ABSTRACT
Learning theories have been applied equally to the non-substance-based addictive behaviours. The application of psychological principles of learning shifted the understanding of addictive behaviour out of the realms of these quasi-scientific explanations. Laboratory experiments with severely dependent 'alcoholics' carried out in the 1960s refuted the inevitability of the key concepts of 'alcoholism', namely 'loss of control' and 'craving'. The belief that alcoholism and drug addiction were diseases gained currency throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. Some researchers claim that social learning factors such as environmental pressures of peer group and availability are the most common in the initiation into substance use, especially cigarette smoking, and that the next stage of use is more strongly determined by the pharmacological properties of the drug, namely the reinforcement potential of the drug effect. The neuron-adapted state refers to the consequences of continual presence of the drug in body tissue, and to weigh the nervous system accommodates itself to this presence.
