World Addictionary

About 30.000.000 substances are known today, but only a few as 100 ( including nicotine, ethanol, psychostimulants, opiates, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, cannabinoids) are addictive. The question arises, what makes this 100 substances addictive and other 30 million not? Afterall there seem few pharmacological similarities among addictive drugs. Some - including barbiturates, ethanol, opiates, and benzodiazepines - are sedatives; while others - including nicotine, cocaine, and the amphetamines - are stimulants. Some - including opiates and cannabinoids - are anti-nociceptive, while others are pro-nociceptive. Some - such as ethanol and opiates - produce striking degrees of physical dependence, while others - such as cocaine - produce little if any physical dependence( it is estimated that around 21% of cocaine drug abuse will develop addiction). All  addictive drugs are subjectively rewarding, and plesurable. All addictive drugs (except LSD-like and mescalline-like hallucinog...

Epigenetics is a part of genetics. Epigenetics study which genes are switched on and off.  It also studies the mechanism how are genes read by cell and how will proteins be produced. 1. Some life circumstances can affect genes to be off or on. 2. What you eat, with whom you make relationships, where you live, when you sleep will influence chemical interactions around the genes that will be off or on. 3. Different combinations of genes that are switch on makes us unique. 4. Epigenetics is reversible which means that some other combination of genes can be switch on or off. The possibilities are enormous. At least three systems including DNA methylation , histone modification and non-coding RNA ( ncRNA )-associated gene silencing are currently considered. Vulnerability to addiction is influenced by biological, social, environmental and genetic factors. Studies reviled the role of gene-environment interactions, which occurs when genes interact with the environment and ...

Today scientist uses genes as a marker to find genetic variations as an explanation of different diseases like cancer, heart problems, liver, and kidney failure or immunological problems..etc. For looking into genes they use single nucleotide polymorphism or SNPs. SNPs are common genetic variations among people. We have genetic variations in every 300 base pairs. Which actually means that there are a round 10 million SNPs in the human genome . Now, not every variation is potentially dangerous for health and development, but there are some variations of the allele (different type of the same gene-we have it two-one from mother and one from father) that is proven to carry a potential danger for developing some diseases . For instance, each SNP represents a difference in a single DNA, called a nucleotide. For example, an SNP may replace the nucleotide cytosine (C) with the nucleotide thymine (T) in a certain DNA. Our gene, for example, for some protein (which has ...

Addiction is hiding in bathrooms, bedrooms and basments or roofs. Wheater you agree that addiction is mental disorder or health issue or just a problem, you are facing the monster.The monester is hiding his face under different masks and you just need to shoot him down by coming out of "closet". Lots of celebrities spoke the truth about their addiction and what happened? Well, nothing? They were supported, encourage to endure they fight on one side but,they were also under pressure. But what if you live in small city or you are unknown or prisoned or have family or you just won't addmit you have a problem. How will you cope with stigma that you are addict? What will you do? You are under pressure already, having troubles in social relationships, work, survival, health and what ever you can think of. How can you cope with stigma, he/she is junkie/alcoholic or fat/bulimic? We have to stop the stigma of people who are addict and comunity have to be aware that people...

According to National Institue of Mental Health in the US, both drug and alcohol addiction are mental disorders. It is changing your way how you cope with daily life, it influences your behavior and your relationships with family, friends, and partner.  It also influences your work, going to school or university. Statistics from the US shows that more than 18% people have a substance addiction and of that number more than 8 million have both substance abuse and another mental illness. And as it seems that number is rising. Chronic use of drugs makes short and long-term changes in your brain. That changes can lead to hallucinations, depression, anxiety or aggression. Our brain has plasticity which means it can change during whole life. People usually think that our brain is changing until some adolescent age or even just of some age of 5 years old. But what is discovered is that our brain changes through whole our life. New synapses and chemical talk through neurotransmitters...

"You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug, especially when it's waving a razor sharp hunting knife in your eye," wrote gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, no stranger himself to the compelling nature of addiction. As has been demonstrated many, many, many times over, drug addiction is a powerful force that can take control of the lives of users. In the past, addiction was thought to be a weakness of character, but in recent decades research has increasingly found that addiction to drugs like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine is a matter of brain chemistry. Dr. Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, says that the way a brain becomes addicted to a drug is related to how a drug increases levels of the naturally-occurring neurotransmitter dopamine, which modulates the brain's ability to perceive reward reinforcement. The pleasure sensation that the brain gets when dopamine levels are elevated creates the m...

Addictionary is a dictionary of addictions. In urban language, it can be kind of addiction that nobody could think of at first glance. It can be the addiction of writing of obscure and made up words, or addiction of reading dictionary, or way of avoiding work. The thing that is interesting is that we are all in one or another way addict of our habit. This is the world of addiction.  Most of us do not realize this to the moment that that habit starts to ruin our life and our health. The list of addiction is long, but I will start with most common and well-known. First I will start with alcohol which was long time socially acceptable in that way that it was encouraged in some countries like a proof of manhood. Today we have a large population of women who are an alcohol addict too. Second is smoking and also socially acceptable in the XX century. Although today we have a restriction of smoking in almost all western societies, smoking is still one of most r...