Behavioral Patterns of Addiction

For Loewenstein, addicts are people under the influence of drug-induced visceral impulses. The typical behavior pattern of addiction arises from unsuccessful attempts to master these impulses. Although Loewenstein does relate the core phenomenon of addiction to the influ-... 

The clinical characteristics of newborns exposed prenatally to PCP are similar to behavior patterns of infants born addicted to heroin and/or methadone. In 1973, Wilson et al. described the early development of infants of heroin-addicted mothers. The neuro-behavioral symptoms of the newborn included tremors, irritability,... 

Addiction A behavioral pattern of drug abuse characterized by overwhelming involvement with the use of a drug (compulsive use), the securing of its supply, and a high tendency to relapse after discontinuation. 

At the moment, our socicty s views on tobacco use are changing. Smoking is becoming unfashionable, and nonsmokers are demanding smoke-free environments. It will be interesting to see what changes occur in the patterns of addictive behavior around tobacco. 

Individuals with a pattern of chronic use of commonly abused substances should be assessed to determine if they meet the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) criteria for substance dependence (addiction).8 Criteria are not defined for each separate abused substance rather, a pattern of behavior common to the abuse or dependence of all drugs of abuse is established. 

Abstract For more than a half century, tobacco manufacturers have conducted sophisticated internal research to evaluate nicotine delivery, and modified their products to ensure availability of nicotine to smokers and to optimize its effects. Tobacco has proven to be a particularly effective vehicle for nicotine, enabling manipulation of smoke chemistry and of mechanisms of delivery, and providing sensory cues that critically inform patterns of smoking behavior as well as reinforce the impact of nicotine. A range of physical and chemical product design changes provide precise control over the quantity, form, and perception of nicotine dose, and support compensatory behavior, which is driven by the smoker s addiction to nicotine. Cigarette... 

Kosten TR, Rounsaville BJ Kleber HD (1985). Parental alcoholism in opioid addicts. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 173, 461-9 Kott A, Habel E Nottingham W (2001). Analysis of behavioral patterns in five cohorts of patients retained in methadone maintenance programs. The Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, 68, 46-54 Krabbe PF, Koning JPF, Heinen N, Laheij RJF, Victory Van Cauter RM De Jong CAJ... 

When infants are said to be bom addicted, what must be meant is a condition of narcotic dependence that does not involve cravings or addictive behavior. To call this addiction without qualification seems to me misleading, since it need not involve addictive craving and corresponding patterns of behavior. Nor need it involve the propensity to irrational thought and desire. 

A particularly important set of beliefs is the idea that a given substance is addictive. Once a behavioral pattern is conceptualized as an addiction, with the concomitant causal beliefs, it may change dramatically. An especially important belief is that addiction is, if not irresistible, at least very hard to resist, almost amounting to compulsive desire. Hence, to the causal beliefs about the effects of drug taking on the addict s body and socioeconomic status, we must add causa) beliefs about the effect of addiction on his will—specifically, on the ability to quit. Two opposite beliefs about this effect may have the same impact on behavior. Some addicts use their (usually self-deceptive) belief that they can quit at any time as an excuse for not quitting. Others use their (equally self-deceptive) belief that they are unable to quit as an excuse for not quitting. The belief that one is addicted may reinforce the addiction by the mechanism of dissonance reduction ... 

There is also a psychological aspect to addiction. This is where phrases like learned behavior are often used. Someone who is addicted to drugs has developed a certain set of behaviors in response to particular situations. For many, drugs are a coping mechanism for certain emotional states like depression, loneliness, stress, or even fatigue. When an addict develops a particular pattern of behavior in response to these feelings. 

Cocaine is a powerfully addictive drug. Addiction can be physical and cause the user to experience withdrawal symptoms when he or she does not use the drug. Addiction can also be psychological, and used in a pattern of behavior that helps the user cope with difficult emotions. An often overlooked aspect of cocaine addiction is its social aspect—that is, the user may associate certain friends and situations with drug use. 

There is no such thing as a harmless addiction because once an addictive pattern of behavior is in place, others, perhaps to more destructive substances, can be more easily established. Many addicts are multiply-addicted peoplealcoholics who are also addicted to coffee and cigarettes, for example. 

The key to successful confrontation is doing it with caring, with specificity, and with patience. This last quality is important because it can take numerous confrontations, if ever, before a substance-abusing or addicted person may be able to take that opportunity and admit the self-destructive pattern of behavior that has become established. 

Persons who never have been able to make a satisfactory adjustment to life, whose adaptive patterns of behavior have been inadequate, find in morphine a means of return to normal, but persons who have made a marginal degree of emotional adjustment to life, and then have begun to use drugs, lose some of their normal adjustment to life. This regression in personality represents one of the great costs of drug addiction. 

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