On Addiction and Drugs

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Sex, drugs, alcohol, food, gambling, even hoarding and work - Can all of these things cause addiction? What is addiction, and why are some people more prone to it while others are not? It's long been accepted that people can become addicted to drugs and alcohol but what about the newer addiction theories regarding sex addiction, food addiction, and gambling addiction - are these truly addictions? As a society what is the best way to handle people with addictions whom need help or commit crimes? In this paper I will answer these questions and address other interesting aspects of addiction.

Most of the American population regularly uses drugs if you consider that nicotine and caffeine are mildly psychoactive. Psychoactive drugs directly influence brain activity (How Psychoactive Drugs Affect the Brain, 2011). A psychoactive drug is a substance that is capable of altering attention, memory, judgment, time sense, self-control, mood, or perception for all of these a drug induced state is considered an alter state of consciousness by psychologists(Goldberg, 2010) Many psychoactive drug...

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