According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, addiction is a chronic disease that affects the brain. It causes changes in the neural pathways that remember the pleasures of activities such as eating, sex, alcohol and drug use, gambling, etc. When triggered, these pleasurable memories cause an overwhelming desire to repeat the experience. Without the proper skills to overcome this desire, and without dealing with the root causes of the issues that led to the addictions to begin with, it’s easy to fall into the cycle of addiction. After all, pleasure is a hard thing to resist.
