Understanding the true causes of addiction and what we can do about it

Editors comment: Roughly 88% of all inmates in California State Prisons, County Jails, Federal Prisons and Youth Detention Centers have been convicted of a drug related crime. Even in prison many of those use drugs or are addicted to them. The old notion that if you separate a person from their drugs you at some point eliminate their cravings is simply not true. Studies show one’s real “craving” is to BELONG, to matter to others, to have purpose. Having been addicted to drugs myself, I can only say, the following article is long overdue. DF

For years many people have held a common belief that addiction is caused by chemical dependence. Recent research suggests that the true underlying causes have much more to do with a lack of meaningful connection. In an article titled “The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think” by Johann Hari, a new theory about how people get addicted and what the real solutions are is shared.

It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned — and all through this long century of waging war on drugs, we have been told a story about addiction by our teachers and by our governments. This story is so deeply ingrained in our minds that we take it for granted. It seems obvious. It seems manifestly true. Until I set off three and a half years ago on a 30,000-mile journey for my new book, Chasing The Scream: The First And Last Days of the War on Drugs, to figure out what is really driving the drug war, I believed it too. But what I learned on the road is that almost everything we have been told about addiction is wrong — and there is a very different story waiting for us, if only we are ready to hear it.

If we truly absorb this new story, we will have to change a lot more than the drug war. We will have to change ourselves.

Read the entire article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html