Understanding addiction better

The twenty first century is going to be a big time for the science of chemicals and the human body. Specifically, the study of neurology and how different substances affect the brain. This isn’t only going to help doctors prescribe more effective medicines and build better treatments for all sorts of ailments, it’s also going to change how scientists as a whole view the human body. Of course, when dealing with this topic, there are a few negative pitfalls and real human problems you can fall into as well. There is no way to talk about this study of neurology and chemicals without talking about one of the biggest problems facing the United States today. Of course, I am talking about the relationship between addiction and substance abuse treatment programs, the general drug rehab program and the alcohol rehab program. Addiction of all kinds is an enormous problem in the United States and in the world in general and it’s very little understood. That is, of course, why it’s such a big problem. Scientists and science as a whole just do not have a whole set of data to work with when it comes to numbers and addiction. This not only makes it hard for the alcohol rehab program, it also makes it hard for all sorts of rehab programs to do effective work. They do their best, of course, but it’s still difficult. You see, there are a couple problems standing in the way of proper addiction research. Let’s discuss these in greater detail.

The sordid history of addiction in the United States
We’ve only scratched the surface of addiction research in recent decades but, by extension, this means we knew next to nothing about addiction for literal centuries. There wasn’t even a proper term for it until the early twentieth century when the idea was finally fully accepted by the medical community. People knew about alcohol addiction and, thus they had crude version of the alcohol rehab program, but other than that there was very little information available on other addictions. In fact, most people, and even most trained doctors, believed that addiction was a moral failing on the part of the person who was addicted. Anyone who was addicted to alcohol was weak and didn’t have the willpower to fight back against the tempting pull of being drunk.
Influences from higher authorities
This problem was by far compounded by another problem that really only began to arise when the science of addiction began to be properly understood. You see, when scientists really began to understand what caused addiction, there were powerful people with lots of money who had a vested interest in making sure that the public still bought their product. This was a problem with alcohol, of course, and thus the alcohol rehab center was born but it was also a problem primarily with tobacco. The race was then on for scientists to help inform the public that tobacco could become something you needed to depend on while tobacco boards had to convince people that their substance was, at best, good for you and, at worst, completely harmless. Of course, now we know that it directly leads to high cancer rates but it was a long road to even getting that out.
The real science behind addiction
So, with all of that history in mind, what is addiction exactly? What constitutes an addiction and how is someone trapped in addiction supposed to handle it? There are no real easy answers yet because science has come to the conclusion that it’s possible for anyone to basically become addicted to anything. There could possibly be as many internet rehab centers as there might be for the alcohol rehab program. It’s not a matter of the substance so much as it’s the brain rewriting its own pleasure pathways to make the person believe that the substance is necessary for continued function. It basically tricks the brain into thinking it’s as vital as air. With this, the brain will try everything to get into the system in question. So there obviously needs to be a way to combat this but that’ll take much work.