The canadian report into the misuse of drugs (a pelican book from the 70s) drew a distinction between addiction and habituation which I think has stood the test of time. Addictive things cause change in the bodies own processes, such as the replacement of ?dopamine? by opiod drugs, and a decline in the bodys own production due to homeostasis: this means the withdrawal is a real physiological effect, lack of dopamine until the body restarts production.
Some drugs (I mean drugs in the wider sense not recreational drugs) can cause PERMANENT change in the bodys own hormone cycle and so you cease production of a function entirely. Menopause is an instance of this but there are others I believe, the endocrine system is fantastically complex. I believe some bone anti-demineralisation drugs have this side effect and so deciding to take them has huge longterm consequences (again unsure I have the right background drug issue here)
Habituation is the mental binding of pleasure or some other desired state (numbing, dissociation) to the repeated effect (as I understand it) and is a different thing: It feels good because you've learned the response, might be the way to put it. This is NOT the same as a homeostatic change in body function.
The canadian report into the misuse of drugs (a pelican book from the 70s) drew a distinction between addiction and habituation which I think has stood the test of time. Addictive things cause change in the bodies own processes, such as the replacement of ?dopamine? by opiod drugs, and a decline in the bodys own production due to homeostasis: this means the withdrawal is a real physiological effect, lack of dopamine until the body restarts production.
Some drugs (I mean drugs in the wider sense not recreational drugs) can cause PERMANENT change in the bodys own hormone cycle and so you cease production of a function entirely. Menopause is an instance of this but there are others I believe, the endocrine system is fantastically complex. I believe some bone anti-demineralisation drugs have this side effect and so deciding to take them has huge longterm consequences (again unsure I have the right background drug issue here)
Habituation is the mental binding of pleasure or some other desired state (numbing, dissociation) to the repeated effect (as I understand it) and is a different thing: It feels good because you've learned the response, might be the way to put it. This is NOT the same as a homeostatic change in body function.