Capstone Treatment Center

Once developed, addiction is an irreversible condition of the brain and is considered a disease by most of the counseling field. A non-addicted person can stop his use basically at any given point, but the person with an addiction cannot stop once he starts. Having an addiction has nothing to do with character, spirituality, intelligence, love of family, or self-discipline, thus the concept of disease. The person with an addiction has lost the ability to control his use and continues to use in spite of the negative consequences he is experiencing.

 

There is a genetic component that affects the development of an addiction at two levels. First, the tolerance pace of the individual which refers to how fast he needs to increase his intake of a substance in order to get the same mood change or feeling as he previously did with a lesser amount. Second, as this tolerance pace is continuing its course; there is no way to determine at what point addiction will develop. It seems that a faster tolerance pace often correlates with an addiction developing sooner and a slower tolerance pace correlates with a later development. But when will an addiction kick in with any given individual? There’s just no way to predict it, so there is an aspect of its timing that is genetic. One person abuses drugs for months before addiction kicks in and another person takes years of use. Just like our skin responds differently to the sun’s rays where some people burn faster than others, the concept of genetic predisposition is accurate as far as the development of an addiction. Anybody can develop an addiction and genetic factors, along with several environmental factors, contribute to the speed at which it can happen. The most important thing to remember is that no matter when it is developed, once you’ve got an addiction, you’ve got it for life. The goal then becomes learning how to live a life that is drug/alcohol free, healthy, fruitful, and fulfilling.