What are the symptoms of addictions?

It is designated as "addiction" to any chronic and recurrent disease of the brain that is characterized by a pathological search for reward / relief through the use of a substance (or an activity, in the case of gambling bets). Potentially addictive substances are well known, although some are more socially accepted than others.

According to the Our World in Data portal, drugs are directly or indirectly responsible for the death of 11.8 million people a year. Alcohol and tobacco take the first dangerous positions, since these two substances alone kill 3 million and 8 million people each year, respectively. Without going any further, tobacco kills almost half of the individuals who consume it.

With all these data in hand, it is more than clear to us that addictions are a social health problem to combat. In any case, all global action begins on a small scale, and the addict's environment is essential for the addict to decide to seek help. For all these reasons, below we explore the symptoms of addiction.

• Related article: "Types of drugs: know their characteristics and effects"

The definition of addiction and its symptoms

The term "addiction" is not usually used in the psychological field, as it refers to the biopsychosocial disorder that drugs generate. brain level, but the whole is better understood if we use the concept "Substance use disorder" or "substance abuse disorder" (SUD) in English.

SUDs are characterized by a number of mental, emotional, physical, and behavioral problems that arise from the consumption of an addictive substance, be it legal, illegal or prescribed by a doctor in a specific setting. Addicted patients are not physically able to stop using the conflict substance no matter how hard they try, even if this endangers their life and that of their environment.

Although all of these concepts may sound ethereal and difficult to assess, there are standardized criteria for quantifying an addiction. The American Psychological Association (APA) publishes and publishes from time to time its Diagnostic Manual and statistician of mental disorders, a document that sits chair in what the psychiatric clinic is refers. According to the fifth edition, these are the criteria that are sought in an addicted person:

• The patient uses the substance more than she originally planned.
• He cannot give up the substance no matter how much she wants or tries.
• The patient spends a lot of time getting, using, or recovering from the use of the conflict substance.
• Need and urgency to use the substance.
• The recurrent use of the substance prevents the patient from developing in other areas of her life, such as work, home or school.
• The patient continues to use the substance despite the fact that consumption causes problems in the intimate environment (interpersonal or social).
• The patient puts aside social, occupational, or recreational activities in order to continue using the substance.
• The use of substances is sustained over time, even when the activities in which they are consumed are dangerous.
• The patient continues to use the substance, even when she knows that she has a psychological problem derived from the drug or that it increases the symptoms of other disorders.
• The addict needs more substance each time to reach the desired effect (tolerance).
• She also develops symptoms when she stops using the substance, and these can be remedied with her use again (dependence).

This long list represents each and every one of the symptoms of a person with an addiction. Anyway, an addicted patient may not present all of them at once, or express his feelings and psychological effects derived from the situation less clearly.

The severity of substance use disorder

If the patient has 2 or 3 of the above symptoms, they are diagnosed with a "mild substance use disorder." 4 or 5 signs indicate a moderate condition, and 6 or more fall into the most serious part of the pathological spectrum. In any case, depending on the sources consulted, it is stipulated that in order to be considered an addict (in any of its variants), a person must show at least 2 symptoms for a period of 12 months or more.

What is not an addiction?

As you have seen, the time interval in which symptoms appear is important when it comes to differentiating an addiction or other conditions. For this very reason, medications that create tolerance and / or withdrawal symptoms quickly (like morphine and fentanyl, especially opioids) in medical patients are a slippery slope.

For example, a person with chronic pain who uses an opioid pain reliever may develop withdrawal symptoms when you stop consuming it, despite having followed all the indications of the doctor. This is not considered an addiction, as most of the discomfort comes from the pain that the opioid was masking, not that the brain circuits have been modulated according to the consumption of the substance.

On the other hand, it should be noted that we usually use the term "addiction" for many areas, such as shopping, hobbies, video games, exercise and even intimate relationships (“I'm addicted to being with my partner)". The truth is that technically, today there is only one activity recognized by the APA as potentially addictive: gambling. It has been found that, in a gambling addict, winning a quantifiable amount of money in metal is very similar to giving a drug addict a dose of cocaine, at least from a point of view neurological.

If we follow the criteria, we cannot claim that work, shopping, video games, sports or relationships are addictive substrates on their own. A person can become compulsively obsessed with any of these fronts, but this would be a symptom of a different clinical entity (and not a substance use disorder).

This does not mean that they are not potentially addictive acts, but that there is not enough evidence yet to affirm or deny that it is a problem of that type, but would constitute another form of psychopathology.

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As you may have seen, it is easy to recognize externally when someone has problems with a substance or activity, but not so much to demonstrate clinically that it is a patient with a drug use disorder substances. Here the number of symptoms, the length of time they occur, and the potentially harmful substance or activity come into play, among other things.

In any case, psychiatric terminology takes a back seat when we consider that we are talking about people who put their lives at risk. If you have seen yourself reflected in any of these lines or have thought of a relative, we recommend that you go to medical and psychotherapy professionals. Addictions can be treated, but the more time passes, the worse the patient's prognosis.