Addiction to some is considered a choice not a disease. In reality addiction is in fact a disease, it’s a mental illness. Addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use, despite harmful consequences to the addicted individual. Addiction is also characterized by the inability to stop by choice. You essentially need a cure to be relieved of an extreme addiction. Choice has little to do with addiction. More than a million people per year try to quit smoking but only 15% succeed. If addiction was so easy at stopping than yes I would say it's a choice, but when someone is trying their hardest to stop something that is bad for them but can't overcome it, it cannot be considered a choice. It’s a disease that they need cured whether it's through medicine or therapy. Addiction has to be cured you don't just simply stop being addicted to something. Drug addiction follows a similar pattern to other chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes. The person may go into rehab, but may have several relapses before beating the disease entirely. And like these diseases, addiction too can be treated and managed or cured. Many …show more content…
Scientists have identified neural circuits that subsume the actions of every known drug of abuse, and they have specified common pathways that are affected by almost all such drugs. Researchers have also identified and cloned the major receptors for virtually every abusable drug, as well as the natural ligands for most of those receptors. In addition, they have elaborated many of the biochemical cascades within the cell that follow receptor activation by drugs. Research has also begun to reveal major differences between the brains of addicted and nonaddicted individuals and to indicate some common elements of addiction, regardless of the