Question

What are alcohol or drug addictions?

Answer 1

Mental health disorders

Explanation:

Generally anyone who is addicted to drugs and/or alcohol has become addicted due the fact that an unfortunate event has happened and the only way to make them feel better is to change the chemical processes in their body. An example is that LSD increases the serotonin levels in the body giving the user similar symptoms to schizophrenia with hallucinations etc. Soon the drugs will eliminate some body processes due to the fact that the body becomes reliant on the drugs to produce the same processes making it harder for the person to stop entering them into vicious cycle of a mental health disorder and being reliant on the drugs to try and stop the mental health disorder but over time will only make it worse.

Answer 2

Check explanation given below.

Explanation:

Making the assumption that an unfortunate event has taken place (precursor) as a fact and thus led the individual to turn to drugs or alcohol is misguided at best and erroneous at worst. The question was what are drug/alcohol addictions. First there are two types of addiction, the first being psychological addiction and the second being physical addiction. In physical addiction the body craves the addictive substance in order to properly function, where as in psychological addiction there has been a change in the brain's cell chemical receptors. Example, the chemical Serotonin, which makes us feel good, has been replaced by the chemical found in alcohol to achieve the same feel good effect. Withdrawals from psychological addiction have been found to be more severe and longer lasting than those from physical addiction. In some instances both types of addictions can happen simultaneously.