Is Addiction Really a Disease?

In this video, Evan Lieberman, MSW LICSW LADC, answers a question he frequently gets from clients and followers. Is addiction really a disease? A lot of work has been done to classify addiction as a brain disease to destigmatize the phenomenon and highlight the physiological processes happing in the brain. However, to say a blanket statement like "addiction is not a disease." would frankly be seen as heresy. Yet, many thought leaders in the space are pushing back on this, such as physician and author Gabor Mate, relating it more to a trauma coping skill. So watch this video from Evan, where he breaks down both schools of thought and his personal and professional opinion on the matter.