The hows and whys of addiction from a scientific perspective
Addiction has sadly become a staple in our society. Most people know at least one person that experiences one form of addiction or another. Maybe it is something as trivial as chocolate, shopping or social media. Maybe it is a more serious addiction, like narcotics or alcohol.
Whatever the vice may be, it can be puzzling why some people have more addictive tendencies than others. One of the other puzzling things about addiction is why can’t people just choose to stop?
Full disclosure: I have always felt this way about addiction. I naively had thoughts of “Why can’t they just say no?”, “It’s a simple choice”, and “It shouldn’t be that hard”. After doing my research to write this post, my mindset has completely shifted. I cannot wait to tell you why addiction is called a disease and how a person can deal with addiction. Warning: it is not as simple as it seems.
Let's get talking.
First, let’s talk about dopamine. Chances are you have heard about this mystery thing in your life at least once. But, what is it? Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that your body naturally produces. A neurotransmitter is a signal that one neuron sends to another neuron. A neuron is the name of the cells in your brain that allow you to move, think, feel, etc.
To understand this a little better, think about a green light at a stop light. The moment it turns green, that signals you to drive your vehicle or move forward. The green signal would be the neurotransmitter (or dopamine) and the action of you moving forward would be the action that the neurotransmitter causes from one neuron to another.
Dopamine can affect your heart rate, kidney function, sleep quality, pain processing, and so much more. It is the jack-of-all-trades for the nervous system. But, dopamine can be a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde kind of situation. Too little or too much dopamine in your system can cause health issues. For example, too small amounts of dopamine can cause Parkinson’s disease, and too much dopamine can cause addiction and unhealthy behaviors.
The next thing I want to address is neural connections or synapses. From the moment you are born, you are learning. What you see, feel, hear, etc. influences the way you view the world. Your brain creates this interconnected web of neural connections that make you, you!
A synapse in the brain connects one brain cell or neuron to another. Basically, synapses are the walkie talkies between different neurons.
Have you heard the phrase you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Well, that’s not totally true. Is it difficult to do? Yes. Impossible? No.
When it comes to humans, the same idea applies. Once we learn and habitually think, feel, or understand something, it can be hard to “unlearn” it. The unlearning process has to do with these established brain connections. To unlearn something, you have to literally rewire your brain. Yeah, big stuff.
When it comes to addiction, this same challenge applies. Addiction, whatever the vice may be, triggers a spike in dopamine that causes us to feel good. Once you get that hit, you learned what it felt like and you will want it more and more. Once you eat that warm chocolate chip cookie, you want to eat 5 more. Now, over time, this is how tolerance is built. The satisfaction you got with 1 warm cookie isn’t enough anymore. To get the same “high” or feel good feelings from that original experience, you need to eat 10 or more cookies.
To wrap all of this up, what you should take away from this post is: Addiction rewires and hijacks your brain to produce more and more dopamine, which can reinforce the original addictive behavior that started the cycle. It is an ever growing, vicious cycle, which is why addiction is called a disease. It is not as simple as “just say no”. There is a biological or physiological reason why someone facing a form of addiction needs serious interventions to learn to rewire their brain and the way they think to restore the way their brain normally functions.
I want to end this post on a topic that I personally find interesting and have wanted to look into: is the risk of addiction associated or related to a person's ability to adapt to change?
Why I ask this question is because I often hear that there was a triggering event in a person's life that led them on a path to addiction. Is there a biological reason why this person was more likely to turn to forms of addiction to cope with this change? Are people that experience change more often more prone to resist the urges of addiction? Are they use to the turmoil around them and have a biological reason why they cope better with their environment?
I sense a blog post in the future… if you're interested, stay tuned.
As always, reach out with questions.
Stay humble,
Emily
