The Office of the Surgeon General recently produced its first Report on the consequences of alcohol and drug abuse on health, making several very laudable policy recommendations, including characterizing addiction as a Brain Disease Model of Addiction (BDMA). However, the Report is marred by a biased viewpoint on the psychology and neurobiology of drug addiction. We highlight here four controversial issues that were depicted as facts in the Report, thereby potentially misleading non‐expert readers about the current state-of-the-art understanding of the psychology and neurobiology of drug addiction. It will be important to recognize a fuller range of scientific viewpoints in addiction neuroscience to avoid amplifying this bias in the coming years. The current dominant perspective on addiction as a brain disease has been challenged recently by Marc Lewis, who argued that the brain-changes related to addiction are similar to everyday changes of the brain. From this alternative perspective, addictions are bad habits that can be broken, provided that people are motivated to change. In that case, autonomous choice or free will can overcome bad influences from genes and or environments and brain-changes related to addiction. The brain changes occurring with addiction are related to choice behavior (and the related notions of willed action), habit formation and insight, hence essential mental abilities to break the addiction..
This course is based on the articles, Addiction research and theory: a commentary on the Surgeon General’s Report on alcohol, drugs, and health created by Aldo Badiani et al. in 2017, Free Will, Black Swans and Addiction created by Reinout W Wiers, PhD et al. in 2017 and Introduction: Testing and Refining Marc Lewis’s Critique of the Brain Disease Model of Addiction created by Stephen Mattews et al. in 2017.
Publication Date
2016-2017
Course Material Authors
Course Material Authors authored the material only, and were not involved in creating this CE course. They are identified here for your own evaluation of the relevancy of the material this course is based on.
Aldo Badiani
Aldo Badiani is a professor of Pharmacology at Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy. Much of his research has been in the addiction field and he has presented multiple lectures, written book chapters and published more than 75 articles in peer reviewed journals.
Reinout W Wiers, PhD
Reinout W Wiers is professor of developmental psychopathology at the Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam. Reinout does research in Abnormal Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Developmental Psychopathology. He is head of the Addiction Development and Psychopathology (ADAPT) lab.
Stephen Matthews
Dr Stephen Matthews is Senior Research Fellow at the Plunkett Centre for Ethics (a joint centre of St Vincent’s and Mater Health, and ACU), and in the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy. His published works relate to the metaphysics of personal identity over time, moral psychology, the philosophy of psychiatry, and applied ethics. Recently he has been focusing on questions of autonomy, agency, and narrative identity where those concepts may test, and be tested by, empirical findings related to those struggling with addictions, mental illness, or dementia.
L.A. Rankin is a social worker with experience in many different settings with a variety of clients. She has worked with dementia and Alzheimers patients, dual diagnosis MH/MR, in a battered women’s shelter, and a rape crisis center. She also has 11 years of experience as a child protective social worker, where she earned certificates in domestic abuse/family violence and substance abuse.
Recommended For
Clinicians, physicians, administrators, researchers. This course is appropriate for intermediate levels of participants’ knowledge.
Course Objectives:
After taking this course, you should be able to:
Acknowledge there is an opposing view to the biological disease model in the Surgeon General’s report and more current scientific data available.
Identify Marc Lewis and his research as the leading authority on the opposing view and the research that his book has spun off.
Extrapolate the two opposing models, and a third biological disorder model and apply those theories to treatment of clients/patients.
Availability
This course is available starting Apr 25th, 2019 and expires Jan 4th, 2037
Disclosure to Learners
Disclosure of Relevant Financial Relationships
CE Learning Systems adheres to the ACCME's Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited
Continuing Medical Education. Any individuals in a position to control the content of a CE activity –
including faculty, planners, reviewers, or others ― are required to disclose all relevant financial
relationships with ineligible entities (formerly known as commercial interests).
The following relevant financial relationships have been disclosed by this activity's planners, faculty, and
the reviewer:
Planners and Reviewers
The planners of this activity have reported that they have no relevant financial relationships.
Material Authors
Any relevant financial disclosures for course material authors can be found in the article.
Course Creator
L.A. Rankin – There are no relevant disclosures.
Commercial support
There is no commercial support for this distance-learning course.
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