Seattle Times: Getting it right on addiction

The American Medical Association first recognized addiction as a disease in 1956. But the medical community has only recently seen it as a “chronic, relapsing brain disorder,” according to this week’s Newsweek magazine, which put addiction on the cover.

Among the findings: The addict’s brain is malfunctioning, like the pancreas of someone with diabetes.

At the SAMA luncheon, keynote speaker Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, compared a drug relapse to type 1 diabetes, hypertension or asthma. It simply must be treated like the illness that it is.

“Once it settles in,” Volkow said of addiction, “the consequences can be long-lasting.”

Seattle P-I: The intersection of science, the brain and addiction

Addiction is often a difficult, chronic and confusing condition that can tear families apart.

There is a push on the federal level and in Seattle to inject more science into treating the disease, which is being linked to dysfunctions in the brain.

On Thursday, Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the federal National Institute on Drug Abuse, visited Seattle to talk about the intersection of science, the brain and addiction at a luncheon sponsored by the Science and Management of Addictions Foundation of Seattle.

The research psychiatrist spent a few minutes with the Seattle P-I before taking the stage.

If you had one minute to convince someone why addiction is an illness, and not some sort of messy weakness or behavioral problem, what would you say?

“Now that we have the technologies to actually take pictures (of) the chemistry and function of the brain we are able to identify the specific changes in chemistry and function in people who are addicted.

“These are areas that normally allow you to control your behaviors and your desires and emotions.

“And the disease addiction is one that results because there is dysfunction of these areas that normally in you and me allows us to control not doing something because it would be harmful…

“We are also (working) …to teach people to activate their frontal cortex, which is what allows you to put the brakes on your desire.”