ABSTRACT
Adding to the complexities of the natural history of addiction is the matter of prognosis. The numerous demographic and other types of descriptors used to outline the parameters of the natural history, while helpful, overlook, by their static nature, certain aspects relating to the course of the disorder. Recognition of the chronic nature of the disorder and the discontinuity of the treatment resulting from the addict’s movements back and forth between the free society and institutions, and the lack of resources was an important factor contributing to the passage of the Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act of 1966. The stringent definition of opioid use is based on the impression that any opioid use is significant during the treatment of addiction since it is associated with the possibility of readdiction and active contact with a deviant subculture. Technically, a cured addict could not relapse from a state of nonaddiction by taking a single injection of a narcotic.
