We blame the addicts for their addiction. I mean, c'mon, nobody forced them to do a certain drug and become addicted to it, they did that to themselves, isn't it?

Yes, that may be true, they really did that to themselves and got addicted to dangerous drugs that have all the potential to destroy lives. But have you ever considered exactly what leads people to be addicted to meaningless and destructive drugs like cigarettes or activities like gambling?

Attitude in General

Parents and the whole society only become too severe at times towards the members of our families who become drug addicts as a de facto attitude towards addiction. There's no concern what so ever about what might be the real cause of the problem. Instead we just hate the outcome, brandish the addicts altogether and impose authoritative ban on drugs. These, however, have hardly been seen to be helpful. Drug abuse and addiction are ever on the rise.

What Really Makes an Addict?

Back in 2015 I came across an article on Huff Post that very emotionally yet realistically demonstrates a study conducted to find out the real cause behind addiction. And it was an eye-opener.

The study claims that it is the inability to happily connect with anyone or anything or not being able to find meaning in anything that leads humans to create meaning or fake happiness from the apparently meaningless and destructive behavioral patterns like addiction. Simply put, if our environment and society fail to provide us with meaning, fulfilment or true human connection we tend to become addicts. We try to find meaning in meaninglessness.

The Study that Discovered the Truth

The study was conducted by a revolutionary thinker Bruce Alexander who just wasn't satisfied with the traditional view of the reality of addiction.

And as we all know, we are very much adept in conducting studies on rats for finding out the human equivalent. It is also the same case here.

The traditional view of blaming the sufferer of drug addiction was basically established by a research conducted on rats where a rat was kept in a cage, and apart from food and water it was also given a bottle of water mixed with cocaine. The rat soon grew an intense addiction to the drug-laced water bottle and couldn't refrain from it. The animal kept drinking the drugged water until it died of overdose.

But in the 1970s, Bruce Alexander, a professor of Psychology in Vancouver, started acting on his dissatisfaction with this prevalent traditional view of addiction and went on to disprove it.

He conducted a similar study, again with rats and water mixed with cocaine or heroin. But this time there were a few rats left in the cage. Within the cage there was a rat park filled with amusing things for them to play and engage with each other. And the results were startling!

Although all the rats tried the drugged water, they mostly didn't like it. They tried only once or twice then started to pay no more attention to it. Instead they were busy having a fabulous time within their rat park with their fellows.

From this, Bruce could easily confer that the initial test was faulty in that the lonely rat had nothing else to do other than doing drugs. Or in other words the rat just couldn't find anything else meaningful enough other than having the devastating highs that the drugged water had to offer.

So, this study is a startling eye opener for those who see addiction as just mere chemical dependency born out of moral deficiency.

No, it is not! In reality, it is not even us. It is the cage we are in. It is our environment that determines and leads us to be addicts.

Human Equivalent to the Rat Study

It is no wonder that in adverse situations, like war times, we have seen rampant abuse of drugs. Just take the Vietnam war as example when taking heroin was as common as chewing gums for the US soldiers, according to Time magazine. But almost all the soldiers, who were addicts, just stopped taking drugs after returning home, even without rehab, according to separate studies published in the American Journal of Addiction and American Journal of Epidemiology.

The same sorts of occurrences we have seen in many phases of history and still in many parts of the world like ours. Where the society and the overall existential environment fails to provide meaning and genuine strength in human connection, humans fall back on such negatives like drug abuse.

So, what truly makes people addicts or lead them towards drugs is not solely their own doing.

What Can We Do

If we want our children to grow up to be emotionally, mentally and physically healthy we have to acknowledge the reality and difference between drug abuse and utilisation. Above all, we must strive at the societal level towards building a congenial environment for the youth where they will find all the ways of exploration, creativity and meaningful interactions within humans wide open.