The current research on addiction shows various psychological, social, and biological factors can influence it. Moreover, numerous theories emphasize how these elements highlight the complex nature of addiction. Overall, it seems that addiction doesn’t have an individual cause as each person’s experience differs from another.
Understanding Addiction
Although you can’t develop an addiction without exposure to drugs and other substances, these determinants aren’t absolute. In fact, its development tends to arise from activities or substances you choose to partake in that make them more appealing to you. Other factors like your self-esteem, quality of relationships, and emotional state can play a vital role in influencing addiction as well. Not only that but community support, employment status, and social connections can be potential factors too.
Your vulnerability to abuse substances can increase depending on how you cope and what you stress over. Besides that, physical and emotional pain can make you susceptible to addiction as a form of self-medication. Moreover, your personality traits, life goals, and educational opportunities may factor into the equation too. Nonetheless, addiction isn’t dominated by a single factor as each has the power to contribute at some level.
Universally, no activity or drugs can cause addiction alone as you can be exposed to possible addictive behaviors or substances without issue. Instead, you gain an addiction by a mixture of certain factors that can be situational, cultural, social, and personal. While some theories emphasize genetic predispositions and biological factors, others center on psychological traits such as childhood trauma and impulsivity. Still, other theories highlight economic and social factors like peer influence, education access, and family relationships in forming addictions.
Types of Addiction
Currently, the most well-known addictive substance worldwide is nicotine as tobacco causes nearly 40 million deaths per year. In the U.S. alone, over 1,000 people die every day from smoking. Despite tobacco use declining, vaping has increased especially among young people. Although alcohol is a normal part of social life, around 14.6 million adults in the U.S. have developed alcohol use disorder. This data came from the National Institute’s research on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Around the world, more than 240 million individuals are alcohol dependent with Eastern Europe having the highest prevalence and Asians having the lowest.
Over 2.5 million people in the U.S. struggle with painkiller addiction. Typically, these individuals become addicted to illegal drugs like heroin or prescription opiates like oxycodone. When injected or snorted, cocaine becomes highly addictive especially when it’s formed into “crack,” which gives an intense high to its users. Stimulants like amphetamines are often abused despite their benefits in helping people with ADHD. According to NIDA, between 3.5 and 5% of the population uses depressive agents such as tranquilizers and sedatives non-medically.
Risk Factors
Risk factors of addiction range from social influences like job and education access and friendship quality to individual traits like personality and stress tolerance. What’s more? Your experience with these factors may make your addiction different from someone else in severity and type. Furthermore, the pleasurable effects you receive from the drugs you do are tied to your personal feelings. Both physically and emotionally, this link is further influenced by your social environment, relationships, and growth opportunities.
Regarding addictions and other nonadaptive behaviors, stress plays an important role in developing them. Particularly, chronic stress may increase your chances of alcohol abuse issues. Even with stress relief, the pleasure from trying certain substances may grow stronger, making you seek them out more.
Adverse Childhood Experiences
Some studies suggest that childhood trauma combined with negative events experienced in adulthood may alter your brain’s responsiveness. This altering affects your brain in areas related to motivation, learning, impulsivity, and distress regulation, which also increases susceptibility to substance abuse. What’s more? Not only do these stressors heighten your addiction risk but relapsing too.
This childhood trauma, known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can lead to poor health outcomes. More than that, you may develop maladaptive behaviors due to your chaotic or unpredictable childhood upbringing. According to some studies, children who have multiple ACEs struggle the most academically, face higher unemployment, and engage in riskier health behaviors such as drug use and smoking.
Furthermore, prolonged stress from childhood can disrupt your normal stress response, causing your brain to overproduce cortisol. This overproduction damages the hippocampus part of the brain, which impairs your memory and learning ability. With that said, researchers have linked ACEs with increases in alcoholic and opioid abuse.
Final Thoughts
Simply put, addiction is seen as a “hack” in the brain or a manipulation of its natural reward system. By messing up this system’s function, the neurochemicals that allow you to feel pleasure are controlled by your alcohol or substance abuse. To recover from addiction, you must be willing to engage in rewarding and fulfilling activities that don’t require drug use to perform.
In extreme cases, you should seek help from a mental health professional or even rehab for therapy and assistance. Although drugs and other substances are normal in society, they aren’t needed to live a meaningful and happy life. Instead, you should focus on self-respect, growth opportunities, work engagement, and personal relationships to find fulfillment and maintain good health.
Disclaimer: This article is intended simply to provide information. It does not replace the medical advice of a physician or other medical professional. Please speak with your doctor or therapist if you have any questions or concerns.
