Hacker News Reader

Comment by powertower | Hacker News Reader

Drug addiction isn't neuro-diversity, nor something that is an effect of a special brain disorder.

Give me 100 random people, a year, the right environment, and some strong opiates, and I'll give you back 95 addicts.

While some might be more susceptible to drug addiction than others, getting addicted and forming dependence is nothing more than a process.

In general (outside the extremes of the dataset) your life's circumstances and details are more important to developing (and maintaining, and quitting) your drug habit than your brain chemistry is.

View on HN

95 addicts is not what you will get back. There is a difference between dependence and addiction. Dependency is something people are all generally equally susceptible to. Addiction is not equal. Brain chemistry does have much to do with addiction. Specifically, those with smaller prefrontal cortexes are less able to make good decisions and rely more in their natural reward system to make decision for them. In these people our primitive brain has more power and drives them to seek pleasure despite the consequences. Continuing to take addictive substances exacerbates the situation in two main ways. First, the brain readjusts so it becomes less sensitive to being bombarded with huge amounts of dopamine (tolerance) and, if taken at the right time (or wrong time depending on how you look at it), it actually stunts the growth of the brains decision making regions (mostly the prefrontal cortex and the worst time for this is from 12 - 24). What do you even mean by environment? Are you implying that if you make drugs available everyone takes them? That's wrong. Are you implying that addiction affects some social classes more than others? That's also wrong. Studies show that addiction hits everyone equally. We only associate it with certain social classes because it's more visible, treatment isn't as easily available, and it's more talked about. In addition you'll find that different kinds of drugs are used between social classes but the rate of addiction is the same. Upper class tends to use more marijuana and prescription meds while the lower class use the more common "hard" drugs. Even with opiates you'll find that for some reason people think differently about a vicodin addition than a heroin addiction despite them being the same thing.

It sounds to me like your comment was based more on personal belief than any hard facts.

You're basing 75% of your entire response on something I've never stated.

But to respond:

There are plenty of people with excellent decision making processes who ended up as addicts.

It was nothing more than a process for them.

Doctors, lawyers, firemen, teachers, bankers, the list goes on and on.

You want to blame the pre-frontal cortex for the start, I blame using once, waking up feeling great, a few weeks later taking some more, feeling great, then 3 months later taking 3 times/week, then a year later 3 times/day.

But that's not how it really works. Not everyone who uses once does it again and again. Many people are able to control themselves. I'll give you tel examples. First, alcohol. Alcohol is an addictive substance so are you telling me you can take 100 people, give them alcohol and then expect 95/100 to come out addicts? Of course that won't happen. But a few will and those few are predisposed because of either genetics or some underlying cause like depression or poor coping skills. Now let's take substances out of the equation because addiction isn't necessarily about substances and it'll help to get people thinking about this differently. Sex and gambling are addictions. A person isn't addicted to the sex or the gambling itself but from the brains natural reward system being set off each time a person engages in either. Now we all have sex but not all of us are sex addicts. Many of us have lost more than we cared to part with at a slot machine or a card game but we don't all become gambling addicts. Put 100 people in a situation where they have easy access to those two things and even if all 100 partake only about 10 will come back uncontrollably. The statistics show 10% of the population are predisposed to this. This isn't like lab rats where you can expect all of them to become addicted and that's because the one thing that separates us from them is our big prefrontal cortex. That cortex works perfectly in 90% of us which is great because 100% of us are exposed to situations where we get a big dopamine boost from taking some sort of action. If we didn't have that we'd all be addicts acting on animal instinct.

It's a myth that taking something once will make you an addict. Well, it's true and a myth. It's true in that no one knows if they're one of the lucky 10% who are predisposed to this and will wake up, take another and end up like you say. But from a statistical point of view it's false for 90% of the population. Your description of taking it once, liking it and going back for more is accurate but it only holds true for a small number of people and doesn't take into account the different factors that play into what really makes an addict. It's far more complicated than that.

> But that's not how it really works. Not everyone who uses once does it again and again. Many people are able to control themselves.

Again, you're responding to something I've not stated.

Taking a substance once does not make someone an addict.

What I've stated is it's the process that eventually leads to it. And that everyone is susceptible to it on some level given the right life circumstances (bad relationships, bad parents, boredom, too much money and time, certain friends, access to drugs, etc).

Does this mean 'exercise' to strengthen prefrontal cortex helps against addiction?

"The right environment" is key to your statement above. A slightly different environment, one that tolerates and is aware of the effects, both beneficial and otherwise, of stimulant and opioid use, would produce some number of people who's enjoyment of life, work productivity and effect on the world will be better when they abstain entirely - but others will have lives that are better when they consume some mind altering drugs some of the time. I imagine the number of people who become cripplingly addicted to a substance would be similar to the rate of severe alcoholics in society today. And we might decide as a society that this is an acceptable rate, and provide addiction care for those who are susceptible instead of forcing them to the margins of society.

[citation needed]

And that citation better reference some twin adoption studies.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com