Why is Addiction a Mental Disorder

Addiction impacts your physical, emotional and spiritual health, but why is addiction a mental disorder? To better understand why is addiction a mental disorder, it is important to understand how addiction to drugs and alcohol impacts and changes your brain.

Drugs and alcohol create feelings of happiness, contentedness, and euphoria by increasing the number of neurotransmitters released by your brain. Dopamine is released in excess when you use drugs or alcohol, but after long term use, your brain and body become dependent on your substance of choice. Dopamine is your brain’s reward center, so when you use drugs and alcohol, which releases increased dopamine, your brain associates the substance with pleasure.

Why is Addiction a Mental Disorder?

So, why is addiction a mental disorder? Since substances like drugs and alcohol can release dopamine and lead to your brain associating drugs with pleasure and rewards, your brain chemistry changes when using drugs.

Drugs and alcohol can release 2 to 10 times as much dopamine as natural substances which overwhelms and floods your brain with dopamine and other neurotransmitters. You brain learns that drug use results in increased dopamine and happiness. When your substance of choice becomes less effective as your tolerance builds, your brain continues to demand and crave your drug of choice because it has learned that the drug increases dopamine and euphoria.

Addiction also impacts mood, behavior, and emotions. The mental effects of addiction can create a variety of psychological and emotional problems, including:

• Increased depression
• Mood changes, such as increased anger
• Insomnia
• Poor decision making
• Difficulty concentrating and focusing
• Memory impairment and short-term memory problems

Addiction can also create a change in how you think and your ability to remember events. Since addiction impacts brain chemistry, it can impede your ability to make new memories or remember things from your past. Emotionally, addiction can significantly change your mood, such as your desire to socialize. Addiction can also increase your anxiety and worsen mental health conditions.

How Addiction is Treated

The best treatment for addiction addresses not only the physical aspects, such as withdrawal but also mental health. While addiction changes your brain chemistry, proper treatment can help support you as your brain begins to recover. It is important that addiction treatment focuses on helping restore your body and brain to proper health. Medical professionals help monitor your overall health to ensure that your treatment is effective.

Getting Help with Beaches Recovery

If you are wondering why is addiction a mental disorder, the best answer is because it can significantly alter and change brain chemistry. Addiction can impact the way you perceive things, your judgment, and emotions. Therefore, it is important to find the right addiction treatment that addresses your body and your mind. If you want to learn more about the best mental health disorder treatment Jacksonville FL offers, or want more information about addiction programs, call us today at 866.605.0532.