used and misused term. People speak of others being addicted to watching sporting events on television, as well as being drug addicts. Scientifically, however, drug addiction is a behavioral pattern of drug use that is characterized by an overwhelming, compulsive involvement with the use of a drug and the securing of a supply of a drug, and a high probability of relapse following withdrawal from use of a drug (Rawson, Obert, McCann, & Marinelli-Casey, 1993).
Addiction denotes repetitive routines of dysfunctional behavior, whether related to chemicals or activities. Common across dependence syndromes are the repeated urge to participate in counterproductive behaviors, the release of tension through such behaviors, the gradual return of the urge to repeat the behavior, secondary conditioning of the urge, and relapse prevention through cue exposure and stimulus control (Marks, Bradley, Miele, Tilly, First, Frances, & Jaffe, 1990). Most relapse prevention models are rooted in social learning theory, and attempt to enhance the probability of maintaining a behavioral change.
Peele (1985) contended that substance addiction cannot be explained adequately through "exclusively biological concepts" (p. 2). This position holds that substance addiction, as is true of other addictive behaviors, "is subject to social and cognitive influences" (Peele, 1985, p. 2). Peele (1985) stated that addiction "represents a continuum of feeling and behavior more than it does a distinct disease state" (p. 2). Addiction within this context is the manifestation of "an habitual style of coping, albeit one that the individual is capable of modifying with changing psychological and life circumstances" (Peele, 1985, p. 2).
According to Peele's (1985) concept of addiction, even the trauma of drug withdrawal "is not exclusively determined by physiology," but is, rather, associated with "a person's expectations, values, and self-concept, as well as the per...