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That’s because with every other chronic disease we look at data. With addiction, we believe.

As long as we think of addiction as something a “normal person” has done to himself by using a drug, we will only see it as a temporary abnormality brought on by bad behavior.

The mindset behind this advice is that addiction is really just a long-lasting intoxication that will eventually go away, leaving the person normal again; this is not a true understanding of addiction as a disease.

I found that she had a polymorphism of Methylenetetrahydrofolate Reductase (MTHFR), an enzyme that turns folic acid from our diet into L-methylfolate, the only form that our brains can use. One use for L-methylfolate is as a co-enzyme in two stages of the production of dopamine.

based in biology and developed from essential principles.

“Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors.”

We can finally treat addiction like the disease it is in nature.

Howard C. Wetsman, MD, is the Chief Medical Officer of the Townsend Addiction Treatment Centers in Louisiana and the author of Questions and Answers on Addiction.