WHAT IS ADDICTION?

 In simple words, an addiction is something which is hard to control or stop. But it's more complicated than we think and although scientist are doing a lot of experiments they haven't yet figured it out completely. But the strange thing is even addicted people doesn't know what's happening to them. They start taking drugs initially just because it was pleasurable, but later it turn out to be no more pleasurable but still they can't stop themselves from having it. 

Today, most experts recognize two types of addiction:

• Chemical addiction. This refers to addiction that involves the use of substances.
• Behavioral addiction. This refers to addiction that involves compulsive behaviors. These are persistent, repeated behaviors that you carry out even if they don’t offer any real benefit.

DOES ADDICTION AFFECT YOUR BRAIN?

Our brains  is a very complex organ and it's very difficult to figure out exactly what's happening inside the brain of a addict. But scientist's have found out that all those drugs or stimuli that cause addiction increases the dopamine level in the brain's reward region that activates them. Dopamine is a hormone and a neurotransmitter that the brain releases when we eat food that we crave or while we have sex, contributing to feelings of pleasure and satisfaction as part of the reward system. Rewards is a brilliant solution to ensure that we will do behavior that are indispensable to survival of our species. The brain of addicted individuals have a reduction in dopamine D2 receptors, that regulate the function of frontal areas our brain that allows us to exert self control. Which explains why an addicted person is vulnerable to impulsive and compulsive drug consumption and how the drug turns to be less pleasurable later. 

THE RAT PARK EXPERIMENT.....

In the 1970s, Bruce K Alexander performed an experiment called the “Rat Park" experiment. Researchers had already proved that when rats were placed in a cage, all alone, with no other community of rats, and offered two water bottles-one filled with water and the other with heroin, the rats would repetitively drink from the drug-laced bottles until they all overdosed and died. Alexander hypothesized that this result may be exacerbated by loneliness .To test his hypothesis, he put rats in “rat parks,” where they were among others and free to roam to play and to socialize. And they were given the same access to the same two types of drug laced bottles. When inhabiting a “rat park,” they remarkably preferred the plain water. Even when they did imbibe from the drug-filled bottle, they did so intermittently, not obsessively, and never overdosed and didn't die. A social community beat the power of drugs. A similar experiment was did on humans and they got the same result.

HOW TO PREVENT IT ?....
GOOD & HEALTHY  SOCIAL RELATIONS IS THE ANSWER

Bruce K Alexander who performed this experiment says that instead of speaking about individual recovery from addiction we should should speak about societal recovery. We live in a culture with increasing vulnerability to all sorts of addiction. On the other side, with digital connection increasingly replacing face-to-face human interaction, loneliness is spreading round the world like a virus. Most of us have hundreds of Facebook friends or Twitter followers but we lack that flesh and blood friend who can be with us at the time of a crisis, this makes us more prone to get addicted. And the treatment or way to prevent addiction is having such strong and healthy relationships in our life. We should change the perspective in which we look an addicted person, rather than criticizing them, try to talk with them, make them feel that we care about them, we love them and that they are not alone.