How Addiction Affects The Brain

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Addiction is the dependency of a particular item or substance. In other words the nervous system gets dependent on the substance, creating a psychological need for it. People can be addicted to drugs, alcohol and just about anything. It is considered a disease that starts within the brain and affects your whole body and everyday life. Millions of people are affected every single day because of drug abuse and addiction with that number growing. 30 million people just in 2014.
There are many factors that are involved in an individual's biology when it comes to drugs. Specifically the biology of the brain. An example of how one may become addicted would be it runs in the family and passed on. Secondly, children are born already addicted to drugs because of their mother. …show more content…

Starting with the brain, specifically the brainstem and the cerebral cortex are affected. Over time the part of the brain that is responsible for judgements, memories, decisions, and learning starts to physically change and rewire. Some brain cells also die over time and do not ever regrow. When the drug abuser decides to quit, their brain will not just go back to normal. Since the brain is changed it makes it hard to stay sober, since they get cravings resulting in relapse.
When families do drugs for generations it’s almost as if they’re passing it down through their genes and DNA. People like to think if the people they love can do this, it must be okay for me to do so as well. For the most part people are curious about drugs, and that it the main reason why they are used. Sometimes people just like the way they feel and other times they're used to not feel at all. Point being is that sometimes all it takes is trying drugs one time to crave it leading to

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