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Understanding Addiction as a Disease

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it's important to understand that everyone in the world has addictions or rather natural addictions the things that are good like food water and sleep these natural actions are important for our health and survival and without them we would not hunger or crave the things we need to survive now we aren't exactly born with these natural addictions our body creates them let's look in an example when you bite into an app your brain says yum your brain recognizes that this apple is good for you it has nutrition vitamins and gives your body the energy it needs to survive whenever the brain recognizes something that's good it releases a chemical called dopamine dopamine causes you to experience pleasure it's what makes you feel good like when biting into an apple the brain releases dopamine in order to teach the body that this is healthy and good for your survival and that it should remember to do it again now there are others yes we do that can release the pleasurable deal to me like playing video games exercising or reading a good book however the amount of dopamine released during these activities is less than what's released when we eat food to bring does this so it can recognize which is important so if you go two days without reading a book or two days without eating food your body is going to Crave the food over the book as such your brain creates what's called a hierarchy of survival which ranked important each of these things is to your survival now there are some things that will not cause the release of Delta me like eating soap or punching yourself in the face the brain knows that these things are not good and therefore does not release the pleasurable deal to me because your brain does not want you to do it again now let's look at alcohol marijuana tobacco and Other Drugs these are all classified carcinogens proven to cause cancer in other fatal diseases not your brain should recognize that these things are harmful to your body however these substances have special chemical characteristics that fool the brain into releasing dopamine often times in much greater amounts than the body has ever experienced before because of this the body is fooled into thinking that these things are good and important sometimes even more important than food asleep and consequently hijack the number one spot in your survival hierarchy so now if you go two days without eating or two days without drinking alcohol your body will actually crave the alcohol over the food this is an extreme case addiction where the person addicted believes that they will die if they don't get it the severity of the addiction depends on where the alcohol or drug lies within your hierarchy of survival and can increase even with casual use research shows that people under the age of 21 are at the highest risk of having their survival hierarchy hijack why because their brains are still growing and developing and are hypersensitive to false shocks of dopamine caused by these harmful substances by 21 the brain is more full developed and mature and the survival hierarchy becomes more permanent and less susceptible to getting hijack the flip side is that once you are 21 it becomes very difficult to remove these harmful substances from your survival hierarchy 10 people who currently struggle with addiction started drinking smoking or using before the age of 21 understanding addiction as a preventable disease can help save millions of Lies the decision to wait until 21 could mean the difference between life enslaved by addiction or a life full of success and accomplishment want to learn more visit us at week 21. Org

Uploaded by Terry Smith.

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Understanding Addiction as a Disease

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