Types of Addiction

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What is Addiction?

Addictive disorders share a number of key features such as continued behavior despite adverse consequences, diminished behavioral control, compulsive engagement in the addictive behavior, and cravings or urges associated with engagement in the behavior. Several types of addiction disorders relevant to women are investigated by the Addictive Disorders Core at Women’s Health Research at Yale. These include disorders related to smoking, drinking, and gambling.

What is Pathological Gambling?

Gambling can be defined as placing something of value at risk with the hope of gaining something of greater value in return. Pathological gambling is the diagnostic term used to describe a pattern of excessive and/or destructive gambling behavior. It is classified as an impulse control disorder. However, it has been shown to share features with substance use disorders. Similarities may include phenomenological features (e.g., urges/cravings, high rates in adolescence and young adults, and a “telescoping” phenomenon in women in which the timecourse between initial engagement and develop of a problem is foreshortened in women as compared to men), co-morbidity with substance abuse/dependence, tolerance, withdrawal, similar responses to behavioral and pharmacological treatments, and shared biological features such as genetics and neurobiology. This has led some researchers to describe pathological gambling as a non-substance addiction.

What is Nicotine Dependence?

Nicotine dependence is a psychiatric disorder that involves physical or psychological dependence to nicotine typically through use of tobacco products. Cigarettes, cigars, pipes, chewing tobacco, and smokeless tobacco all contain the nicotine, the drug which is considered the element responsible for dependence or addiction to these products. Nicotine-containing products can produce physical and mood-altering effects in one’s brain which are perceived as pleasurable and may lead to dependence. Attempting to quit or cut back use of nicotine-containing products such as cigarettes may lead to withdrawal symptoms including irritability and anxiety. Although nicotine appears responsible for the addiction, various other toxic chemicals found in tobacco products appear linked to many of the health-related problems associated with smoking.

What is Alcohol Abuse and Alcohol Dependence?

Alcohol abuse is a psychiatric condition that is characterized by a pattern of alcohol use that is unhealthy or dangerous. Some behaviors associated with alcohol abuse include drinking too much, drinking when it is dangerous to do so (e.g. while driving or taking care of children), missing work, school or other obligations due to drinking or being hung over, getting in trouble with the law, recurrent social or interpersonal problems (e.g. arguments about alcohol use, physical fights while intoxicated), and continued alcohol consumption despite the problems it has caused or exacerbated. When a person abuses alcohol, they may continue to drink even though they know that their drinking is causing problems.

Excessive use of alcohol can also lead to alcohol dependence, a psychiatric condition may also be called alcoholism. With alcohol dependence, a person may exhibit problematic behaviors associated with alcohol abuse, but may have also become physically or mentally dependent on or addicted to alcohol. Alcohol dependence can make it difficult to quit drinking or control how much drinking is involved. Physical problems such as tolerance (needing to drink more to obtain the same effect), withdrawal, and alcohol-related health complications (e.g. cirrhosis) may develop. A person with alcohol dependence may spend a significant amount of their time in activities necessary to obtain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or recovering from its effects.

Not everyone who drinks regularly has a drinking problem, and not all problem drinkers drink every day. The following links contain alcohol use self-assessment tools which may provide some insight into your alcohol consumption.