How do addictions work?

[heyitsdan]

What makes people addicted to certain things like drugs,sex,gambling etc etc... how and why do they work ? Why is it so hard to break these addictions and wouldn't addictions be considered a mental illness ?

[TimeAndTimeAgain]

Well, I think there's two types of addictions. The more popular ones I guess are the physical addictions, such as the ones you get from drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, etc. When you use these things, the chemicals inside them affect your body in such a way that you become unable to function the same way without them. So you basically start wanting to use those things again on a regular basis.

This isn't the same as someone who is addicted to gambling, though. I think those are psychological addictions, that happen because of something that might be going on in your life. I'm personally addicted to gaming. I play games a lot and if I don't I tend to get bored. If I'm out with a friend though and doing other stuff I won't mind it much. As long as I have something fun to do, I don't care. But like after a long, boring day and I'm tired, all I want to do is play games and stuff. :o Not sure if it can be considered an addiction. The gambling though might be because they're addicted to the excitement that gambling offers them, and so without gambling they might feel that their lives become boring and meaningless. That is why they gamble so much.

So yeah, I think those are the two types of addictions and how they work. :o As for sex I think that's more of a psychological addiction too. Even though your body feels like having sex you technically COULD relieve the sexual tension by yourself but the fact that you go out to actually have sex with other people indicates you're in it for the psychological factor.

[martyfellow]

These are partly mental illnesses, es, but also the addictions are physical, related to how things work on your brain chemistry. In the case of sex and gambling, mostly these ARE purely mental illnesses, but the others are largely physical.

Of course, then you have to ask WHY people need these physical addictions..and we are back to mental illness!

[lace1228]

Doctors say there is a link between the repeated use of an addictive substance and how the human brain experiences pleasure - its use has a nice reward, leading to further and more frequent use. The addictive substance, be it nicotine, alcohol or some drug actually causes physical changes in some nerve cells in the brain. Another name for a nerve cell is a neuron. Neurons release neurotransmitters into the synapses (empty spaces) between nerve cells, which are received by receptors in other neurons.

What is a neurotransmitter - it is a chemical that a nerve cell releases, which thereby transmits an (electric) impulse from one nerve cell to another nerve cell, organ, muscle, or other tissue. Put simply, a neurotransmitter is a messenger of neurologic data from one cell to another cell.

Tolerance increases

After a while, the user of the potentially addictive substance does not get the same pleasure and has to increase the dose - his/her body’s tolerance to it increases.

Eventually, the user no longer experiences pleasure from the substance and takes it simply to prevent withdrawal symptoms - taking the substance just makes them feel normal.

Experts say that when tolerance increases, the risk of addiction is much greater.

[kmhco]

Addictions are classified as a mental illness. I think it starts out as a simple reward factor that lights up the pleasure centers in our brains. For certain people, once they find something that gives them that mental reward they keep doing it. But the more you do something, the less pleasurable it is for you so they need to do it more and more to get the same feeling. This is because the brain can build up tolerance for the chemicals that make you feel pleasure. It gets to a point where the person needs to do these actions in order to function.

The ability to become addicted is very much hereditary and they can manifest through almost anything (alcohol, drugs, food, sex, gambling,caffeine, hoarding etc).