How Addiction Affects the Brain

Addiction to drugs or alcohol is a particularly tricky disease to overcome. Not only does it cause a host of physical effects on the user but how addiction affects the brain is what makes it so destructive. When someone takes a substance such as drugs or alcohol they are altering the chemical composition of the brain. While the brain’s chemistry does fluctuate naturally, taking drugs floods the mind with chemicals in an unnatural way. Our brains are very precise and complex organs, and chemical imbalances can come with devastating results.

How Addiction Affects the Brain: Neurotransmitters

To understand how our brains function during addiction you must first understand how a normal, healthy brain operates. The primary system that spawns an addiction is the reward system of the brain. In a healthy brain, the reward system will release feel-good neurotransmitters when you do something beneficial such as exercise, eat, or spend time with loved ones.

An addictive chemical can hijack this reward system. It can flood your brain with up to 10 times the natural level of neurotransmitters like dopamine. Essentially, there is no other way to reproduce this rush than to take drugs. From the very first usage, an addictive substance can begin to rewire your brain to want more of it. Continued use creates a severe chemical imbalance in your brain, only worsening your addiction.

The Nucleus Accumbens

The nucleus accumbens is a crucial portion of the brain’s reward system. It is the brain’s pleasure center. Specifically, it reacts with both dopamine and serotonin. Drugs over stimulate this system which produces the intense highs associated with them. This portion of the brain also causes the desire to seek out drugs.

The Hippocampus

The hippocampus is the memory center of the brain. When someone is experiencing addiction, the hippocampus can change in ways that help to facilitate the addiction. The hippocampus and its association with memory lead to many location-based and environmentally induced cravings. How addiction affects the brain and the hippocampus, specifically, is by fundamentally altering it to associate certain places with getting high.

The Amygdala

The amygdala is responsible for much of the emotional regulation of the brain including stress and anxiety. Drug use changes this area of the brain and lowers its effectiveness. Therefore, the absence of the abused substance causes it to begin to produce the anxiety and discomfort that early symptoms of drug withdrawal.

The Prefrontal Cortex

The prefrontal cortex is one of the most critical parts of the human brain. It controls our decision-making processes. It is how we think and solves problems. It’s also associated with self-control. When it affected by addiction, the user is unable to choose to stop taking the drug even if they are acutely aware of the dangers of overdose and withdrawal symptoms.

Addiction, A Disease of the Brain

As you can see, there are very few areas of the brain that addiction does not affect to some degree. It is like a parasite that can rewire our brain to ensure that we are focused solely on the drug we take. More important than how addiction affects the brain, is how you can beat it. Beaches Recovery offers several drug-specific addiction treatment programs. Therefore, no matter what substance you may be struggling with we can help.

Call Beaches Recovery today at 866.605.0532 to learn more about how we can help. Together, we can return your mind and body to their ultimate health. Call us today!

Sources:

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugs-brains-behavior-science-addiction/drugs-brain
http://www.silverridgerecovery.com/documents/ebooks/silverridgerecovery.com_how_addiction_affects_the_brain_the_neuroscience_of_compulsive_behavior.pdf
https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2015/10/biology-addiction