Background The centuries-old term addiction remains widely used in both professional and
popular media because it communicates commonly held imagery of those whose once-
promising lives were ruined by their uncontrolled use of substances, such as alcohol,
opioids, or stimulants. In the scientific literature, addiction was once considered a personality
disorder and later, the manifestation of tolerance and withdrawal from hard drug use.
However, scientific findings now suggest impaired control as the core defining diagnostic …