ABSTRACT
Over the last 10 years the role of cognitive factors in addiction has been viewed with increasing interest. The old-style disease model, which saw addicts as suffering from an illness which limited their control of their own actions, is being replaced by a self-control model, which emphasises individuals’ contribution through their thoughts and actions to their dependence on drugs. One of the features of this theoretical approach is its concern with the factors which various addictions have in common, i.e. the deficits in self-control which can be seen in such widely divergent areas as alcoholism, smoking, and heroin addiction (Levison et al. 1983). This chapter will mainly focus on illicit drugs rather than on the physically more damaging but socially condoned drugs such as alcohol and nicotine. Before pursuing the cognitive model of drug abuse further we will look at the conventional forms of treatment.
