Addiction is not much fun afterall.

A friend recommended this article. I thought it was interesting and supportive of my belief that all forms of addiction have a common underlying mechanism. Rather then tell you about it, I thought I’d save myself time, and cut & paste the main points. Feel free to read the full article though.

“Researchers once thought that the [dopamine] was a simple pleasure switch, the body's own "reward" button. Yet something didn't add up. If dopamine delivers the pleasure message, addicts should be in a continual state of bliss--but most of them get very little pleasure from the drug, despite the surge of neurochemicals.”

New theory
“Rather than just telling us to feel good, dopamine tells us what's salient--the unexpected bits of new information we need to pay attention to in order to survive, like alerts about sex, food and pleasure, as well as danger and pain. Dopamine's role is to shout: "Hey! Pay attention to this!" Only as an afterthought might it whisper "Wow, this feels great."

[Addicts] brains have somehow mistakenly learned that drugs are the most important thing to pay attention to, as crucial to survival as food or sex.

The salience theory of dopamine also provides new explanations for other self-destructive human tendencies, from binge eating to gambling. It may [also] explain why we crave the stimulation of new information.

Neurochemical changes
Since dopamine is also involved in learning, memory and motivation, the chemical helps us pay attention to the information we need to survive, act upon it, and remember it for the future. [Drugs] hijack that machinery, sending 5 to ten times as much dopamine surging through the nucleus accumbens and forcing the brain's motivational and attentional mechanisms to focus purely on the drug. Over time, the addict's brain adapts to the torrent of dopamine by dampening the system down.

With fewer receptors, the dopamine system is desensitized, and the now-understimulated addict needs more and more of the drug to feel anything at all. Meanwhile, pathways associated with other interesting stimuli are left idle and lose strength. The prefrontal cortex--the part of the brain associated with judgment and inhibitory control--also stops functioning normally.

It's a neurological recipe for disaster. "You have enhanced motivation for the drug, and you have impaired prefrontal cortical systems. So you want the drugs pathologically, and you have reduced control of behavior, and what you've got is an addict.”

Mm... makes sense to me! When I was little I got addicted to video games, and recognizing the hold they had on my life I since avoided drugs, nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, gambling, and even aspirin. Least I become slave to another addiction.