Addiction:

Our addiction theories and policies are woefully outdated. Research shows that there are no demon drugs. Nor are addicts innately defective. Nature has supplies us all with the ability to become hooked--and we all engage in addictive behaviors to some degree.

Millions of peoples are apparently "hooked," not only on heroin, morphine, amphetamines, tranquilizers and cocaine but also nicotine, caffeine, sugar, steroids, work, theft, gambling, exercise, and even love and sex. The war on Drugs alone is older than the century.

The news, however, is that brain, mind and behavior specialists are re-thinking the whole notion of addiction. With help from neuroscience, molecular biology, pharmacology, psychology, and genetics they're challenging their own hard-core assumptions and popular "certainties" and finding surprisingly common characteristics among addictions.

They are using new imaging techniques to see how addiction looks and feels and where cravings "live" in the brain and mind. They're concluding that things are far from hopeless and they are rapidly replacing conjecture with facts.

For example, scientists have learned that every animal, from the ancient hag-fish to reptiles, rodents and humans, share the same basic pleasure and "reward" circuits in the brain, circuits that all turn on when in contact with addictive substances or during pleasurable acts such as eating or orgasm. One conclusion from this evidence is that addictive behaviors are normal, a natural part of our "wiring." If they weren't, of if they were rare, nature would not have let the capacity to be addicted evolve, survive and stick around in every living creature.

1. Alcoholism
2. Drug Addiction
3. Nicotine Addiction

Alcoholism:

Alcoholism or alcohol dependence is a chronic disease, characterized by the consumption of alcohol beverages at a level that interferes with physical and mental health and with family and social responsibilities. an alcoholic will continue to drink despite serious health, family or legal problems. Alcoholism is the most severe form of alcohol abuse.

Like many other diseases, alcoholism is chronic, meaning that it lasts a person's lifetime; it usually follows a predictable course; and it has symptoms. The risk for developing alcoholism is influenced both by the person's genes and by his or her lifestyle.

Alcohol's effects do vary with age. Slower reaction times, problems with hearing and seeing, and a lower tolerance to alcohol's effects put older people at higher risk for falls, car crashes, and other types of injuries that may result form krinking. Older people also tend to take more medicines than younger people. Mixing alcohol with over-the-counter or prescription medications can be very dangerous, even fatal. More than 150 medications interact harmfully with alcohol.

Alcohol effects women differently than men. Women become more impaired than men do after drinking the same amount of alcohol, even when differences in body weight are taken into account. This is because women's bodies have less water than men's bodies. Because alcohol mixes with body water, a given amount of alcohol becomes more highly concentrated in a women's body than in a Man's. In other words, it would be lied dropping the same amount of alcohol into a much smaller pail of water. That is why the recommended drinking limit to women is lower than for men.

In addition, chronic alcohol abuse take a heavier physical toll on women than on men. Alcohol dependence and related medical problems, such as brain, heart, and liver damage progress more rapidly in women than in men.

SIDE EFFECTS

• Higher incidence of unemployment
• Higher incidence of domestic violence
• Legal problems

• Increased incidence of cancer, particularly Cancer of the larynx, esophagus, liver and colon
• Acute and/or chronic pancreatitis
• Cirrhosis of the liver
• Alcoholic neuropathy
• Alcoholic cardiomyopathy
• High blood pressure
• Nutritional deficiencies
• Erectile dysfunction
• Cessation of menses
• Fetal alcohol syndrome in the children of women who drink during pregnancy
• Depression
• Traffic fatalities
• Accidental deaths
• Increased risk of suicide
• Werincke-Korsakoff syndrome

Drug Addiction:  

As the target organ of addiction, brain cells react to stimuli, including substances introduced from outside and hormones and chemicals we made ourselves. Those reactions lead to other chemical reactions and to changes in movement, thought, feelings and memory. Drugs of abuse abet or interfere with the chemical messengers, or neurotransmitters. The neurotransmitters that facilitate addiction are released by the 10 billion neurons that deal with information transfer.

Neurotransmitters circulate, collect and act at specific sites on nearby cell surfaces called receptor proteins, each of which is shaped to fit and receive a particular neurotransmitter and bind it the way a lock "recognizes" a key. Only after a neurotransmitter binds can the signal it carries travel to the next cell. If the cell is flooded with too much neurotransmitter, and elegant "control" system is normally activated so that the cell reabsorbs the excess fro later use. This process, called "re uptake", prevents too many chemical signals from circulation and filling too many receptors, which can lead to over-activity and serious mental and physical problems.

