Is addiction a disease or a conscious choice?
Addiction expert Kevin McCauley discussed what he thinks is one of the most important questions about addiction before an audience of Cal State Fullerton students, educators and community members on Thursday night.
The event, hosted by the Substance Abuse Awareness and Prevention Student Association, provided those who attended with a broader understanding of what triggers addiction and relapse.
The debate sparked conversation about the different brain areas that are involved in addiction. McCauley, who works with The Institute For Addiction Study, advocated that addiction is a disease of choice.
“Addiction,” McCauley said, “is a disorder of the very parts of the brain that we need in order to make a decision.”
One of the first things that McCauley explained was that addictive drugs stimulate the reward and “pleasure center” of the brain. When this circuit is stimulated, the brain registers the value of these experiences and then triggers the release of a brain chemical called dopamine. Dopamine, he said, is the chemical used to prioritize things for survival.
Amy Saunders, a SAAPSA officer, said that having McCauley speak at CSUF would provide information to students about substance abuse and more information about addiction.
“We want students to be able to ask questions to challenge what they already know,” Saunders said.
McCauley emphasized that addiction is as important and as much a disease as diabetes or cancer.
In his DVD, Pleasure Unwoven, McCauley explains that most modern scientists abide by a definition that a disease is a defect in an organ that leads to symptoms.
McCauley said that the behaviors of addicts are symptoms of a disease, but because we don’t understand that addiction is a disease, it is viewed in “moral terms.” To explain this, he asked those present in the room what the difference was between a person who is killed by a diabetic driver and one killed by a drug addict.
“The reason the addict goes to prison and the diabetic doesn’t is because we understand diabetes!” McCauley said.
Sandra De La Cruz, a CSUF alumna in the audience, later explained that the reason people don’t think of addiction as disease is because of a lack of information presented to the public.
“The one thing that society lacks is understanding of addiction,” De La Cruz, 26, said. “They put substance abuse on the back burner. We don’t really grasp the importance of it.”
Also listening to the discussion was Elaine Werner-Hudson, a 56-year-old Laguna Beach resident who lost her son to heroin addiction.
“I think our medical people — doctors, nurses, everyone in the medical field — should be really educated on it too,” Werner Hudson said. “When someone comes to the hospital and they overdosed on something, they’re not there to give them the proper treatment that they need, they say ‘just go home, he’ll be OK,'” she said.
If everyone is aware of how addiction works and that the root of the problem can be identified, De La Cruz said, steps can be taken to prevent people from falling into addiction.