addiction

The awareness of addictions is growing at an alarming rate in the United States. Many health care professionals are working overtime in treating people with disabling addictions. But within the mental health care profession, many are divided as to the arising issue and cause of addiction. Deaths caused by drug overdoses have risen drastically over the pass decade. Many health care and drug treatment professionals are working overtime in treating people with disabling addictions. Within the mental health care profession, many are divided as to the arising issue and cause of addiction. It is possible that an individual may be genetically susceptible to addiction; but it does not mean it is inevitable. While there is evidence that addiction can follow genetic paths in families, even where there is no interactions between generations of addicts, a person’s environment can have just as much of an influence on their addiction and behavior. Current research has found alarming relationships between both addiction and genetics, and addiction and environmental influences. Once a person begins using drugs, there are dramatic changes in brain chemistry and physiology, strengthening the cycle of addiction (White, 2002). As the cycle strengthens, the behavior affects the brain more. This is an extreme situation where free will and decision making are severely affected (White, 2002). Environment effects Examples of environmental influences include access to education, income levels and crime rates. These can all affect both when the addict begins using and the severity of usage. Although all of these can affect usage, no one area can specifically be blamed as the cause. For example, drug usage is not discriminative between users such as those in rural versus urban areas. This lies merely in the area’s drug of choice and the accessibility of drugs in these areas. These risk factors can be very difficult to isolate (NIDA InfoFacts, 2008) due to the fact that