There are many widespread misconceptions about addiction. One of the commonest, is the feeling addiction is the end-result of a deviant behavior.
This has resulted in the creation of a stigma concerning people who are struggling with addiction, and this makes it herculean for them to seek help.
However, most people are not aware of the fact that, addiction is a complex mental situation resulting from various factors such as: Biological, environmental, developmental and the likes.
To start with, one fact people must note is, the decision to get addicted is usually self-initiated. When this gets into motion, one of the main factors that keeps the addiction problem rolling, is genetics.
Some research has shown that the genetic makeup of an individual has the tendency to affect the susceptibility of an individual to the development of addiction.
Another reason is due to an individual’s family’s history of addiction. If the parent of an individual has been known for abusing drugs or alcohol even before he or she got married, there is a tendency for the child to be addicted.
Watching a family member go through the bouts of trying to overcome addiction, has the tendency to either positively or negatively affect the decision of another.
Also, peer pressure is another factor why people get addicted.
There are some individuals who felt pressured to use either drugs or alcohol because their friends used it. In the long run, they became addicted to either of the above-mentioned substances.
In addition to this, people who have mental problems like depression, anxiety amongst others, are likely to be addicted to any of these substances.
This happens because, some of them start using either drugs or alcohol to deal with their negative feelings.
Now, it would interest you to know that, drug and alcohol addiction are not the only types of addictions there is.
There is sex addiction, video gaming addiction, food addiction and a host of others. These types of addiction are peculiar and categorized under Behavioral addiction.
They develop overtime due to unchecked regularity of the acts associated with the types of addictions.