Understanding addiction

Despite the undoubted progress that has been made in treating it, the nature of addiction remains something of a mystery. Is it a ‘disease’? If so, is it a ‘brain disease’ as some have suggested? If so, is continued consumption, of alcohol or opiates for example, or continued engagement in gambling, involuntary for someone who is addicted? Is there such a thing as smart phone addiction, as has been suggested? Are these better thought of as compulsions?

These are questions I have been struggling with as a psychologist for a long time, ever since in the late 1960s I first came across people who were distressed by their seeming inability to control gambling. I have continued to explore this in my writing, for example in my books Excessive Appetites, and Power, Powerlessness and Addiction.

My most recent, relatively short summary of my understanding of addiction as a habit disorder can be found in The Gambling Establishment: Challenging the Power of the Modern Gambling Industry and Its Allies, the section on Current scientific understanding of gambling and other addictions, chapter 6, pages 101 to 107.