Addiction, or Substance Use Disorder (SUD), is a pattern of repeated misuse of substances—often alcohol or drugs—that leads to a loss of control. Approximately 21 million Americans currently struggle with addiction to alcohol, opioids, marijuana, or other substances. While some of these substances are legal and easily accessible, addiction can have serious, long-term effects on health, relationships, and overall quality of life. If allowed to continue, addiction can be disastrous.
Fortunately, addiction is treatable. Research-based methods can help individuals overcome substance use, regain control, and build healthy, fulfilling lives.
Please provide your information below to download two separate complimentary guides from Dr. Chen:
The Alcohol Addiction Guide and the Drug Addiction Guide.
Key points
- Addiction is the regular compulsive urge to use a substance or engage in an unhealthy behavior over which you have no control
- Addictions can develop to substances that are legal (such as alcohol or prescription medications) or illicit.
- Substance use disorders carry serious negative long-term consequences to your health, relationships, and quality of life.
- Professional help can be invaluable in recovering from a substance use disorder.
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Overview
Addiction is a powerful and uncontrollable need to use substances or engage in harmful activities, often to an extent far beyond what is considered normal or healthy. Substance Use Disorder specifically refers to an addiction to alcohol or drugs, characterized by excessive and compulsive consumption despite the negative consequences.
Addiction often leads to a loss of control over one’s actions, persisting even with the awareness of harm to oneself or others. Typically, addiction gradually takes hold as individuals repeatedly seek out substances or behaviors—like alcohol, illicit drugs, sex, gambling, compulsive gaming, or excessive internet use—for their immediate pleasure or as a means to escape discomfort. This cycle, once established, becomes increasingly difficult to break.
The journey into addiction typically starts innocuously, with initial exposure to the addictive substance or activity occurring in a casual, seemingly harmless way. However, without intervention, what starts as occasional use can quickly escalate into a relentless cycle of addiction. This progression leads to a state where both physical and mental control over the use of the substance or engagement in the activity is lost, rendering the addicted individual a prisoner, often with devastating consequences.
Symptoms
Rather than externally visible signs, the symptoms of addiction focus primarily on how the addiction affects your life. For example, having a lack of control and an inability to stop the addictive behavior, even when you know it’s causing harm to yourself or those around you.
Another hallmark of addiction is the overwhelming craving for the addictive substance, which becomes the main driver of one’s actions, often leading to risky, irresponsible, or even criminal behavior due to the compulsion to obtain it. Additionally, individuals typically experience greater tolerance over time, requiring increasing amounts of the addictive substances to achieve the same effects and, in many cases, even to feel normal.
Unfortunately, addiction has long-term consequences for your physical and mental health, your ability to succeed professionally, your ability to maintain healthy relationships, and your ability to fully enjoy life. Even when you recognize this and really try to quit, the withdrawal symptoms might be too unbearable to endure, driving you to again use the very substance you so badly want to quit.
Causes
Addiction often arises from a complex interaction of genetic, psychological, environmental, and social influences. It can develop as a way to cope with prolonged stress, trauma, anxiety, or other life challenges. For many, learning healthier coping strategies becomes a vital part of the recovery journey.
Risk factors
It’s difficult to explain why one person develops an addiction and someone else in very similar circumstances doesn’t. Practically speaking, someone who doesn’t have any risk factors for addiction can still develop an addiction, while someone who has several risk factors for addiction might not.
This said, there are risk factors that increase your statistical likelihood of developing an addiction:
- Biological/genetic: If you have a family history of addiction, you’re approximately twice as likely to develop an addiction yourself. Besides environmental factors, which often occur concurrently with addiction, research now confirms that there’s a genetic predisposition involving a mutation in the COMT gene (responsible for dopamine regulation), which makes some people more likely than others to develop an addiction.
- Age of exposure: The brain only fully develops in the mid-twenties. Earlier exposure to addictive substances biologically increases your likelihood of developing an addiction.
- Trauma: Exposure to violence, prolonged poverty, trauma, and severe stress all dramatically increase your likelihood of developing an addiction.
- Membership in a minority group: Identifying as LGBTQI or another minority group that is marginalized or discriminated against.
- Co-occurring mental health difficulties: Depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder often occur alongside addiction. Substance abuse tends to exacerbate any preexisting mental health challenges, and mental illness tends to feed substance abuse. “Dual diagnosis” is a technical term that means you have both a mental health disorder and a substance use disorder (SUD) simultaneously.
Diagnosis
To diagnose addiction, your healthcare provider will usually do both a physical and psychological evaluation of your health, behavior, and lifestyle. You may be referred to a substance use clinic, addiction psychologist, or another mental health service provider who specializes in Substance Use Disorder. Your provider may request blood or urine tests to aid in diagnosis and to check for any underlying health conditions that may have arisen alongside, or as a result of, substance use.Treatment
Depending on the nature and severity of your addiction, and your preferences, treatment may include:
- Rehabilitation in a residential community or at home in an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP).
- A sober living house can be a step between rehabilitation and full independence.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or other talk therapies.
- Referral to a peer addiction support group (Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, or other 12-step groups).
- Medication.
- Naltrexone, disulfiram, and acamprosate are medications often used to support recovery from alcohol abuse.
- Buprenorphine, extended-release Naltrexone, and Lofexidine may be prescribed to support recovery from addictions to opioids.
Although it can feel daunting to admit that you have an addiction and to ask for help, it’s important to remember that services are available. You may find it easier to enlist the help and support of a close friend or relative to accompany you to appointments and be available to you for emotional and practical support when you need it. You don’t have to do this alone.
Please provide your information below to download two separate complimentary guides from Dr. Chen:
The Alcohol Addiction Guide and the Drug Addiction Guide.
Reach out today
Admitting that you need help and seeking therapy for substance use disorder and other addictions is a courageous decision. It’s the first step towards healing addiction, reclaiming control over your life, and rebuilding your relationships. Dr. Chen has the experience, knowledge, tools, and understanding to help you overcome addiction and lead a healthier, more fulfilling life.
In-person therapy is available in Salt Lake City and Draper, and online therapy is available for all residents of Utah. If you have any questions or would like to schedule your free consultation, please reach out today. You don’t have to face this alone.
Related information and references
Chen, S., Yang, P., Chen, T., Su, H., Jiang, H., & Zhao, M. (2020). Risky decision-making in individuals with substance use disorder: A meta-analysis and meta-regression review. Psychopharmacology, 237, 1893 – 1908.
Lovallo, W. R., Cohoon, A. J., Sorocco, K. H., Vincent, A. S., Acheson, A., Hodgkinson, C. A., & Goldman, D. (2019). Early‐life adversity and blunted stress reactivity as predictors of alcohol and drug use in persons with COMT (rs4680) Val158Met genotypes. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 43(7), 1519-1527.
NIDA. 2022, March 22. Treatment and Recovery. Retrieved from https://nida.nih.gov/publications/drugs-brains-behavior-science-addiction/treatment-recovery on February 16, 2023.