The Causes of addiction

Continued from our last article Are there risks to addiction?

Medical studies have shown how our brains react to different things. Different feelings result in different ways of dealing with matters. What we will concentrate on is how the brain reacts to pleasure. This will give us clues to the causes of addiction.

If you were to ask anyone which they’d prefer, pleasure or sorrow, you know the answer would be pleasure. Our brains always seek pleasure first, good over bad, and happy over sadness. Why wouldn’t it? After all, this is what aids a long, happy, and fulfilling life. Nobody can argue that, but can that be one of the causes of addiction? In a nutshell, yes. Since we will constantly seek pleasure, we can all be susceptible to addiction. The difference is how we manage pleasure and especially sorrow. This will make all the difference between the one who gets drunk once or twice verses the one who becomes an alcoholic.

Getting on your nerves

Believe it or not, “pleasure” is not just an emotion, but is the result of your nerve cells reacting to a substance in your body. Eventually these nerve cells can be altered depending on the frequency and dosage. The nerve cells can then become dependent on the substance and begins to crave more.

This begins the downward spiral for those who cannot manage sorrow well. They will struggle to fix this the least and will usually increase the dosage. This is why we highly recommend Anxiety/ Stress Counseling or Depression Counseling before you put yourself in this kind of risk.

As most addicts will tend to chase the feeling of pleasure that they would initially feel, they will tend to increase the dosage which leads to two conclusions. First, the increased dosage will no longer have the same effect and will actually begin to crave the substance just to feel normal. This is addiction. The second is death. Some may take such a high dosage that it will kill or paralyze them. It is a lose- lose situation. The causes of addiction are very dangerous and the longer one stays addicted, the worse an individual tends to become.

The next section we’ll answer the question, “Can my addiction be diagnosed?”

If you feel like you or someone you know might be suffering from an addiction, contact us now so we can talk about our addiction counseling in Anaheim Hills. Your first visit will be complimentary.