Redefining Addiction I. Making Addiction a Scientifically and Socially Useful Concept

Abstract

Addiction is both a more complex-and a more common-phenomenon than either medical personnel or laymen have realized. It is impossible to link addiction as a medical syndrome to any one drug or family of drugs, or to trace it to a specific biological mechanism. As scientists have uncovered more data leading to these conclusions, they have turned away from employing the term “addiction.” Yet many drug researchers and workers in the helping professions continue to make incorrect assumptions about both addiction and drug use. In this paper the author attempts to broaden the applicability of the addiction concept in order to give it meaning. With this broader approach, we find that many involvements that people become engaged in follow the pattern of addiction, while some involvements with supposedly addictive drugs do not follow this pattern. The addiction cycle is explored by means of the following psychological definition: An addiction is any compulsive activity or involvement which decreases a person's ability to deal with other aspects of his life to the point where that activity or involvement comprises the dominant source of emotional reinforcement and identity for the person.