Is addiction defined as a disease

Addiction is a chronic and often relapsing disorder.Addiction is a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual's life experiences.Disease proponents often tell clients, that's your addiction talking.The american society of addiction medicine describes addiction as a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. classification as a primary disease means addiction is not the result of some other situation, problem or health issue.All disease disrupts the normal and healthy functioning of the body.Addiction especially impacts the neurotransmission, how parts of the brain talk to one another.

Many diseases are similar in this, having a large number of risk and contributing factors.Dependence is not like a virus or infection, but more like a chronic disease.Usually, recovery from addiction requires many attempts.Why addiction is considered a disease.Treatment consists of little more than stopping a given.In other words, you don't necessarily get to choose whether you become chemically dependent.

The organization included the classification of addiction as a disease in 1987.