Cellular Adaptation: the real problem of addiction

I think the problem of drug addiction (opiates, alcohol, and many more) is really cellular adaptation.

Your cells have a programmed way of operating in your DNA that they try to follow as much as possible. Things like opiates screw up that operation, and for a cell, operating outside normal metabolic parameters can lead to death of either the cell or the entire organism (you), so your cells do what they can to suppress the foreign substance, and try go back to operating normally.

If this means developing antibodies to destroy the foreign substance, or finding ways to adjust their normal metabolic processes to adapt to the problem, your cells will do it.

Being blissed out of your mind on opiates may feel good to "you" (the consciousness that your cells are sustaining in their neural net that we call the brain) but while you're doing that to yourself, your cells are trying to purge and block the drugs to try to keep themselves / you alive.

In nature, an animal that is blissed out of its mind has the potential to end up very much dead from thirst, starvation, or getting killed by a predator, so it's in your cells' own best interest to keep you as un-blissed-out as possible.


It takes time for your cells to figure out countermeasures to foreign substances that screw up metabolism, but if your body is flooded with the substance they will respond more quickly to control the problem and stop it from affecting normal operations.

Therefore, restricting dosage to the smallest effective amount, reduces the likelihood of your cells adapting, and reduces the likelihood of you needing ever greater amounts to experience the same effect.





Addiction is probably the result of lingering effects of cells trying to combat the problem. You are blissing yourself out of your mind, and meanwhile your own cells are conducting a massive antidrug suppression to get rid of the foreign substance and stop its effects on your metabolism.

Eventually the drug wears off but your cells continue the assault, and now your metabolism goes too far the other way (leading to your general discomfort and suffering, leading to cravings for more of the drug), until your cells figure that out too and learn to back off on their suppression efforts (the withdrawal process), and your battle-scarred metabolic battlefield is finally able to return to more or less normal operation.

But, the cellular weapons of mass drug destruction remain armed and ready for attack at any sign of the invader, which is why just one dose or drink for a recovered addict, can push you (and your cells) over the edge again into all-out war (and withdrawal symptoms) all over again.





So, how do we really combat addiction? Well we could probably take a look at what exactly cells are doing when they try to adapt to an addicting substance. What metabolic changes occur in cells, and what are the specific countermeasures they take to suppress the substance, leading to addiction?

Is there some way to slow down or stop this cellular adaptation, without damaging cellular metabolism in general?

If so, then to keep painkillers effective, in addition to the actual drug, you would take a second chemical that counteracts the cellular adaptation process, and keeps the drug in full effect every time you take it.

Is it possible to reverse the cellular adaptation process to addicting substances, without damaging the other metabolic defense mechanisms?

How and where is the adaptive information stored, and how do cells draw upon this information and use it to combat the foreign substance in the future?

Is this information encoded in similar ways across entirely different organisms, or is it encoded uniquely to each organism? (Is a generalized approach to suppressing the drug tolerance / cellular adaptation process possible?)



These are all extremely interesting questions, potentially with extremely profitable answers to the addictive-drug painkiller industry.

But I am not a cellular-metabolism microbiologist, so I'm likely not going to be doing anything in this area of research. However, it is my hope this post might lead someone else to do the research.