Medical professionals agree that drug addiction is a significant, genuine brain disorder.   (This, after years of misconceptions about drug and alcohol abuse and one’s “personal weaknesses”).  But how, exactly, do drugs and drug addiction impact your brain?   Read on to learn more about how heroin addiction, Vicodin addiction and many other drug problems trick your brain into behaving in unwanted ways.

How Does Your Brain Develop a Drug Addiction?

Drugs activate the same circuits in your brain that are linked to essential behaviors such as survival, sex, love, hunger and bonding.  Certain drugs increase the release of a vital brain chemical known as dopamine that fuels these areas — thus resulting in an increase in pleasurable feelings.  The brain has a good memory – and wants to experience these feelings again and again.

Soon, as a result of this connection with your brain, drugs begin to take on great significance in the life of an addict.  To the brain, the need to consume more and more drugs becomes more important than any other need, including those required for survival such as eating.  At this point, drugs are no longer about feeling pleasure, but rather avoiding pain.

When a drug addiction is in full swing, the drug is all that matters.   The brain shuts down personal choice and good decision making in the name of drug consumption.  Families, careers and other important elements of life are consequently left behind as a result.

How Does the Brain Change During Drug Addiction?

The brain relies on the body’s ability to release dopamine so that the individual can experience pleasure and respond positively to the environment.  Drugs of addiction and abuse cause large amounts of dopamine to be released very quickly.  This tricks the body into thinking that it does not need to release dopamine naturally.  When the drug is not present, this disruption causes great discomfort and the inability to feel anything pleasurable at all.

Drugs also alter the regions of the brain that control an individual’s decision making ability and judgment.  Addiction causes problems with controlling our emotions and desires.  This lack of control leads to compulsive behavior.  And since the only thing the individual desires is the drug, they will pursue these substances alone, with reckless disregard for their own safety or well-being.

What this all proves is that drug addiction strikes individuals without regard for their “will power” or the quality of their character.  What makes drug addiction such an insidious disease is that goes straight for those areas that control the ability to think logically and with reason.  This creates a vicious cycle that worsens quickly without professional help.

How Drug Rehab Helps Control the Problem

By helping an individual stop using drugs, addiction treatment programs give the brain and the body a chance to heal.  This allows dopamine release levels to return to normal and good judgment to return.  Without professional help, the individual is too much at risk for relapse, which can cause the entire cycle to begin again.   The psychological and physical components of rehab help the individual get sober and stable- and learn how to stay that way.