Is Addiction a Disease? | Keith Humphreys

From Our Neurons to Yours · Feb 23, 2023 · 10m

What makes addiction a disease?

I think we all know at this point that addiction is another major epidemic that is sweeping our country and the world, but there are few topics that are more misunderstood than addiction. In fact, some people question whether addiction is even truly a disease.

To delve into this question of why neuroscientists and health policy experts do think of addiction as a disease, I spoke to Keith Humphreys, the Esther Ting Memorial Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, who is a leading expert on the addiction epidemic.

Humphreys chairs the…