Drug Addiction

How does drug addiction start?

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Let's start with a basic understanding of the brain and how it works. Think of the brain like a giant switchboard or nerve center where billions of messages are passed back and forth to different parts of the brain and the rest of the body.

Just as electricity allows messages to be passed along telephone lines through a switchboard, the chemical dopamine allows the brain to communicate with your entire body, regulating everything from your heartbeat to the nature of your thoughts. Dopamine is a brain chemical that addictive drugs imitate. Scientists discovered that when high levels of dopamine are present in the brain, euphoric and pleasurable experiences are heightened. This can happen from a "natural high" that results from sex or exercise.

When ingested drugs imitate the dopamine response, the body inhibits the production of dopamine. Over time, drug addiction causes a severe disruption of dopamine production. When the drug addict stops using the drug, there is a prolonged absence of dopamine, which creates withdrawal symptoms (these may include headaches, shakes, chills, aches, pains, difficulty sleeping, agitation, depression). The discomfort of withdrawal rises so strongly that the addict must re-medicate. This is the physical root of addiction.

Dopamine is not the only brain chemical that addictive drugs stimulate. Addicts can also get high from drugs that stimulate the epinephrine and serotonin receptors in the brain. Epinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine regulate particular activities in the brain that can be experienced as pleasurable. The drug user, by activating these brain activities, discovers a sensation or a state of mind that is very appealing and then repeatedly attempts to repeat that experience over and over again.

Unfortunately, because of tolerance, higher and higher doses of the drug have to be taken to get the same effect, until the addict is taking the drug simply to avoid the side-effects of withdrawal. One the reasons that addiction is so hard to cure is that once the addict quits the drug, tolerance abates. This means, should the user start again, the first experience of returning to the drug may be as powerful and compelling as when the addict began. But then, of course, the cycle downward into less and less impact recommences as drug tolerance re-establishes itself.