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and behavioral consequences resulting from relative deficiency of a
naturally occurring hormone (insulin) in our bodies. Insulin-
dependant diabetes can be effectively managed by balancing the
body’s insulin deficiency with daily injections of a prescription insulin
medication, and thereby preventing a host of secondary medical
problems associated with poorly controlled diabetes. Similarly, opiate
dependences (i.e. addiction) can be effectively managed with daily
methadone treatment to balance the brain’s relative opiate deficiency,
allowing patients to function normally and preventing a host of
secondary medical problems associated with poorly controlled
addiction.

As mentioned previously in this book, the days where drug addiction
was perceived as essentially a moral problem or character flaw are
behind us. Cumulative scientific evidence gathered over the three past
decades clearly establishes that drug addiction is a disease with a
physical basis. The data demonstrates that addiction is a disorder of
the human brain that severely compromises a patient’s ability to
regulate and control his/her behaviors (compulsive drug seeking). It
has a biological basis in brain just like Parkinson’s Disease
(dysfunction of the brain’s motor system) or Alzheimer’s (dysfunction
of the brain’s cognitive system) or Major Depression (disruption of the
brain’s mood modulating system). For addiction, the location of the
dysfunction has been determined to be in the part of the brain largely
responsible for reinforcement and motivation behind basic drives such
as hunger, thirst, survival, and well-being.

Dr. Alan Leshner, former Director of the National Institute of Drug
Abuse, describes addiction as the drug seizing control of the addicted
person’s brain, thereby usurping first the mind and then the life…by
disrupting receptors and neurotransmitter systems in regions of the
brain that normally allow the exercise of choice…resulting in
uncontrollable, compulsive drug-seeking and use – the essence of
addiction. For the patient with addiction, drug-seeking becomes as
primal and instinctual as the need for food and water, often even
superceding these basic survival drives. Exercise of intrinsic free
choice in the matter becomes nearly impossible at this stage, and
external stabilizing intervention becomes necessary.