Wants and Needs, Oh My

From the book "Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked" by Adam Alter.

"The part of our brain that deals with our needs is fragile—it’s easily disrupted and it occupies only a very small part of the brain.  In contrast, it’s not easy to disrupt the activation of an intense want.  Once people want a drug, it’s nearly permanent—it lasts at least a year in most people, and may last almost a whole lifetime.”  Berridge’s ideas explain why relapse is so common.  Even after you come to hate a drug for ruining your life, your brain continues to want the drug.  It remembers that the drug soothed a psychological need in the past, and so the craving remains."

Need:  To have an absolute requirement for.
Want:  To wish for or desire.

There's also a lot of research that indicates that addiction is very much dependant on environment and circumstances.  This is why we suggest that people may need to change their habits, their friends, their neighborhoods, maybe even their families.  When you associate drug or alcohol use or behavioral addictions to an environment a powerful trigger exists.  I remember attending a jail meeting for years.  It was very common for guys who were doing well in their recovery program while they were locked up to relapse very quickly.  In almost every case they had plans to eat their favorite foods, do their favorite things, see all the people they didn't see the very night they got out.  I noted the irony that these were not the people who . . . you know . . . visited them in jail.  They left that up to a few guys from the suburbs that they didn't even know.  But they put themselves right back into an environment that they associated with drug and alcohol use, so . . . surprise! . . . they used drugs and alcohol.

A great example of this concerns soldiers in Vietnam who got addicted to heroin - a drug that was cheap and in ready supply - to counteract the boredom and fear of war.  But when they returned to society and were removed from the environment that triggered the drug use almost 85% of them managed to quit using and stay clean, a percentage that treatment centers would kill to achieve.  The point being that if you return to your old life once you kick heroin it will be difficult to avoid the desire, the want to use.