Is Addiction Simple?

We think addiction is simple. Scientist believe that they understand it inside and out. Do they? Countless studies have shown us how drugs hook us physiologically and psychologically. Anyone is susceptible to addiction, whether you are rich, poor, young, or old. Addiction has no favorites.

“Addiction is a great equal-opportunity malady. It takes one and all regardless of class, creed, distinction…” says Lain, 16 years clean of heroin.

2.5 million Americans served in the Vietnam war, and 20% of them used heroin daily. However, when the soldiers returned home, 96% of them immediately ceased their use of the drug. They stopped using without any rehab, or medicine, a feat that is impossible in addicts today. How were people able to do this?

To understand this phenomenon, we need to understand the drug and go back to some of the first studies of drug abuse. Heroin is one of the most lethal and addictive drugs on the market. This killer can strike as soon as it enters your body or the chronic effects will catch up to you after long term usage.

Biological Picture

Picture this, in your brain you have a pathway of neurons all lined up that are responsible for making you feel happy. This is called your reward pathway and the happiness that you feel is due to the neurotransmitter they release, dopamine. Whenever something good happens, those little neurons go firing away, dumping loads of dopamine into the brain, making you feel great.

However, when the need for dopamine ceases, something has to stop those neurons from firing. This very important job is left to inhibitory neurotransmitters, which block the flow of dopamine. Once you are happy again, your brain has to release a natural psychoactive compound called an opiate in order to restart the flow of dopamine into the brain.

This is the beautiful chain reaction that allows people to feel happy. However, this reaction can easily be manipulated. Drugs such as heroin mimic opiates. They block the inhibitory neurotransmitters, which causes the flow of dopamine to never be stopped. This causes an unregulated release of dopamine, giving the user a rush of euphoria.

Heroin chemically changes the brain. Due to chronic use of heroin, those happy neurotransmitters that release dopamine become depleted. The body no longer has the resources necessary to make addicts feel good about going for a run, eating, meeting new people, or just about anything.

This leads to serious adverse effects. Users have a hard time enjoying any part of life and the only way to feel happy is through heroin, which makes them dependent on the drug.

Is This Strictly Biological?

Now, onto the study that changed the way scientists viewed addiction. Imagine hundreds of cages all lined next up next to each other, all containing a rat and two liquid dispensers. One dispenser was filled with water, the other was filled with water laced with heroin.

As you would expect, as soon as the rat drank the heroin, they were immediately hooked. Just as humans do, they kept searching for that rush of euphoria until they died from overdose.

A scientist named Bruce Alexander noticed that the living conditions of these rats were unsuitable for any living organism.

The rats were all alone in the cages, had nothing fun to climb on, nothing to run on, and no one to mate with. The only thing that gave the rats happiness was the heroin. Nearly all the rats compulsively drank the heroin until they overdosed. Alexander decided to create a new environment for the rats. This glorious rat utopia would be called Rat Park.

Rat Park was a cardboard box, filled with things for rats to climb on, run on, play on, and, of course, ample room for sex. Alexander filled rat park with both male and female rats, as well as the two separate liquid dispensers. One for water and one for heroin.

Interestingly enough, in this environment, the rats never became addicted, never overdosed, and never even used the heroin compulsively. Instead, they mostly drank the water. Put simply, the rats did not need the heroin; they already had things that made them happy.

This is why the men serving in the war did not continue their addiction. When they were put in battle, it was as if they are in the tiny cage, with nothing to do but take the heroin. However, when they came home, it is as if they were placed into Rat Park. They were put back with their family, friends, and home that was safe, supportive, and loving. They no longer needed the drug.

Should We Integrate This Into Society?

Biology tells us this does not make sense; people can’t just decide they do not need the drug. The brain has already changed, and the dopamine is already depleted. Biology also tells us the rats in Rat Park should have also become addicted. The heroin should have had the same effect on the brain as it did when the rats were alone.

In both the returning veterans and in Rat Park scenarios, the biology never changed, but the social and cultural aspect did. Humans are social creatures; to decrease drug addiction we must improve the social aspect of life. We need to make life as if it was a Rat Park for the people whose lives are at stake from a needle, an empty bottle, or a canister of pills.

In today’s society, we isolate addicts. Throw them in literal cages and we turn our backs on them. Bruce Alexander has shown this is not how to beat addiction. To beat addiction, we must do it as a society. Together, we must make the life of addicts as safe, supportive, and loving as Rat Park.

As Bruce Alexander once said, “Of course, the historical perspective does not deny that differences in vulnerability are built into each individual’s genes, individual experience, and personal character, but it removes individual differences from the foreground of attention, because societal determinants are so much more powerful. Addiction is much more a social problem than an individual disorder.”

Why This Is Important

As humans, we are attracted to strict statistics. Numbers on paper speak to us much louder than a simple hunch or philosophy. It is this belief that makes it so hard to conceive that addiction is more than biology and that depression can not be cured by a pill. In a society of numbers and statistics, the information that exists only in abstract forms is tossed aside and not fully accounted for. Whether this is a flaw within in us, or a flaw within the society we have built, it will surely cloud how we view an entire scope of information for years to come.

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