Talk:Addiction

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Ideal sources for Wikipedia's health content are defined in the guideline Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) and are typically review articles. Here are links to possibly useful sources of information about Addiction. PubMed provides review articles from the past five years (limit to free review articles) The TRIP database provides clinical publications about evidence-based medicine. Other potential sources include: Centre for Reviews and Dissemination and CDC

Section sizes Section size for Addiction (67 sections) Section name Byte count Prose size (words) Header Total Header Total (Top) 7,987 7,987 229 229 Signs and symptoms 1,999 1,999 27 27 Substance use disorder 4,209 4,209 191 191 Food addiction 5,468 5,468 344 344 Behavioral addiction 2,741 2,741 154 154 Causes 14 15,861 0 534 Personality theories 2,767 2,767 91 91 Neuropsychology 7,453 13,080 101 443 Stimulus control of behavior 983 983 77 77 Cognitive control of behavior 1,850 1,850 156 156 Evolutionary perspectives 2,794 2,794 109 109 Risk factors 1,433 29,381 111 1,594 Genetic factors 5,995 5,995 430 430 Environmental factors 6,153 9,010 420 456 Social control theory 2,857 2,857 36 36 Age 3,186 3,186 173 173 Comorbid disorders 2,064 2,064 82 82 Epigenetic 1,365 7,693 91 342 Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance 6,328 6,328 251 251 Mechanisms 23,975 49,991 737 1,390 Reward system 44 9,158 0 237 Mesocorticolimbic pathway 6,762 6,762 58 58 Role of dopamine and glutamate 2,352 2,352 179 179 Reward sensitization 14,160 14,160 305 305 Neuroepigenetic mechanisms 2,698 2,698 111 111 Diagnosis 87 12,319 0 813 Classification 22 6,621 0 417 DSM-5 4,792 4,792 279 279 ICD-11 1,807 1,807 138 138 Screening and assessment 34 5,611 0 396 Addictions Neuroclinical Assessment 1,357 1,357 59 59 Tobacco, Alcohol, Prescription Medication, and Other Substance Use (TAPS) 950 950 78 78 CRAFFT 1,284 1,284 123 123 Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST-10) 841 841 72 72 Alcohol, Smoking, and Substance Involvement Test (ASSIST) 1,145 1,145 64 64 Prevention 64 7,712 0 290 Abuse liability 1,422 1,422 138 138 Potential vaccines for addiction to substances 6,226 6,226 152 152 Treatment 6,994 6,994 80 80 Epidemiology 554 18,426 52 934 Asia 1,071 1,071 55 55 Australia 1,527 1,527 118 118 Europe 1,572 1,572 97 97 United States 10,491 10,491 371 371 Canada 1,951 1,951 146 146 South America 1,260 1,260 95 95 Etymology 6,355 7,475 286 365 The suffixes "-holic" and "-holism" 1,120 1,120 79 79 History 1,498 1,498 120 120 Addiction and art 930 20,824 146 1,389 As therapy 7,532 7,532 458 458 As an assessment tool 3,735 3,735 300 300 Advocacy 8,627 8,627 485 485 Social scientific models 255 11,369 12 852 Biopsychosocial–cultural–spiritual 3,058 3,058 104 104 Cultural model 3,499 3,499 312 312 Subcultural model 2,541 2,541 188 188 Critical medical anthropology model 2,016 2,016 236 236 Social learning models 30 6,253 0 512 Social learning theory 1,167 1,167 74 74 Transtheoretical model (stages of change model) 5,056 5,056 438 438 See also 343 343 0 0 Endnotes 27 27 0 0 Notes 81 81 0 0 References 28 28 0 0 Further reading 1,014 1,014 0 0 External links 1,258 1,258 0 0 Total 213,258 213,258 9,818 9,818

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 January 2022 and 17 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Friedchickenprincess (article contribs).

split mechanisms section

request to split mechanisms section into Mechanisms of addiction page to aid in reducing length which is 9611 words Cognsci (talk) 18:35, 18 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

