UNDERSTANDING ADDICTION

      Image by MK Studio

R

epeated and destructive episodes of drunkenness are conceptualized as a chronic, relapsing disease. Addiction is a chronic primary progressive disease and a person addicted to alcohol/drugs should be regarded as a sick person, just as one who is suffering from tuberculosis, cancer, heart disease, or other serious chronic disorders.

In today’s world, there is a growing recognition that managing severe and persistent alcohol and other drugs problems through single or serial episodes of acute treatment is clinically ineffective and constitutes poor stewardship of individual, family, and community resources.

Research conducted at the University of California's Drug Abuse Research Center underscores several key points:

1.   A single, acute intervention rarely has sufficient effect to initiate a stable and enduring recovery in those with severe and persistent alcohol and other drug problems.
2. Multiple episodes of treatment may be viewed not as failures but as incremental steps in the developmental process of recovery.
3. Treatment episodes may have cumulative effects.

Addiction disorders are often chronic and relapsing in nature and have much in common with other chronic and new technologies of managing chronic disease should be adapted for addiction treatment.

Addiction- A Disease Perspective

Chronic disease’s symptoms and severity ebb and flow over an extended period. Such diseases are often characterized by periods of remission and relapse of varying duration over an extended period of one’s life.

Chronic disease is viewed as a defect in who you are, the challenge is to manage the disease without turning a person into a thing and contributing to the social stigma associated with the condition. Problematic alcohol and other drug use may be just as problematic. Alcoholism/addiction exists within a larger arena of persons who experience alcohol and drug-related problems.

The Etiology of Chronic Disease

Addiction disease emerges and intensifies through the interaction of multiple factors, such as the potency of the infectious agent (the drug), the biological and developmental vulnerability of the host; and the physical, political, economic, and social/cultural environment in which the person-drug relationship occurs.

Chronic diseases are lifestyle diseases characterized by risk factors related to factors such as daily diet, work habits, frequency and type of exercise, sleep patterns, medication compliance, style of stress management, exposure to environmental toxins, drug use, etc. They can have either a sudden onset or, a gradual onset, and the priming process varies by many factors, including the age of exposure. With addiction, the lower the age of onset of regular use, the greater the potential for addictive disease and the greater the severity of the disease.

Disease Course and Variability

Chronic diseases exhibit a high degree of variability in the pattern of onset, life trajectory, intensity, and outcome. Chronic diseases may present as progressive, constant, or with alternating cycles of symptom remission and symptom reactivation. Most chronic diseases are also subject to spontaneous remission, auto remission, natural recovery, and maturing out or self-cure.

Chronic addiction disease also varies widely in their degree of incapacitation and the speed and timing of the incapacitation. Addiction varies in physiological severity, function, and burden of illness to the individual, family, and society.

Disease Co-Existence and Interaction

Just as chronic diseases heighten vulnerability for other acute and chronic diseases, alcoholism and other addictions invite other diseases that debilitate and threaten premature death. Acute and chronic diseases interact in ways that amplify their combined intensity and duration and the costs incurred in their management. The longer the period of addiction, the higher the risk of addiction-related tissue damage, e.g., cancer, emphysema, liver diseases, behavioral problems or death via accident/violence, infectious diseases (e.g., HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis), and co-occurring mental illnesses.

All programs serving individuals with severe and persistent alcohol and other drugs disorders must be dual and multiple disorder programs that serve the whole person/family through integrated models of care.

Effects of Addiction to the Family Homeostasis

A family’s capacity for adaptation changes across the family life cycle. The style of adaptation to an addiction of a family member disrupts the family rituals realigning family roles, and by altering the allocation of family resources, impact the health and development of all family members, as well as the health of adult intimate relationships and parent-child relationships. This calls for proper interventions for both the person addicted to drugs as well as the family members.

All is not lost though, Faraja Fountain is here to help you, whether you are caught in the cycle of addiction or you’re having concerns about your loved one’s use, we can help!

Contact us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FarajaFCS