addiction: Impact on the Social Animal

The dictionary defines addiction as “being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming”. Normally, the word is used to denote a person’s craving for narcotic drugs, but sometimes people use phrases like ‘I am addicted to my work.’

What is addiction? As the definition says, it implies three things [with respect to the subject of addiction]:

• The addict must have an abnormal tolerance to and dependence on the target subject.
• The subject must have a physical or physiological impact on the addict.
• The removal of the subject must produce ‘withdrawal symptoms’ [physical or psychological disturbances].

Usually, addiction results in two important consequences:

• Increased focus and engagement about the subject.
• The ‘shutting-down’ of the rest of the person’s external aspects.

From this point of view, we can’t be addicted to each and every thing that we do in our life. Most of us know our limitations of our attempts to experience everything. But some of us unfortunately fall victim to drug abuse. What are drugs?

‘Drugs’ in this context fall into two categories: Narcotics and Psychotropic substances. Narcotics are substances that cause a feeling of paralysis or numbness. Psychotropic substances are chemicals that primarily act upon the central nervous system and alter the brain function, resulting in changes of behaviour, consciousness, mood or perception. These substances create a sensation of craving by misguiding the brain’s dopamine system, which is responsible for our sensation of happiness.

Not only drugs, people are more commonly addicted to smoking and drinking. These habits form mostly during the teenage or early adult years. Like drug abuse, they also produce a temporary ‘high’ followed by prolonged depression if the activity is not repeated.

This physical dependency wrecks havoc not only on the concerned person, but also in the person’s immediate neighbourhood and to the society in the long term. Thus there are numerous ways to deal with the problem and treat the affected persons.

A number of models have been proposed to explain addiction. These include the disease model, the pleasure model, the genetic model, the experiential model, the opponent-process model, the allostatic model, the cultural model, the moral model, the habit model and the blended model.

Numerous organisations all around the world are engaged in curing people of their addictions and helping to prevent new cases. We too, have a social responsibility not to get into any form of addiction that can be devastating for us and our loved ones.