Addiction is a vast area of study and a great deal of research is emerging and expanding the topic further. I would support the move to restructure the information so that ‘mechanism of addiction’ is given more focus in a separate page. I would also advocate allocating a specific section to the psychological aspects of addiction. This is mainly to better accommodate the psychosocial and experiential factors which are associated with an increased risk of addiction. I feel that this is of some relevance given that individuals maybe be looking for information concerning themselfs or family members. Thanks DharmSophia (talk) 10:40, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

this article already has a risk factors section, though if you want to include info about how rather than whether addiction is related to these "psychological aspects of addiction" then sure Cognsci (talk) 12:49, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support – The mechanism section is too long, I agree. I believe it would be better to name the new article ”Mechanism of addiction", rather than making mechanism plural. The fact that there are multiple mechanisms should be mentioned in the article, rather than implied by the title. This is similar to the mechanism of autism article. The mechanism section here should be a summary of the new article. Slothwizard (talk) 21:34, 23 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: The readable, text-only size for that section is 9707 bytes, or 1376 words. In any event, because (1) addiction is a neuropsychiatric disorder that involves ongoing, aberrant changes to neural networks that govern reward salience and action selection/decision making, and (2) there is no separate "pathophysiology" section on this article, I would expect the mechanisms section to take up a decent fraction of the article size. That said, I would support WP:SPLIT in this case if the section were to be much bigger than it currently is. E.g., epigenetics of cocaine addiction is it's own article simply because the field of epigenetics is very, very complex, which is why Addiction#Neuroepigenetic_mechanisms is relatively brief and offers supplementary hyperlinks to neuroepigenetics et al. Professional Crastination (talk) 07:31, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mechanism of addiction is an interesting approach to the topic, but also perhaps a very needed one. Denoting this in the singular is also an interesting choice, but is perhaps less warranted. While working directly in the field of treatment for the past 10 years, I have come to know addiction as BOTH, a physiological and a pathological phenomenon. It is my belief that the observance of any potential "mechanism" of addiction would certainly fall short were it to not include references to both of these aspects. 2603:7080:100:1F7A:5849:4341:FD1B:6913 (talk) 03:49, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re:I have come to know addiction as BOTH, a physiological and a pathological phenomenon

I just want to clarify so I can understand your point better - what do you mean by addiction being physiological? When I read physiological, my first interpretation is that you're describing addiction as a normal/non-pathological process in the body. So, I assume I'm misinterpreting. Professional Crastination (talk) 06:57, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Request to replace commercial sources

I request that the following three citations be replaced with government sources per WP:RS and WP:MEDRS.

The existing source AddictionCenter.com is operated by a for-profit marketing company that promotes specific treatment facilities and sells inbound calls to those facilities. As such, it presents a conflict of interest and is not considered a neutral, evidence-based source.

1. Replace AddictionCenter.com with: "Key Substance Use and Mental Health Indicators in the United States: Results from the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health". Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. 2022. Retrieved 31 August 2025.

2. Replace DualDiagnosis.org with: "Mental Health and Substance Use Co-Occurring Disorders". Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Retrieved 31 August 2025.

3. Replace DrugAbuse.com with: "Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research-Based Guide (Third Edition)". National Institute on Drug Abuse. January 2018. Retrieved 31 August 2025.

These replacements use neutral, government-published, peer-reviewed sources in line with Wikipedia’s medical sourcing policy. Trustagent2025 (talk) 04:03, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Behavioral Neuroscience

This article is currently the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 September 2025 and 12 December 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Oboukalik (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Oboukalik (talk) 03:05, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Brain Disorder Model

Are we sure its the most appropriate to format the page around the idea that addiction is a brain disorder when it is a highly contested model? Its quite controversial to present it as an absolute truth when there's emerging evidence on the contrary.

I suggest its better we make the definition more neutral in the introduction (i.e. focus on behaviours rather than the possible cause of addiction such as the referencing how its compulsive or something similar to that) and delve into the brain disorder model under a subsection. Textbookviolence (talk) 16:24, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]