It bridges the gap between the brain and behavior, specifically focusing on how substance use affects brain function and how those changes contribute to addiction. Furthermore, some communities are targeted more heavily with alcohol and tobacco advertisements and have more availability of drugs of abuse than others, particularly impoverished communities (Primack et al., 2007; Rose et al., 2019). Therefore, the social environment in which one exists contributes to their risk of addiction.
Addiction: Understanding Its Nature, Causes, and Impact
According to this model, addictive behaviors are driven by a deep-rooted desire to fill an inner void or to find a sense of purpose and belonging. The Spiritual Model emphasizes the importance of developing a connection with a higher power, cultivating a sense of inner peace, and engaging in practices that promote spiritual growth and well-being in order to overcome addiction. Despite its limitations, the Moral Model has contributed to our understanding of addiction by highlighting the importance of personal responsibility and choice in addiction and recovery. This perspective can empower individuals to take responsibility for their actions and make positive changes in their lives. Various models have been proposed over the years to explain the nature of addiction and offer a framework for addressing it. This article aims to provide an overview of the six main models of addiction, including the Moral, Disease, Psychological, Social, Biopsychosocial, and Spiritual models.
However purely reductive, neurobiological explanations of addiction occlude a comprehensive understanding of the added influence of psychological, social, political, and other factors. This view is problematic as individuals living with an addiction are highly stigmatized. The brain disease model further implies simplistic categorical ideas of responsibility, namely that addicted individuals are unable to exercise any degree of control over their substance use (Caplan 2006, 2008). This kind of “neuro-essentialism” (Racine, Bar-Ilan, and Illes 2005) may bring about unintentional consequences on a person’s sense of identity, responsibility, notions of agency and autonomy, illness, and treatment preference. The biopsychosocial model of addiction emphasizes the interplay of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors in the understanding, prevention, and treatment of substance use disorders. This model challenges the traditional biomedical approach, which reduces addiction solely to biochemical causes and often overlooks the significant roles of psychological and sociocultural influences.
Psychological Causes of Addiction
Some theories say genes or brain chemistry play the most significant role, making some things feel more rewarding than others. Others highlight personality traits like impulsivity, a desire for excitement, or mental health issues stemming from past traumas. Still, others focus on how social and economic factors like solid family bonds, good https://appsychology.com/living-in-a-sober-house/ friends, and opportunities for education and work can influence your choices. By addressing cognitive deficits, addiction treatment can empower individuals to regain control of their thoughts, behaviors, and, ultimately, their recovery journey. By understanding the ways addiction disrupts these processes, treatment approaches can be tailored to strengthen cognitive skills and promote long-term success. Within the drug addicts group, HIV-negative drug addicts are more likely to show higher self-acceptance than positive patients.
Methadone Treatment for Opioid Addiction: Effectiveness, Risks, and Recovery
Addiction-related behaviours affect the health of both individuals and communities, either protectively or harmfully. The behaviours influence the extent an individual is able to mobilize and access resources to achieve goals and adapt to adverse situations (Raphael 2004). For example, an individual’s socioeconomic status is correlated with increased negative consequences from substance use, such as increased sharing of used injecting equipment and higher prevalence rates of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and hepatitis C (Strike, Myers, and Millson 2004). As we continue to explore and refine our understanding of addiction through various Theories of Addiction, the biopsychosocial model stands as a testament to the power of integrative, holistic thinking. It challenges us to look beyond simple explanations and quick fixes, encouraging a more nuanced, comprehensive approach to one of the most pressing health issues of our time.
Gillett criticizes theories of decision-making that conceptualize choice as autonomous phenomenon only if inner mental states or networks cause it. Poverty, lack of education, and limited access to healthcare can all increase the risk of addiction and make recovery more challenging. It’s like trying to climb out of a pit – the deeper the pit and the fewer the tools available, the harder the climb. Addiction isn’t just a matter of weak willpower – it fundamentally changes how our brains work. Addiction throws a wrench in the works, causing the machine to malfunction and demand more and more of the substance to function. Before the biopsychosocial model, addiction was often viewed through a single lens – be it purely biological, psychological, or social.
