ABSTRACT
The idea that addiction is a disease of the brain first came to prominence in the 1990s, a time characterized appropriately enough by the US President George H. W. Bush as ‘the decade of the brain’. Since then, attempts to promote and popularize this idea must be reckoned a great success, particularly in the USA but to varying extents in other countries of the world as well. Certainly, in terms of endorsement by expert institutions in the USA, the idea has been formally recognized by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and supported by other medical and professional bodies, such as the American Society on Addiction Medicine and the American Psychiatric Association. It is NIDA that has been the main mover and shaker of what has become known as the brain disease model of addiction (BDMA), formally defining addiction as “a chronic, relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug seeking, continued use despite harmful consequences, and long-lasting changes in the brain” (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2019).
