What is an "Addiction"?

Dependence, misuse, problematic use, substance use disorder. There are lots of terms used to describe and identify addiction. It can seem confusing to define addiction when the terms used are varied and can change over time, however the general principle remains the same.

Addiction is defined as a lack of control and the continued use of a drug or alcohol despite the negative consequences of using the drug or alcohol. For example, someone is addicted to alcohol if they continue to drink and have the desire to drink despite losing their job as a result of their drinking.

Not all doctors, professionals, and researchers will refer to it as an addiction. In some clinical settings, they may be more inclined to call it a substance disorder, or simply as problematic use. This is because for some, addiction implies a severe problem, which might not be the case for everyone.

Addiction presents itself in both physical and psychological symptoms, though the exact presentation depends on the individual and the drug (or alcohol) they use.

Physical addiction occurs after repeated, heavy use of drugs or alcohol and causes a change in a person’s body chemistry and brain that results in unpleasant physical symptoms. When there is a lack of the drug or alcohol in their system, this causes these physical symptoms, such as fever, chills, vomiting and sweating, and are known as experiencing withdrawal or withdrawal symptoms.

The changes have occurred because the brain has had to adapt to the repeated use of the drug or alcohol in order to compensate for it. The adaptions are known as tolerance and as the brain becomes more tolerant, the individual needs to take greater amounts of the drug or alcohol to feel the same pleasurable effects.

Psychological addiction occurs due to the emotional reliance on drugs and alcohol. One of the most common forms of this is what is known as cravings. Cravings are when a person experiences intense and consuming desires to use drugs or alcohol despite the cost. They can be described as strong memories linked to drug or alcohol use.

Cravings should not be underestimated, as they can be one of the most difficult aspects of addiction to manage. While most physical symptoms of addiction will return to normal after a period of abstinence, the strong memories of cravings can remain and cause the individual to relapse.

Establishing how common addiction is can be problematic, particularly for illegal drugs. This is because people may not want to admit to using a drug that is illegal.

The most recent data collected by the office for national statistics estimated that 2.1% of adults are frequent users of drugs, with that number doubling to 4.3% for those aged 16 to 24.

In England, Public Health England have estimated that 602, 391 people in the year 2018/19 are addicted to alcohol.

The data from such these prevalence surveys suggest that alcohol and drug addiction is not uncommon in the UK. Additionally, addiction can be quite secretive and hidden by nature meaning there may be many more individuals with an addiction than reported.

Drug and alcohol addiction is perhaps not something people would think about in regards to autism and autistic people. While this may have been true in the past, more current research and attention has been conducted in this area.

Previous research suggested that traits associated with autism, such as difficulties with social environments, could act as a preventative barrier to drug and alcohol use and addiction. However, recent research found that autistic people are susceptible to the same risk factors for addiction as non-autistic people, such as family history of addiction, certain co-occurring conditions and psychological distress.

 The largest study exploring the prevalence of addiction for autistic people conducted to date found that autistic people had a significantly higher rate of addiction than non-autistic people (4% for autistic individuals compared to 1.3% for non-autistic individuals). This prevalence was further increased if the autistic person had ADHD.