26/02/2026
The word "addiction" is derived from a Latin term for "enslaved by" or "bound to." Anyone who has struggled to overcome an addiction — or has tried to help someone else to do so — understands why.
Addiction exerts a long and powerful influence on the brain that manifests in three distinct ways: craving for the object of addiction, loss of control over its use, and continuing involvement with it despite adverse consequences.
While overcoming addiction is possible, the process is often long, slow, and complicated. It took years for researchers and policymakers to arrive at this understanding.
In the 1930s, when researchers first began to investigate what caused addictive behavior, they believed that people who developed addictions were somehow morally flawed or lacking in willpower.
Overcoming addiction, they thought, involved punishment or, alternately, encouraging them to muster the will to break a habit.
The scientific consensus has changed since then. Today we recognize addiction as a chronic condition that changes both brain structure and function.
Just as cardiovascular disease damages the heart and diabetes impairs the pancreas, addiction hijacks the brain.
Recovery from addiction involves willpower, certainly, but it is not enough to "just say no" — as a famous 1980s slogan suggested.
Instead, people typically use multiple strategies — including psychotherapy, group therapy and self-care — as they try to break the grip of an addiction.
Another shift in thinking about addiction has occurred as well. For many years, experts believed that only alcohol and powerful drugs could cause addiction.
Neuroimaging technologies and more recent research, however, have shown that certain pleasurable activities, such as gambling, shopping, and s*x, can also co-opt the brain.
Although the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) describes multiple addictions, each tied to a specific substance or activity, consensus is emerging that these may represent multiple expressions of a common underlying brain process.
