Education

When one person is overcome by drug abuse and addiction, the burden is shared by millions. Chronic drug use not only harms people’s livelihoods and loved ones, it also adversely affects the economic, social, and professional well-being of the world’s citizens.

 Addiction as a Brain Disorder Drug abuse and addiction has been classified as a drug use disorder — a mental disorder — by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the standard used by medical professionals. That drug abuse is a brain disorder may come as a surprise to some.

              Addiction is at times mistakenly viewed as a character flaw or a lack of resolve; but studies of the brain show drug addiction is a disease. The hallmarks of drug abuse — compulsion, tolerance, and withdrawal — are caused by chemical changes in key brain areas.

 Drug use disorders often coexist with other mental disorders. When two or more disorders or illnesses are present in the same body, the condition is called “comorbidity.” Often, these conditions exacerbate one another.
          Data collected by the National Institute on Drug Abuse show people diagnosed with mood disorders are twice as likely to abuse or be dependent upon drugs. In fact, the brain areas changed by drug abuse are the same ones disruptedby depression, anxiety, or schizophrenia. Symptoms also overlap. For medical professionals, deciding whether a behavior is due to drug dependence or another mental disorder is tricky, and diagnosis and treatment are challenging.