{"id":19024,"date":"2017-10-16T13:40:12","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T18:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portage.hamakmarketingnumerique.com\/?p=19024"},"modified":"2019-04-15T12:22:27","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T17:22:27","slug":"equal-face-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/portage.ca\/en\/equal-face-addiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Are We All Equal in the Face of Addiction?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t
Chance or Predisposition?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

I always thought becoming a drug addict could only happen to others. I became one myself fairly late, at about 35 year-old, having never taken any drugs or alcohol in my life. In fact, I was terrified of all drugs, of their ability to rob people of their self-control. I was a very anxious person to begin with, so taking drugs and running the risk of becoming an addict was outright unthinkable. I genuinely thought I\u2019d be forever safe.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I didn\u2019t worry when my family physician prescribed benzodiazepines to treat the recurring panic attacks that were making my life nearly impossible (read The Two Faces of Drug Addiction<\/u><\/em><\/a>). Had he informed me that those tiny pills would have on my brain a similar effect to alcohol, I would have given it some serious consideration, before diving head first into what would become a full-blown pharmaceutical nightmare.<\/p>\n

My resentment towards this doctor lasted several years. I was unable to come to terms with the fact that I was prescribed such a highly addictive and therefore dangerous substance. And then I understood, thanks to extensive personal reading, that drugs don\u2019t induce addiction on their own (read The Rat Park Study:<\/u><\/em><\/a> Gaining a Better Understanding of Addiction)<\/em><\/u>. When people become addicts, it\u2019s because they are predisposed to become so.<\/p>\n

Using Rats to Understand Humans<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Pier Vincenzo Piazza, a psychiatrist, neurobiologist and an addiction specialist in France, is particularly interested in discovering how addiction comes to be. \u201cAddiction is not only about taking drugs; it\u2019s about using them compulsively, in spite of its disastrous consequences. Such a behaviour affects a small fraction of the drug users (15\u201320%), and can be likened to a chronic disease, as relapses are common (90% approximately) even after prolonged abstinence.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

The rat is usually the chosen animal to study drug abuse, because it displays a surprisingly similar behaviour to man. During 3 months in 2004, Piazza and his research team observed the patterns of drug use in rats trained to self-administer cocaine.<\/p>\n

Of Addicted Mice and Men<\/strong><\/h5>\n\"qycMb6XTe\"\n

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17% of the rats undergoing the experiment had become \u201cdrug abusers\u201d and showed signs of addiction after the second or third month of self-administering cocaine. Drug abuse, therefore, is not only brought on by a prolonged exposure to drugs\u2014which remains an aggravating factor\u2014, but also by individual vulnerability. The brain of the drug abuser is predisposed to developing behaviours of addiction.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The study allowed the research team to evaluate three behavioural patterns considered as diagnostic criteria by the DSM IV (the most widely used diagnostic manual of mental disorders):<\/p>\n