Why Authenticity Unlocks True Recovery
Over time, repeated substance use or engagement in addictive behaviors leads to neuroadaptations, altering the brain’s functioning and driving the individual to prioritize drug-seeking behavior above other essential activities. The findings that are anomalous for the BMM but consistent with the BPSM are empirical data, related to specific influences on specific conditions at specific stages. It is possible that a specific health condition at a particular stage may turn out to be primarily caused by only one kind of factor – biological, psychological, or social – and of course biomedical models of infectious diseases have had stunning successes in exactly this way. Such findings may be called a scientific-explanatory reduction to biological processes. This type of ‘reduction’ is different from theory-reduction of, for example, biology to physics and chemistry. Both types of ‘reduction’ are relevant to the relation between the BMM and the BPSM and both are in play in Engel’s 1977 paper.
- However, proposals to roll the psychosocial up into the biological appear to be, in name, a kind of reductionism, so far by-passing the need to theorize the acknowledged causal role of psychosocial factors or biopsychosocial causal mechanisms.
- So, how does all this theoretical knowledge translate into practical treatment approaches?
- All participants were informed that their responses would be kept strictly confidential and that the data would be used for research purposes only.
- Engel initiates inquiry like a pragmatist, he understands theory and philosophy like a pragmatist, he justifies beliefs like a pragmatist, and he understands the world like a pragmatist.
- This suggests that we enhance the level of self-evaluation and self-acceptance of drug addicts to promote psychological health.
Psychological Factors: The Mind’s Influence on Addiction
The field of Social Services is working to move beyond a moral model of substance use disorders. You can help people make their own decisions (self-efficacy) and advocate for services to improve the lives of people who use substances and live with SUDs. In the past, the Moral Model was widely accepted and shaped societal attitudes and responses to addiction.
- Family-based therapy, such as multidimensional family therapy (MDFT), has been shown to be effective in treating adolescent substance use disorders by addressing communication patterns, family roles, and relational dynamics that contribute to addiction (Liddle et al., 2023).
- Such stability helps individuals to maintain psychological flexibility in the face of challenges, i.e., to be able to flexibly adjust their mindset and behavior to adapt to environmental changes.
- Research has shown that spirituality can play a significant role in addiction recovery, with many individuals reporting that their spiritual beliefs or practices have been instrumental in their ability to overcome addiction.
- Within that overall framework, diverse psychology specialty areas focused on personal processes – beliefs, about the world and their own agency, personal goals, emotions, and behavior – in interaction with biological and social processes.
- It wasn’t long before addiction specialists recognized its potential to shed light on the complexities of substance use disorders.
Participants filled out questionnaires and souvenirs and gifts were distributed to all participants. As we step back and survey the landscape of addiction theories, it becomes clear that no single perspective holds all the answers. It’s like trying to understand a city by only looking at its buildings – you’d miss the people, the culture, the energy that makes it truly come alive. The transtheoretical model of change recognizes that recovery isn’t a single event, but a process that unfolds over time. It’s like watching a flower bloom – it doesn’t happen all at once, but in stages, each one building on the last. Semi-synthetic opiates such as heroin mainly activate mu opioid receptors in the central nervous system (Koob, Sanna, and Bloom 1998).
As a rule, mental health workers are familiar with an integrative understanding of addiction, and would not recommend a treatment intervention based on biological information alone. However the rapid developments in neuroscience are moving bio-psychiatry away from the mind, and towards actions in the brain. Mind once was the place of mediation between person and situation, between the biological and the social. How these advances will impact the ethical relationship between our brains and our selves in addiction, is yet to be seen. There are so many different theories about addiction because they focus on various pieces of the puzzle.
It’s a bit like trying to fix a leaky roof with duct tape – it might seem to work in the short sober house term, but it’s not addressing the real problem. Dopamine, the rock star of neurotransmitters, takes center stage in addiction’s neurobiological concert. ” When we engage in pleasurable activities – eating chocolate, falling in love, or unfortunately, using addictive substances – dopamine levels surge. Over time, the brain can become like a toddler throwing a tantrum, demanding more and more dopamine to feel satisfied.
