Drug addiction is a sensitive topic, that most people are not comfortable discussing and it involves a complex interplay of biological, psychological, social, economic and physical factors that has been the subject of research for the past fifty years. Drug addiction as it is called today had been referred to in various terms such as substance dependence and substance abuse as defined by professional organizational in psychiatry, psychology and mental disorder manuals. Drug addiction has been characterized as a chronic relapsing disorder in which there is the compulsion to seek and take a drug, the loss of control in limiting intake of drugs, and the emergence of negative emotions when access to the drug is prevented. To differentiate from the occasional but limited drug use, addiction is often defined in terms of the escalation of drug use, the loss of control over consumption of drugs and the emergence of chronic compulsive drug seeking behavior. As such there are three ways in which drugs can be used, the occasional, controlled and social use of drugs, drug abuse or harmful use and then drug addiction as characterized by substance dependence or dependence. Drug addiction have been thought of in terms of the behavioral indicators of negative affect and the compulsion to seek and take the drugs. In the past, drug addiction was judged in terms of tolerance and withdrawal, wherein if an individual has built a tolerance for the drug of choice, and the inability to take in drugs results to withdrawal symptoms, hence driving the addict to seek and take in drugs. The higher the tolerance, the shorter the effect the of the drug and the more frequent the withdrawal symptoms occur. Thus, people were identified as drug addicts if they exhibited tolerance to drugs and withdrawal symptoms frequently. This would mean a constant need to take in drugs, whether it is prescription drugs or the illegal drugs in the streets.
People who get hooked on drugs does not do so overnight, it takes a combination of circumstances that leads a person to addiction, research has shown that exposure to addicts whether one’s parents, family members and even friends can influence one to try taking drugs. On the other hand, poverty, dropping out from school and gang affiliation are also commonly found among those who became drug addicts. At the end of the spectrum are individuals who come from mid to high socioeconomic status, good schools and divorced parents, and peer pressure who were also found to experiment with drugs and later on became drug addicts. It is one of the most pervasive societal issue that every nation is facing and, in some countries, have eroded governments and economic progress. There is always that fight against drug addiction and it has destroyed many lives, families and communities, and the end is not in sight yet. The key to understanding what drug addiction is, is to redirect the focus on identifying the risk factors that would most likely make a person be addicted to drugs than to fight the drug lords and catch drug pushers and distributors. Without addicts, there would be no drug market, and this is also seen in the current researches on drug addiction.
What is Drug Addiction?
The current definition of drug addiction as identified in the DSM-5 have changed both conceptually and diagnostically. The new diagnostic criteria for addiction merge the abuse and dependence constructs (i.e., substance abuse and substance dependence) into one continuum that defines
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