Substance abuse is a pattern of compulsive substance use marked by recurrent significant social, occupational, legal, or interpersonal adverse consequences, such as repeated absences from work or school, arrests, and marital difficulties.
Addiction is a state of psychological or physical dependence (or both) on the use of alcohol or other drugs.
Adapted from APA Dictionary of Psychology
There is great hope in recovery from addictions…it takes courage, mental toughness,
connection, patience tolerance and understanding. Maia Szalavitz’s novel Unbroken Brain states that addictions are learning disorders. She illustrates what addiction is and isn’t. She shows how timing, history, family, peers, culture and chemistry come together to create both illness and recovery – and why no one treatment fits all.