Addiction often isn’t about chasing pleasure—it’s about escaping pain. Researchers at Scripps Research have discovered that a ...

Make no mistake, addiction is a neurological brain disorder. When the subject of addiction comes up, people often lean on ...

For years, addiction was seen as a matter of personal failure—a bad habit or a lack of discipline. People believed those who struggled with substance abuse could stop if they simply wanted to. But ...

Consider someone addicted to alcohol, drugs, or a behavior like gambling. Why do they continue, even when they say they want to stop? It's a question that highlights a fundamental disconnect: the gap ...

The drive to drink for someone with alcohol addiction often transforms from a pursuit of pleasure to a desperate need to escape the profound discomfort of withdrawal. New research has now identified a ...

Health Affairs' Rob Lott interviews Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health, to discuss addiction as a brain disorder, treatments for ...

What is addiction, and how can we stop it? The complexities of addiction have stumped scientists for decades. Today, with 48 million Americans over the age of 12 suffering from a substance use ...

Extreme instances of stress can cause lasting changes to the brain itself. This could leave some people more vulnerable to addiction, a University of Mississippi study concludes. The study's insight ...

Remarkable scientific progress over the past five decades has helped us develop knowledge of how drugs of abuse induce pleasure, reinforce use, and lead to the compulsive self-administration we call ...

For decades, Americans have been told a simple story about addiction: taking drugs damages the brain—and the earlier in life children start using substances, the more likely they are to progress ...

Matt Field receives research funding from the Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health Research, Alcohol Change UK, and the Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling. He is a trustee of ...