Nadia Halim | Sep 26, 1999 | 7 min read
Drug and alcohol addiction costs the United States more than $100 billion a year. Neither law enforcement nor therapy has been able to adequately combat this problem, so it continues to grow. Some researchers are taking a new approach: Instead of looking at addiction as lack of self-control or escape, why not see it as a chronic, reoccurring disease? Research substantiates that there are fundamental biological processes at work in the brain of a drug user. Long-term changes occur there, predisp