Addiction — When Wanting Outruns Liking

Addiction isn’t just “too much pleasure.” The dominant neuroscience model (incentive sensitisation) says repeated exposure to a drug or behaviour causes dopamine systems to over‑react to related cues. The person’s wanting circuitry in regions like the nucleus accumbens and ventral striatum becomes hypersensitive, while the actual liking — the felt pleasure — often shrinks with tolerance.

At the same time, behaviours become encoded in the dorsal striatum as habits. Now, when a cue appears (a bar, a notification, a time of day), both craving and well‑worn action sequences activate automatically. The conscious, reflective systems in the prefrontal cortex often notice the damage and want to stop, but they’re having to fight a sensitised “wanting” engine and heavily practised routines.

Clinically, that’s why people can say “I don’t even enjoy it anymore” while still feeling compelled to use — and why stress, withdrawal and shame can all worsen vulnerability by making drug‑related cues feel even more salient as quick, familiar ways to change state.

Why It Matters

Viewing addiction as a learned, cue‑driven brain state rather than a simple moral failing opens doors to treatment: medication, therapy, new routines and environment design that all target the underlying circuits, not just the symptoms.

Closing Line

Addiction is what happens when the brain’s “this used to help” circuitry won’t stop firing, long after the help has turned into harm.