Disease Model Of Addiction

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People have used substances to change their reality for thousands of years. It has been found that alcohol and tobacco products harm to people and society. Two hundred years ago, people were much more concerned about alcohol and drinking and this situation led to more threat to people's morals and social welfare (Batman, 2013). There are many different ways to explain addiction. According to Hughes (2012), several movements have explained addiction as a disease of brain over the last 10 years. The American government started to see addiction as a disease act in 2007. From this situation, addiction was classified as a 'chronic and relapsing brain disease'. Also, health institutions which are working with drug users are renamed. Moreover, social …show more content…
As I mentioned before, the most popular one is the disease model. Disease model is a controversial topic between clinicians, scientists and researchers. The disease model has strengths in terms of the evolution of addiction research and treatment. According to Miller (2013), the disease model allowed affectionate health care to patients with addictive behaviors and developed accessibility to treatment services. Moreover, the disease model accepts the importance of biological processes in the area of addiction. This model has also contributed to an importance of biomedical research which is associated with understanding and treating addictive behaviors. In addition to this, patients who struggle with addiction have improved their quality of lives by using the treatments of disease model. Likewise, Batman (2013) suggested that disease model have some advantages. For example; when the alcoholism is described as a disease, a lot of alcoholic people may want to take medical treatment from hospitals. On the other hand, people who are alcoholic would not have the opportunity to reach vital health services for their treatments. Also, Niedermayer (1990) indicates that disease model has essential benefits. For instance, disease model removes the blame from alcoholic people and it puts this feeling on the other factors. Especially, the problem of guilt and embarrassment are reduced from alcoholic people. Therefore, …show more content…
The development of behaviorism leads to form the learning model of addiction. Apart from disease model, learning model has different definition for the concept of addiction. Here, addiction is seen as a conditioned response to the environment. Thus, it is called a learned behavior. People try to use drugs to deal with stressful environments (Schaler, 1991). Social learning theory states that drug abuse or use has improved because of a process of observation. Drug use and abuse has also developed experience with related to problematic behaviors and their results. In short, individuals create a feeling of belonging to a social that affects their identifications of norms and desires. It also provides models for imitation. From this aspect, it was suggested that people who have experience and their norms and desires with related to drug use are shaped accordingly. They are also shaped in terms of observing reinforcement or punishment for drug use (Akers, R., Krohn, M., Kaduce, L., & Radosevich, M, 1979). This model is also associated with parental modeling of drug related behaviors. It was indicated that parental alcohol and drug use is highly related to misuse of substances in children. This situation is assumed that it affects children and adolescent's behavior indirectly. A lot of studies have found that parental substance abuse is associated with friend's use of drugs (Hawkins, D., Catalano, R., & Miller, J, 1992). From
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