Addiction & agency
Is addiction a brain disease or development?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Lewis treats addiction as a self-perpetuating learning loop in a plastic brain, not a deviation from a neuronormative healthy brain.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Other — Philosophical critique of the chronic brain-disease model of addiction in favour of developmental learning
- N
- Conceptual/theoretical argument; not an empirical sample
- Population
- Addiction science and the chronic brain-disease model of addiction (BDMA)
- Outcome
- Addiction as a self-perpetuating neuroplastic learning loop rather than neuronormative disease
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
Key findings
Self-perpetuating attraction is a feedback loop between experience and synapses, not proof of disease. Brain-disease thinking searches for neuronormativity and repair; a developmental model treats the brain as an open system that can change in many directions. Recovery is conceived from within, not dictated by professional norms.
Methodology
Lewis attacks the chronic, relapsing brain-disease model and the funding bias that favours it. He notes many people quit without treatment, then sketches alternatives (choice, environment, self-medication) that usually ignore detailed brain mechanisms. His own account is developmental learning plus neuroplasticity.
Limitations
This is a theoretical essay, not a new imaging study. It does not measure quit rates itself. ‘Without treatment’ citations are from the wider literature.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
Several papers reject the slogan that only a chronic brain-disease story can fight stigma or explain compulsion.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Lewis treats addiction as a self-perpetuating learning loop in a plastic brain rather than a deviation from a healthy neuronormative brain.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Authors split on whether there is a temporary disease-like or duress-like stage: Snoek models one that recovery can pass through, while Heather and Lewis reject chronic-disease framing more flatly.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Open questions
Tensions this paper is part of
From concept pages' “where studies disagree.” Disagreement means the same question; scope means different assays, populations, or outcomes.
Authors split on whether there is a temporary disease-like or duress-like stage: Snoek models one that recovery can pass through, while Heather and Lewis reject chronic-disease framing more flatly.
- Supports · Is there a disease-like stage in addiction?
- Supports · Must addiction be disease or vice?
Discoveries this paper informs or conflicts with
- If addiction changes the brain, that is what learning does too
This paper informs this development.
Related papers in this topic
Same topic cluster — not a recommendation engine.