How Addiction Hijacks Our Reward System | Dana Foundation
Repeated use, however, leads to compulsive use and destructive consequences. Society then seeks to control use of the chemical. Many well known, problematic drugs have followed this pattern because they are derived from readily available and common plant products. Nicotine, cocaine, and many narcotics come from plants, and alcohol is produced by fermentation of many grains and fruits. These are products humans have known and used for millennia. Things began to change in the 19th century.
A Harvard Health article. Addiction involves craving for something intensely, loss of control over its use, and continuing involvement with it despite adverse consequences. Addiction changes the brain, first by subverting the way it registers pleasure and then by corrupting other normal drives such as learning and motivation. Although breaking an addiction is tough, it can be done.
What is the role and value of pleasure in addiction? Foddy and Savulescu 1 have claimed that substance use is just pleasure-oriented behavior. But such lives, they claim, can be autonomous and rational.