factors attributing to people’s addiction

 factors attributing to people’s addiction

Addiction refers to the use of substance or engagement in behaviour with the rewarding effects that provide a forced incentive that creates a repetition of the activity regardless of its negative consequences. Addition involves the use of drugs or behaviours, such as gambling. Disorders resulting from substance use and gambling are complicated conditions that lead to the affection of rewards, reinforcement motivation and the brain’s memory system. With addiction, there is impaired control over usage and abnormal usage. Addicted individuals will continue persuing an activity despite the physical or psychological harm it causes them. An individual’s tolerance to an addicted substance increases with the adaptation of the body to its presence. Addiction is a multi-faced that may happen from the confluence of biological, psychological and environmental factors.

The biological factors attributed to people’s addiction include genes, physiological factors and gender. Despite the variation in the estimations by scientists, genetic factors have been found to contribute to nearly half of the risk to the development of substance used disorder. There is a variation in the vulnerability of the genes involved in the determination of the make-up of the brain receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine. The nature of an individual’s response to stress also presents a gene factor that variation in the risk for development of an addiction disorder. Physiological factors such as the variation of the enzymes in the liver that are involved in substance metabolism also influence a person’s risk of becoming an addict. In terms of gender, males are more vulnerable to the development of behaviour and substance use disorder compared to females. However, the gap is narrower alcohol use disorder; females tend to be more susceptible to intoxication effects even with lower doses of alcohol.

Personality factors such as impulsivity and seeking of sensation play a part in the development of behaviour and substance use disorders. Impulsivity particularly relates to the relapse risk. At times, a person may be exposed to trauma and abuse. The early exposure to certain unfavourable conditions may lead to the addiction by the affection of the individuals’ ability to cope with issues. The adverse conditions tend to sensitize the brain pathways that control alarm and distress or even increase the burden of stress to the person. Health professional have agreed that mental health care factors such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD) may elevate the risk of developing a disorder in substance use. The difficulties in the management of such strong feelings have led people to linkage in behaviour and substance use as they tend to work towards solving their issues.

Strong family relationships create protection against behaviour and substance use, while complications in family functioning have adverse risks to the risk of addiction. A close family relative with an addictive disorder as well as lack support from parents or guardians increases of a person falling into drug addiction. Quite a good number of patients have opened to have started drug use to secure a company as they felt neglected by their families. However, it turned that their seek for the company is what made them develop a substance use disorder. A troubled parent-child relationship, family disruptions such as divorce and domestic violence, sexual and emotional abuse are a risk to the development of substance use disorder. Both marriage and the responsibilities of raising children are determinant in the risk of developing addiction as research shows.

A person will tend to consumer irresponsibly what is easily accessible to him or her. In the case of addiction, easy accessibility to the abused drugs, especially at home, school or even at the community level leads to an ease in the repetitive use of drugs resulting in addiction. The issue of peer influence also occurs. Man is psychologically understood as a social animal that is influenced as he influences their peers. The influence is created while seeking to be liked by the peers and involves copying behaviour, especially at the adolescence stage. While positive relations protect a person against substance use, negative behaviour from addicted peers adds to the risk of developing the risk of behaviour and substance use. Moreover, an employment status with a job with the necessary skills that guarantee employment at all-time creates an element of satisfaction due to financial stability. Normally people will be pushed towards psychological rewards and satisfaction while they are financially stable. However, at times, as a person tries to satisfy his psychological needs through an initially limited behaviour or substance use, a case of addiction may override the control.

Conclusion

The neurochemistry of chronic drug use shows that substance use and dependence is regulated by the key pathways in the brain that administer the normal functioning of the brain balance through its neurotransmitter. The different theories put forward by scientists have proved that behaviour and substance use disorder is a complicated issue that results from multiple factors. However, different theories remain unintegrated to become a solid, comprehensive model that can be used to explain addiction. Consequently, addiction is a complex issue that should be understood from an individual perspective since what makes one person addicted may be totally different from what creates addiction in another person. While handling addiction, all models that explain the causes of addiction should be assessed thoroughly to sufficiently understand an individuals case of addiction.