Addiction is a complex process that is often not well understood. Addiction may or may not involve a ‘chemical’ such as alcohol, marijuana, or nicotine affecting brain function to create addiction. Addiction may involve a behavior (sex, video games, or gambling for instance). There is a significant psychological component to addiction. If it were just because a ‘drug’ did something to you, and that ‘drug’ was addictive, then we would all be addicted if we ever used that ‘drug’.  Even medical professionals often have significant misconceptions about addiction. 

During the years that I worked in psychiatric hospitals as well as my outpatient practice, I was frequently confronted with chart notations by hospital medical staff that clearly represented their misunderstanding of addiction. Something I would see repeatedly written, as an indication of addiction, would be something like: “patient exhibits drug seeking behavior”.  Well, yes perhaps the patient did; when it was time for their medication he or she went to the nurses station asking for the medication, but so would most of us if it meant that it would prevent something like a panic episode and you, as a patient with panic disorder, know that a 30 min. delay can make the difference between having an episode and not.  That is not addiction.

The easiest way to think about this, is to ask yourself this question: “does the substance or behavior decrease my involvement in any, or all aspects of my life, or does it diminish my involvement in any way?”  For the person who suffers panic attacks, the medication allows them to function or participate more in life than without the medication. For the person who is addicted to gambling, for instance, that activity becomes increasingly central to their life and excludes more and more of their day to day life.