An addiction is an obsession, compulsion, or excessive psychological dependence, such as: drug addiction (e.g. alcoholism, nicotine addiction), problem gambling, ergomania, compulsive overeating, shopping addiction, computer addiction, pornography addiction, television addiction, etc.

In medicine, an addiction is a chronic neurobiological disorder that has genetic, psychosocial, and environmental dimensions and is characterized by one of the following: the continued use of a substance despite its detrimental effects, impaired control over the use of a drug (compulsive behavior), and preoccupation with a drug's use for non-therapeutic purposes (i.e. craving the drug). Addiction is often accompanied by the presence of deviant behaviors (for instance stealing money and forging prescriptions) that are used to obtain a drug.

Tolerance to a drug and physical dependence are not defining characteristics of addiction, although they typically accompany addiction to certain drugs. Tolerance is a pharmacologic phenomenon where the dose of a medication needs to be continually increased in order to maintain its desired effects. For instance, individuals with severe chronic pain taking opiate medications (like morphine) will need to continually increase the dose in order to maintain the drug's analgesic (pain-relieving) effects. Physical dependence is also a pharmacologic property and means that if a certain drug is abruptly discontinued, an individual will experience certain characteristic withdrawal signs and symptoms. Many drugs used for therapeutic purposes produce withdrawal symptoms when abruptly stopped, for instance oral steroids, certain antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and opiates.

However, common usage of the term addiction has spread to include psychological dependence. In this context, the term is used in drug addiction and substance abuse problems, but also refers to behaviors that are not generally recognized by the medical community as problems of addiction, such as compulsive overeating.

The term addiction is also sometimes applied to compulsions that are not substance-related, such as problem gambling and computer addiction. In these kinds of common usages, the term addiction is used to describe a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences, as deemed by the user himself to his individual health, mental state, or social life.

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• Internet (14)
• Sex@ (75)
• Substance Abuse (2,256)

• Teen@ (19)

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See also:

• Health: Mental Health: Counseling Services (996)
• Health: Mental Health: Disorders (2,496)
• Science: Biology: Neurobiology: Addiction (10)

• Print Media Coverage of Research on Passive Smoking
  tc.bmjjournals.com
  Research evaluates tobacco industry influence on coverage in newspapers and magazines of the health effects of secondhand smoke.
• Is Addiction Just a Matter of Choice?
  abcnews.go.com
  Transcript of report on conflicting views about addiction by John Stossel of ABC News, televised in April, 2003. Also includes message boards on which this report was discussed, and links to web resources.
• emerging sideways
  emergingsideways.blogspot.com
  Anonymous blog about recovery from sexual and food addictions. [Atom]