Some abuse substances block re-absorption, leaving too much neurotransmitter around, Others block the release of neurotransmitters. Although many many neurotransmitters and chemicals that cat like them have been identified, those most notably linked to addiction are nor-epinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, substance P, and gamma-aminobutyric add (GABA).

Cocaine affects nerve cells in the limbic system, that most ancient part of the brain and one closely tied to emotions. But rather than binding to a receptor, it interrupts the process of re-uptake that terminates the action of dopamine. Cocaine is not only a blocker of dopamine uptake but of the re-uptake of serotonin and nor-epinephrine as well.

All of this leads to vast over stimulation of nerve cells and creates intense feelings of excitement  and joy. With cocaine, dopamine spills forth and folds our pleasure receptors. On the downside, cocaine eventually wipes out the brain's existing supply of these neurotransmitters temporarily, leading to a hellish withdrawal marked by sever depression, paranoia, intense irritability and craving.

The two most common types of tranquilizers, barbiturates and benzodiazepines (Valium and its cousins), also act differently in the brain. They don't have their own receptors, but act on a "foster" receptor, GABA, which is predominantly an inhibitory, or slow-down, neurotransmitter. These drugs "deinhibit" and in sort of a double-negative effect, increase inhibition, sedating the user. These drugs hyper-activate inhibition and increase GABA enough so the user shuts down the brain. That's what dsdatives do. Alcohol also appears to act on GABA receptors, amphetamines interrupt dopamine balance, and nicotine stimulates the release of endorphins, at least at high doses. Household contacts of infected persons.

Nicotine Addiction:

Nicotine is more powerfully addictive than most people realize. It will probably take several tries before you learn tricks to stay cigarette-free for good. It may not be a "sin" anymore, but few would dispute that smoking is the devil to give up.
The tenacity of its grip can be matched by few other behaviors, most of which, like snorting cocaine and shooting up heroin, are illegal. It is not Faust a habit, the medical and scientific communities now fully agree, but and addiction, comparable in strength to hard drugs and alcohol. The persistence of smoking in the face of a devastating rouge's gallery of bodily damage, little of which has been kept secret, attests to the fact that this is no rational life-style decision.

Never underestimate the power of your enemy. Although nicotine may not give the taste of Nirvana that more notorious drugs do, its effects on the nervous system are profound and hard to resist. It increases levels of acetylcholine and nor-epinephrine, brain chemicals that regulate mood, attention, and memory. It also appears to stimulate the release of dopamine in the reward center of the brain, as opiates, cocaine, and alcohol do.

Addiction research has clearly established that drugs with a rapid onset--that hit the brain quickly-- have the most potent psychological impact and are the most addictive. "With cigarette, the smoker gets virtually immediate onset," says Jack Henningfield, Ph.D., chief of clinical pharmacology research for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "The cigarette is the crack cocaine of nicotine delivery."

The impetus to smoke is indeed, as the tobacco companies put in, for pleasure. but there is no evidence that smoke in the mouth provides much pleasure. For many, nicotine not only gives pleasure, it eases pain. Evidence has mounted that a substantial number of smokers use cigarettes to regulate emotional states, particularly to reduce negative affect like anxiety, sadness, or boredom.

Negative affect runs the gamut from the transitory down times we all have several times a day, to clinical depression. Smokers are about twice as likely to be depressed as nonsmokers, and people with a history of major depression are nearly 50 percent more likely than others to also have a history of smoking. 

TIPS FOR QUITTERS

• Nicotine addiction is powerful. Expect to struggle for a couple of months. It's an up-and-down course.
• Don't despair. It may take six tries to learn enough skills to beat this addiction.
• Aim for a absolute abstinence--even a single puff leads to relapse.
• Inventory those things that make you feel good and treat yourself to them--exercising, kissing, reading, taking a nap-- instead of a smoke.
• Watch your coffee intake. Not only is it a trigger to smoke, your sensitivity to caffeine increases, mimicking nicotine-withdrawal symptoms.
• Change routines associated with smoking. Take a walk before your morning coffee. Drive to work different way.
• Although most quitters succeed (eventually) on their own, programs that involve counseling improve the odds, especially for the depressed or anxious.
• Don't dismiss nicotine replacement with patch or gum. Gum allows you control over your blood nicotine level.
• Keep your guard up. Most lapses occur three or four weeks out, when you're feeling better.
• In the first week, avoid, or severely limit, alcohol.