Psychology

This psychology essay supports the notion that addiction is a sickness like any other commonly known disease. It is caused by both environmental and genetic factors on an individual. The essay states that just like in the case of other common diseases, nobody chooses to be an addict. Addiction thus shares several features with ordinary forms of illnesses and they both occur naturally. Like other known diseases, the disease of addiction is treatable but the process is gradual.

Introduction
Addiction is a real disease which is in most cases described as a lifelong illness involving environmental and biological sources of origin. Traditionally, addiction has only been related to drugs and other social evils. However, according to Scholastic, Inc  National Institute on Drug Abuse (2005), addiction is more complex and involves any persistent habit that one indulges with and cannot do without.

Addiction leads to a behavioral pattern which usually has distinct psychological andor physical dependency, which eventually causes a lot of disruption as well as impacting negatively on the victims quality of life. This condition is classified as a disease since the victim has no choice and he or she has to be hooked to it and requires medical assistance just like any other disease.

Addiction is a Disease
Traditional disease models demands that a condition, which is abnormal, has to be present to cause dysfunction, distress or discomfort, to the inflicted individual. But according to Clark (1999), contemporary medicine attributes any form of addiction, in component, to alterations in the mesolimbic pathway of the brain. Contemporary medicine also considers that addiction as a disease can result from any sociologic, psychologic or biologic entities although there is no complete comprehension of all the mechanisms involved in these entities resulting to addition as a disease.

Addiction as a sickness, like several other diseases such as diabetes and cancer, has a genetic predisposition that is believed to be a major factor. Environmental aspects are also believed to be major contributing factors that make addiction a disease that people suffer from (Peele, 1988). Clark, cites cases of twin and adoption studies, which indicate that even if twins get separated from the moment they are born, they have a greater concordance chance for suffering a disease that is addictive than would occur in absence of any genetic component among them. This indicates that twins, who get separated once they are born, have a lower probability of addictive disease concordance compared to twins who are not separated thus brought up in an identical environment.

Addiction, just like any other ordinary disease, affects both the behavior and the brain of an individual. Virtually all forms of addiction share several features with other forms of diseases such as propensity to recur in families, a course or onset which is highly influenced by both behavior and environmental conditions and also the capability of responding to suitable treatment. In fact, addiction is considered to be a chronic illness which is similar to other commonly known chronic diseases like cardiovascular, cancer and type II diabetes diseases. According to Scholastic, Inc  National Institute on Drug Abuse (2005), various human studies indicate that behaviors that are addictive have implicated clearly on both genetic and environmental influences and also complex interactions between genetic and environmental influences. While most genetic factors play a significant role in defining an individual, the environmental factors in which an individual is raised in are mostly influential.

There is no one who opts to be addicted to anything, in most cases people get used to certain behaviors without their knowledge, just as it occurs with any other common disease such as developing a heart disease. One might argue that it is an individual who chooses to be a drug addict because he is the one who starts abusing the drugs in the first place, but if such an argument is valid, one can also argue that the people who suffer from heart diseases chooses that form of suffering. This is because some heart diseases are known to be caused by the eating habits of an individual. However, the truth is that there is nobody who chooses to suffer from a heart disease and there is also nobody who opts to be an addict. The greater part of addiction and any other disease is a natural process, which the victim has no control over (Peele, 1988).

As it is possible to treat the common diseases using the right prescription, the disease of addiction is also treatable. Addiction mainly involves one getting hooked to a certain persistent behavior or habit, which he or she has no control over. Treating addiction thus involves assisting the addict victim to reduce his or her dependency on the addictive habit and finally doing away completely with the habit. Treating addiction thus mainly involves providing the addict patient with an alternative, which is capable of reducing the persistent habit. In virtually all cases of treating addiction, a gradual process is involved since it is not practically possible for the addict patient to do away with the habit that constituted his or her addiction (Henningfield, Santora  Bickel, 2007).

Conclusion
Addiction is a disease just like any other common disease it shares several features with the common chronic sickness. Like the other diseases, addiction is highly influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Addiction is considered to be a disease because just like the other common diseases, nobody chooses to be an addict of anything and mostly it occurs naturally. Addiction is a sickness which is treatable and its treatment mainly involves assisting the addict patient to be less dependent on the habit bringing about the addiction.