ABSTRACT
The observation of the self-destructive behavior in nonhuman animals, combined with the then recently-discovered reward circuits of the brain by J. Olds and P. Milner, conspired to give birth to the current dominant theory of addiction. The fact that a nonhuman animal could express “a desire for the drug” during withdrawal distress was taken by Sidney Spragg and his fellow researchers as proof that “addiction has a firm organic basis.” Addiction was thus progressively and increasingly viewed as resulting, not from the “human in us”, but from the “animal in us.” In conclusion, a walk on the animal side of addiction research reveals how views on the human uniqueness of addiction have changed. Nonhuman animals were predominantly viewed as inherently susceptible to self-destructive drug use, even when they had the choice not to self-administer drugs.
