Now controversially spans all sorts of behaviours

much constantly, taking naps 
from time to time. When I 
wasn’t playing, I was irritable, 
restless and unhappy, thinking 
only about getting back 
online.”
He lost not just his job, 
but his family and his home. 
“All that happened over the 
course of eight painful years. 
Gaming was a massive escape 
for me, an adrenaline rush, 
and the worse my life got, the 
more I would retreat into that 
online world,” he says.
After trying to limit his 
gaming first by himself and 
then with the help of a new 
partner, he decided to get 
professional help. He spent 28 
days in a private rehab clinic 
run by UK Addiction Treatment 
Centres, working on trauma he 
endured in early life. “I had to 
look at what I was running 
away from,” he says.
He relapsed a few years ago, 
and spent two months playing 
all night, but hasn’t played 
a game since. “My life is 
really quite nice today. I have 
my partner, my kids, I have 
a job – I’m free. I’m not chained 
to that addiction any more.”
CASE STUDY
* Names have been changed to preserve the anonymity of 
the individuals featured in the case studies in this article.
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44
 | New Scientist | 14 September 2019
“ I have this 
shadow that 
nobody knows 
about, that I’m so 
ashamed of”
believed people became hooked on the 
pleasurable, rewarding dopamine rush. Others 
observed that for addicts like Ian and Louise 
(see case studies on pages 43 and 45), there is 
little pleasure left. Instead, it could be that 
regularly hitting up the dopamine system left 
lasting changes in brain function, so the drug 
became necessary for a user to feel normal. 
It wasn’t until the 1990s, with the rise 
of molecular imaging, known as PET scans, 
that we could see the impact of drugs on the 
human brain in real time and watch what 
happens to the dopamine system.
One major finding was that the prefrontal 
cortex, where decisions are made, is far 
quieter in the brains of people who are 
addicted than in those who aren’t. This 
suggests that their brain function had 
changed as a result of drug use, says Everitt, 
leaving them less able to control their own 
behaviour. Whether an addict uses drugs to 
attain pleasure or avoid misery, continued use 
will ultimately depend on the extent to which 
they are able to control their impulses.
This helps to explain how habits come to 
form a big part of addiction. For instance, 
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