DD Month YYYY
The discussions of addiction challenged the way I view substance use problems because they contain a lot of scientific information. Alan Leshner (1997) stressed that drug addiction is a disease that is the result of the prolong effect drugs on brain. It includes behavioral and social-context problems. The author stated that the public perception of this problem does not respond real scientific facts. The important idea is that people should be aware that drug addiction is a real disease in order to treat in a right way. Sally Satel and Scott Lilienfeld (2010) mentioned that the National Institute on Drug Abuse considers addiction as a “brain disease.” The authors also inform that drug addiction is a brain-based phenomenon. The podcast included interviews of scientists and other people dealing with substance abuse who also proved that addiction is all about brain.
The next idea is that the wrong public perception of addiction is that biggest challenge to treating individuals with substance use disorders. Clinical and public efforts should be concentrated on changing public health strategies. For example, drug addicted criminals should be treated in other way because they do not fully control their activity. Understanding addiction should respond modern scientific researches and change social and criminal policy, people should be aware of this problem and new studies should be provided. Attending to brain should be an important part of the solution (Leshner, 47). In other words, addiction was considered as an intentional activity, but recent researches proved that it is a radically another thing and society should be informed about this issue.
Works Cited
Satel, Sally, Lilienfeld, Scott. "Singing the Brain Disease Blues." AJOB Neuroscience, 1(1).
(2010): 46–54. Print.
Leshner, Alan. "Addiction is a brain decease, and it matters." Science, New Series. Vol. 278. N.
5335. (1997): 45-47. Print.
