Substance and Behavioral Addictions: Co-Occurrence and Specificity

Dear Colleagues,

Researchers and practitioners have discussed the existence of substance and behavioral addictions. In general, they have agreed that individuals may fall victim to maladaptive, repetitive patterns of behavior involving recreational drugs (e.g., tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs), or other behaviors (e.g., gambling, the internet, binge eating, shopping, workaholism, exercise addiction, love, or sex), that reflect attempts at appetitive physiological outcomes but result eventually in negative outcomes. Research over the last two decades suggests that a wide range of substance and behavioral addictions may serve similar functions. Overall, 12-month prevalence of an addiction among adults in the U.S. based on 11 addictions listed above recently has been estimated to be 46% based on an exhaustive review of the literature. As such, it may be useful to think of the addictions in terms of problems of lifestyle as well as of person. Yet, “co-occurrence” of addictions has been reported among only a minority of sufferers, and is estimated to be approximately 23%. “Addiction specificity” pertains to a phenomenon in which one pattern of addictive behaviors may be acquired whereas another is not. Differential patterns of addiction may be a function of such variables as accessibility, intrinsic appetitive effects, differential socialization, and outcome expectations. The present Special Issue examines addiction co-occurrence and addiction specificity across several addictive behaviors. The goal of the Issue is to shed light on what the mediation might be of addiction co-occurrence and specificity.

Prof. Dr. Steven Y. Sussman
Guest Editor

A booklet of this SI can be found here:
http://www.mdpi.com/files/si/drug_addiction/drug_addiction_SI_v16_prefaceinToC-final.pdf