Midwest Institute for Addiction

Midwest Institute for Addiction understanding of brain disorders has not kept pace with our understanding of other diseases – like diabetes. A big part of our difficulty in calling addiction a “disease” stems from the fact that no one could ever find the defect in the brain that caused addiction. Without a physical brain defect to point to, addiction never earned the status of “disease” like diabetes did. The addict’s symptoms were assumed to be due to their intrinsic badness – their immaturity, their irresponsibility, or worse.