Alcohol Rehab

Addiction and alcoholism were once thought to be “moral failings.” People thought that an alcoholic or addict simply had a “weak will” or a “bad character” and that punishment or moral improvement was the best way to handle them. Even today, despite the fact that substance abuse is a widely researched illness, many people continue to believe that people who struggle with alcohol or drugs are “weak,” “evil,” or “sinful”. Let me tell you How Substance Use Disorders Work.

Research into body chemistry and the brain itself has revealed scientific facts that show that addiction is, in simplest terms, a brain disease. Alcohol and drugs have a major impact on nerves controlled by the brain, for example. One area that heavy drinking affects is our ability to manage stress. Alcohol, often taken to relieve stress, can actually make the brain feel more stress. Other drugs create changes in the brain’s centers for pleasure and other emotions, as well as for memory and motivation, and can create a need for more drugs, leading to addiction. Different types of drugs have different effects on the chemistry of the brain, and over time repeated use alters brain structure and activity, so that effects last long after use has stopped.

We will try to describes these brain connections and explains much more about this exciting new field of research in further posts. The knowledge of how alcohol and drugs act on the brain will help improve treatment of the disease of addiction. More importantly, this brain research has also shown that young people are especially affected by addiction. Since your brain is still developing and will continue to until you’re about 21, the addiction to any foreign substance can alter your brain’s healthy development and result in serious and long-term changes in how it works.