Hide your cocaine!
Out of context: Reply #8
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- Raniator0
While the rehabilitation community and most addicts will agree that addiction is a real disease – and a chronic disease as well – the established medical community defers from using the word "disease." In the middle are psychiatrists and some psychologists who use alternative terminology to dodge the controversy – substance abuse disorder, behavioral disorder and others. The fight will not be settled until the drivers of addiction are clearly laid out. Research continues to find the extent of genetic influence and to illuminate the brain chemistry and remodeling that happens during addiction.
Alongside the academic debate, legislative bodies, insurance companies and criminologists also have a stake. The trend, as of 2010, is to accept the disease terminology but retain the idea that addiction is a ‘special category’ of disease, one with sociological as well as physiological triggers.