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Is Addiction A Mental Illness?

Is addiction a worldwide controversial debate for everyone, to me it’s a mental illness that can be cured because you can break obsessions and bad habits it just takes help from people who are willing to help them. There are more than just one type of addiction, there is gambling, overeating, playing video games, working, internet are all other types of addictions.

For those other people who think that you can fix an obsession or bad habits by punishment is a bad choice because the person with the obsession can help what they do but trying to punish they will only hurt your connection you need to establish with them in order to help them but if you actually try to help then you will possibly get better results than just punishing them. Addiction is a curable disease that can be helped but not by punishment because if you help them break their obsession they can not really help because it is involuntary action and it takes a lot of self control and help from others to break.

Therapists and other consultants can help you get over your obsession or bad habits like gambling, overeating, or other bad habits you have. Addictions may not seem like a serious matter but it is because it has hurt many people. My definition of addiction is when a person is obsessed with, or compulsive in certain situation like gambling, or people who do extreme stunts for an adrenaline rush. Most of these addicted people know that these actions are a bunch of nonsense but they think that what they do is something they need to do, but they do not need to do these things to feel better about themselves.

I honestly believe that addiction is a curable disease that does not have to be punished because the person in being compulsive because some people can not control their compulsions so they need our help with their problem. I can agree in some cases punishment should be threatened to that person if they chose not to get help because their compulsions take over their logical part of their brain, which cause people to do stupid and irrational things in order to get that good feeling that their compulsions wanted.

The problem that addiction causes the inability to think about what they are doing and who their addiction may hurt. Addictions are mostly people who fuel compulsion by acting upon their compulsion, they feel like they have to do compulsion or what they are addicted to like people who overeat or people who are obsessed with working, playing video games, or the internet. My claim is that these addictions are curable, but you do not have to punish them for what they have done.

People who have certain addictions should not be just thrown in jail or prison because what they have is just a mental illness. The (NIDA) or the National Institute of Drug Abuse states “That addiction is a mental illness because it distorts the fundamental ways of the brain, and disturbs the hierarchy of the brain’s needs and desires and substitutes new priorities connected with that certain addiction. ” That is one of the reasons why I think that people with addiction could be at least be helped rather than just sent off to prison or jail for what they have done.

There are many other types of obsessions other than drugs and alcohol, there is gambling overeating, excessive internet usage, and excessive video gaming. Some people try to help these people by setting limits on what they do and how long they do it for so they can help wean them off of their obsession. The researchers from UCLA state that “that a form of invasive brain stimulation will help people manage their addictions with video game, usage of the internet, gambling, alcohol, and other addicting stuff. If brain stimulation can cause a brain to remove the addictive portion of our brains.

Once you lose control to addiction it is harder to get back that control you once had because your brain can not tell the difference between what it needs to what it wants when you are addicted to something. I think people who think punishment is good for a person with an addiction, because they have not been in that situation or they do not have an addictive personality. Addiction is related to depression but just because you’re depressed does not mean you are addicted to something.

I think that addiction and depression go hand in hand in some cases for example some researchers at (NIDA) states that “their research on addiction tends to aim the magnetic field at the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex or (DLPFC), which is in the same region targeted in depression. ” Addiction relates to depression because most not all people who are depressed are either trying to fill a void in their life through their addiction or they are depressed due to their addiction.

My third and final claim is that the world today does not take addiction seriously because you can become addicted to some things that you do, like overeating, excessive video game playing, excessive use of the internet, and how everything has to be in a specific order or way they want it. I think that OCD and addictions are along the same basis, but they are not the same. I think they are similar because if you are OCD then you are addicted to cleanliness and order in your belongings. So OCD falls into the addiction category.

And my reason for OCD falling into an addiction category is because the person with OCD can not control themselves they have to fix the object in the room that in out of order or is not level or nice and neat. Somebody would say that this stuff is irrelevant to them and that OCD is just an anxiety disorder and not a addiction and I would say that your definition is based on a general layout of a person’s behaviour and mine is meant towards how they act we they see something they know they need to fix but everybody else is alright with it they are letting their compulsions take over them in that case.

Also somebody would say that just because the cortex where they target addiction at in a TMS treatment and it so happens that the depression is treated there too does not mean they are connected and I would say that your decision making skills are based upon your prefrontal cortex which is in the same place as addiction and depression so they are the same.

Addiction is a mental illness that is not much talked about in today’s time. Because everyone thinks that addiction is not serious but it is due to the fact it could ruin your life by doing some bad habited addicting things like nicotine, alcohol, and gambling and then there are stuff that could ruin your life to but not as bad as those and they are excessive video game playing, excessive internet usage, and excessive eating.

Since depression is considered a mental illness then how come addiction is not because when treated the both of them are in the same area the researchers try to target in order to suppress the addiction in the mind. So by that fact addiction is just an illness as say the flu except one messes your whole body up and the other messes up your thought process. These are my claims and my reasons as well as proof for these claims that I made on the topic which is addiction and how should be considered a mental illness by today’s standards.

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