Addiction is now defined as a brain disorder, rather than a personality defect or bad behavior.
"Addiction is about a lot more than people behaving badly," says Dr. Michael M. Miller of the American Society for Addiction Medicine, according to the Associated Press.
The ASAM said their revised definition holds true for drug, alcohol, gambling and compulsive eating. And, like other chronic conditions like heart disease or diabetes, treatment is a long-term endeavor, the team reported.
Decades of research has revealed how addiction works on the brain, and the society's new policy statement is so much a revision of goals as it is an attempt to bring the general public and primary care physicians in on the new secrets of addiction.
"The behavioral problem is a result of brain dysfunction," Dr. Nora Volkow, director the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told the AP.
"You have family members that say, 'OK, you'v ebeen to a detox program, how come you're taking drugs?'" she continued. "The pathology in your brain persists for years after you've stopped taking the drug."
Miller said that the new definition doesn't excuse patients from wanting to fight back and treat an addiction.
But he believes that understanding some of the brain reactions at the heart of the problem will "hopefully reduce some of the shame about some of these issues, hopefully reduce stigma."
