Essay About Treating Addiction

Background:

The history of treating addiction has come a long way from addiction being considered a criminal offense to becoming a mental illness. Becoming an addict can start from childhood because if a child sees their parents misusing a substance, it's likely that the child will grow to use the substance as well. According to children of substance abuse, “twentyfive percent from such homes do abuse drugs themselves. As of today 23.5 million people worldwide suffer from addiction. Addiction is such a damaging condition and some people are so numb and depressed that if it goes untreated it can lead to damaging behavior and suicide. As stated by Lloyd A. from U.S.News, “three out of eight people go untreated to addiction.” Addiction is a condition which affects a person in many ways. For example, there maybe changes in thinking, emotion or behavior, even all combined together. What can cause this is problems within your family, work or

Some signs that you should look out for are: over or under-active, looking pale/undernourished or weight loss. Addiction can also have a major impact on your brain. Your brain is a very complex organ in your body and is responsible for specific functions, but addiction can alter important areas in your brain that are essential to sustain life. Drugs in the brain are chemicals that affect the communication system and interfere with the way neurons send, receive and process information. For example, a drug like cocaine has a chemical structure that copies what a neurotransmitter does naturally and tricks the receptors, which allows the drug to attach and activate the neurons. And this leads to abnormal “messages” being transferred through the network. Stated by the national institute on drug abuse, “most drugs of abuse directly or indirectly target the brain’s reward system by flooding the circuit with