Why addiction is a desire, not a disease
The trend in modern medicine and psychology is to label addiction a brain disease, because of the way brains change with drug use. But in The Biology of Desire, neuroscientist and former addict Marc Lewis argues that the disease model is one that is dis-empowering; recovered addicts almost never refer to themselves as being in “remission”. He says the brain changes associated with addiction are in fact a normal response, fueled by the brain’s focus on objects of desire, and that this brain response is what makes destructive habits so hard to break. But the role of desire also gives us hope – that when it’s strong enough, new habits and new neural pathways can be formed. Pathways that help recover from addiction.
The Biology of Desire
Memoirs of an Addicted Brain