Prevention

Is it possible to prevent substance abuse and compulsive behaviors? Well, that's a complex question that has complex answers. According to the book "Uppers, Downers, and All Arounders" (2011), "there are three traditional approaches to reduce the levels of drug use and abuse: Reduce the supply, reduce the demand, and reduce the harm."

Reducing the supply of psychoactive drugs includes legislation changes and legal penalties. Reducing the demand includes treating dependency, and "fostering prevention." Lastly, reducing harm includes harm that is caused to the user, their families, friends, and society. This can be done through treatment programs, medication replacement treatment such as Methadone and Suboxone, and the distribution of recovery resources.

In order to understand prevention, we obviously have to understand what drives addiction. The methods of what drives addiction range greatly from genetics, the disease/medical model, the psychodynamic model, the social model, and biopsychosocial model. Of course, some will argue that one model describes the etiology and cause, while others will argue it's a combination of one or more theories.

With that said, what about compulsive addicting behaviors?

One can look at compulsive addicting behaviors in the same light as drug and alcohol dependency.

 Whatever the contributing factors to addiction, prevention is key.