Go4rehab, Johannesburg

Addiction Addiction: A Neurological Disorder Addiction is a neurologically based disease. For many years’ recovery specialists have compared alcoholism or addictions to a physical disease: like diabetes. In reality addictions are more closely related to a neurological disorder like *Tourette’s syndrome than they are to diabetes. If the problems you suffer stem from severe alcoholism or addiction, you must accept that these problems are not primarily mental or free will issues. Addictions are not about will power. The problems facing addicts, alcoholics, and their families are miserable, disgusting, and infuriating. They are often hopelessly discouraging. But to imagine that an addict “could change if he wanted to” is a serious misunderstanding of the long-term dynamic of addictive disorder. The fact is precisely that an addict can't always change in the long run even if he wants to. That is the definition of addiction: “the loss of control over the use of a substance.” It is important to understand that this loss of control is manifested not in terms of days or weeks, but in longer term behaviors: terms of months and years. The reason addicts have lost control is because they have suffered permanent physical neurological changes based in their brains and nervous systems. The disorder manifests in long term obsessive-compulsive behaviors outside the realm of the addict’s own control. It is true enough that the use of chemicals begins with chosen behavior. But if alcoholism or addiction develops, the problem has moved outside the realm of free choice. It has developed into a long-term mental and physical neurological disorder. All the emotional ‘feelings’ involved in drug or alcohol seeking is based in neurology. Read more: www.go4rehab.com or call: 0027 (0) 21 433 1801 - 0027 (0)7960 44 249