Many people view drug abuse and addiction as strictly a social problem. Parents, teens, older adults, and other members of the community tend to characterize people who take drugs as morally weak or as having criminal tendencies. They believe that drug abusers and addicts should be able to stop taking drugs if they are willing to change their behavior.

These myths have not only stereotyped those with drug-related problems, but also their families, their communities, and the health care professionals who work with them. Drug abuse and addiction comprise a public health problem that affects many people and has wide-ranging social consequences. It is NIDA’s goal to help the public replace its myths and long-held mistaken beliefs about drug abuse and addiction with scientific evidence that addiction is a chronic, relapsing, and treatable disease.

Addiction does begin with drug abuse when an individual makes a conscious choice to use drugs, but addiction is not just “a lot of drug use.” Recent scientific research provides overwhelming evidence that not only do drugs interfere with normal brain functioning creating powerful feelings of pleasure, but they also have long-term effects on brain metabolism and activity. At some point, changes occur in the brain that can turn drug abuse into addiction, a chronic, relapsing illness. Those addicted to drugs suffer from a compulsive drug craving and usage and cannot quit by themselves. Treatment is necessary to end this compulsive behavior.

A variety of approaches are used in treatment programs to help patients deal with these cravings and possibly avoid drug relapse. NIDA research shows that addiction is clearly treatable. Through treatment that is tailored to individual needs, patients can learn to control their condition and live relatively normal lives.

drug rehab treatment can have a profound effect not only on drug abusers, but on society as a whole by significantly improving social and psychological functioning, decreasing related criminality and violence, and reducing the spread of AIDS. It can also dramatically reduce the costs to society of drug abuse.

Understanding drug abuse also helps in understanding how to prevent use in the first place. Results from NIDA-funded prevention research have shown that comprehensive prevention programs that involve the family, schools, communities, and the media are effective in reducing drug abuse. It is necessary to keep sending the message that it is better to not start at all than to enter rehabilitation if addiction occurs.

A tremendous opportunity exists to effectively change the ways in which the public understands drug abuse and addiction because of the wealth of scientific data. Overcoming misconceptions and replacing ideology with scientific knowledge is the best hope for bridging the “great disconnect” - the gap between the public perception of drug abuse and addiction and the scientific facts.

The way of dealing with the addictions has been changed when Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith founded Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935. This happened some forty years before the term “substance abuse” was even coined, and they did it in the solid belief that those suffering from addiction cannot improve on their own. Drug addiction recovery, in their philosophy, demands that a very personal, painful failing cannot be eradicated until it has been brought into public view. The Twelve Step Program which is the foundation of AA has now become the foundation of thousands of drug addiction recovery programs which treat dependency on every sort of drug, from prescription medications to speed, heroin, nicotine, and cocaine.The AA program, and drug addiction recovery based on it, require that addicts admit their helplessness in the face of their addictions and that there is a higher power on whom, or which, they rely to help them struggle against their addiction and to forgive them for the harm it has caused. Twelve Step Alternatives For those addicts who have little religious sentiment, however, this approach to drug addiction recovery can be discouraging. Some addicts believe that a physical and emotional addiction requires physical and emotional, but not spiritual, intervention. Another approach taken by some drug addiction recovery programs it to bring their patients, through a period of intensive counseling, to the understanding that having become an addict in no way diminishes their value as human beings.

Approaches to Drug Addiction Recovery

This approach will work as long as the addicts have family and friends ready to embrace them when they finish their drug addiction recovery process, and to give them the support they need to stay off the drugs and rebuild their lives. It also demands that the addicts be ready to walk away from the destructive friendships which led them into addiction, but getting to that point can be the most frightening part of their drug addiction recovery. Being able to say no to relationships base solely on mutual substance abuse, however, is essential if they hope to stay off drugs for good. Behavior Modification Behavior modification is also a big part of many drug addiction recovery programs. Behavior modification allows the addicts to understand that their addictions are not only physical but emotional, and that their drug use was driven by an emotional pain before it led to physical dependency. Addicts must start their journey of recovery first to the place where they want to stop and finally to the place where they will find the idea of not using it again as addiction is entrenched in attitudes and emotions.