Addiction Masterclass: Nature vs. Nurture

So far, we've covered quite a few topics on addiction. But one of the things we haven't discussed is why or how certain people are more likely to struggle with a substance use disorder than another. I'm Evan. I'm your resident addiction and mental health therapist, and this is my addiction masterclass. Today we're going to be talking about the concept of nature versus nurture. When it comes to developing an addiction or substance use disorder. We'll also cover if that's even a proper way to look at it.

So let's break it down. Let's go ahead and start off with biology. And when we look at addiction through this lens, we're often talking about genetics, basically, how we come out of the box, the nature of the seed versus how it grows in its environment. So some of the best research out there, even though it's difficult, shows that genetics or nature accounts for anywhere from 40% to 60% of the picture. So let's go ahead and just say half. Sometimes it's hard to tease these things apart, because, let's say you have a parent that struggles with addiction.

You are significantly more likely to develop a substance use disorder yourself. However, is that a learned behavior? Well, there are ways of teasing this apart, and some of the more brainy scientists are able to look at specific genes and have found some of them are correlated with things like alcoholism or a likelihood of developing drug addiction. For instance, if you have a certain variation of the DRD two gene, you may be more likely to struggle with dopamine uptake, meaning you need more dopamine to get that same effect.

Therefore, you're more likely to partake in activities that are higher in dopamine, like certain behavioral process addictions, like gambling or substance use. There's also been some pivotal research showing that the MAOA gene, whatever that means, having a certain variation when exposed to stress make someone much more likely to develop an addiction versus someone who doesn't have that variation. They can be exposed to severe stress, and they don't develop addiction. At least they're less likely to.

Also, we know that mental health plays a very large component in someone developing an addiction. If you have a mental health disorder, you are far more likely to struggle with a substance use disorder, and vice versa. And just like addiction, mental health is highly hereditable, meaning there are certain disorders that are much more genetic in nature, where you're much more likely, if you have a parent or two parents, to have this disorder as well. Therefore, if you have a higher likelihood of a mental health disorder, you in turn, have a higher likelihood of developing addiction, which is genetic.

So when you're trying to grow a certain plant, yes, it's important the quality of seed you use. However, that seed will not foster or grow unless it's in the proper conditions, whether it be the soil, sunlight, or amount of water. And in this case, for addiction to grow and flourish, it also needs to be in the right conditions. Well, let's go ahead and look at some of the environmental factors that contribute to addiction. For example, your community. How much substance use is going on, what drugs are available, or in your family?

What's your family culture and their chemical health? How do they view substances? Are your family members big drinkers? Well, that makes you more likely to drink as well. Now, there are always people who go the opposite route, but in large part, if you have a family with a strong drinking culture or substance use culture, you're more likely to develop that learned behavior. Now, another big variable we talked about was mental health. So things like being exposed to trauma, having PTSD are big predictors of developing a substance use disorder to cope.

Now, just like government politics, addiction and mental health treatment have politics of their own. Not everyone can agree on what's more important, nature or nurture. For a very long time, there was more of an emphasis placed on nature and biology, and that pendulums largely swung. And right now, we're focusing a lot more on things like trauma and environment and those early childhood experiences. But which one do I lean more on the side of? Well, if you've consumed any of my content in the past, you probably guessed that I'm somewhere in the middle.

That's just how I roll. And it's not just to play a safe bet. It's because both of these things are extremely important when it comes to addiction or any mental health disorder. Like I mentioned, it really is 50 50, just like the plant. If the seed has a susceptibility, a strong seed towards addiction, it may flourish in almost any environment. That's why you see people who don't have early childhood experiences that are negative. They could be in great situations, yet they still develop an addiction.

That could be because of their community, but often it's because of their genetics or their biology. In the same way, you can have a seed that isn't really prone to addiction, not likely to flourish, but you put it in these perfect conditions, and it could go down that road, and in a negative way, that addiction can grow and flourish as well. In the end, no matter what path brought you to addiction, a lot of those symptoms are the same, and there's things that we need to take care of, whether we're in recovery or a clinician working with someone in recovery.

Because it often looks very similar now, it's still important to identify some of the causes and reasons why people developed an addiction in the first place. Because once we're able to get them sober or more stabilized, they're then able to take the next steps and find those underlying reasons, work on them to eventually prevent relapse. Therefore, there are many different paths that lead people to addiction. However, once they get there, addiction becomes a problem of its own, and it needs a very special means of being addressed.

Therefore, a lot of people with addictions, no matter how they got there, benefit from some of the same things, like close community, companionship with other sober people, having accountability, having a new way of looking at life, and challenging some of their old behaviors and beliefs. However, once someone is still stabilized, it is important to take a look at what are the possible reasons, how they got to this place. Is it mental health? Adverse childhood experiences? Is it addiction in their family?

Is it more genetics? Having a better understanding could really help people avoid relapse. They're able to identify what some of those underlying issues are and be able to address them in therapy or through other methods. Now, some of the most new and complicated research is in the form of epigenetics. And essentially what this means is that what we're exposed to in our environment actually alters the genes themselves, because we thought these were just fixed things that are passed down. Our genes cannot be altered.

However, the latest research shows that, for example, if you expose your body to substances or certain kinds of stress, it could alter your genes, and therefore it can be passed down to further generations. Well, I hope you got something out of this video. Even though we went down a bit of a nerdy rabbit hole, it's just important to know that addiction is multifaceted. But simply, elements of people's environment, their genetics, biology, and epigenetics all contribute to a condition. A condition that in and of itself is a solution to a particular problem.

And it's a solution that often becomes more intense and more problematic than the original problem. And that's why it needs to often be addressed first, before you can dive into some of those underlying issues and take treatment deeper.