In the 1960s Vincent P. Dole pioneered human studies on the biological basis of heroin addiction. He discovered that methadone can quell an addict's craving and that maintenance doses can return narcotics users to productive lives. Dole's innovative...

When substance abusers are arrested and appear in court, judges sometimes order the person to go through drug treatment. Court-ordered treatment is also known as coerced treatment. The theory behind court-ordered treatment is that substance abusers...

By the early twenty-first century, drug abuse and dependence have been called public health, social, criminal and economic problems across the globe. Most nations have experienced undesirable rates of drug abuse historically and continue to do so...

Abraham Wikler (died 1981) was one of the first researchers who, in the late 1940s, strongly advocated the idea that drug abuse and relapse following treatment are influenced by basic learning processes. Early in his career, Wikler became interested in...

The Addiction Research Unit of the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, was set up in 1967 on the Joint Maudsley Hospital/Institute of Psychiatry campus in Camberwell, South East London, England. Its funding has come from many different...

Drug addiction is considered a pathological state. The disorder of addiction involves the progression of acute drug use to the development of drug-seeking behavior, the vulnerability to relapse, and the decreased ability to respond to naturally...

We all know how addicts can use anything - sex, drugs, booze, food, fitness, dieting, TV, sport, ambition, consensual reality, you name it - to avoid certain feelings - and reinforce others In a seven-sided room above a church in west London, about...

Governor Dukakis deserves great credit for initiating -- and funding -- the most ambitious program in the nation aimed at getting drug addicts under treatment to cure their addiction and prevent AIDS. This step also could lead to placing the treament of addiction in...

Central Asia's poorest county is also one of the world's leading transit routes for heroin, opium and other drugs from Afghanistan. Sergei Makhkamov has been caught in the flood."I tried it, I liked it and it went from there," said the haggard, fidgety, out-of-work 24-year-old...

City health officials took steps Thursday toward opening the nation's first legal safe-injection room, where addicts could shoot up heroin, cocaine and other drugs under the supervision of nurses.Hoping to reduce San Francisco's high rate of fatal drug overdoses, the public health department co-sponsored a...

Addictions are addictions of the mind, as much as they are addictions of the body. A person can be just as addicted to an activity as to a substance. Man has battled various addictions since his earliest beginnings. The advancement of society has changeds only to what people may become addicted.

This essay is a look at the options an alcoholic or drug addict might have when trying to recover. It also focuses largely on the factors that effect what works and what doesn't work a person based on their race, ethnicity, gender, age or social status.

Our understanding of drug use and addiction is greater now than it was in the past, but much is still unknown. In their article "The Addicted Brain," published in Scientific American, Eric J. Nestler and Robert C. Malenka discuss the intricacies of drug addiction and the obstacles associated with both quitting a drug addiction and finding a cure for it.