Why someone becomes addicted to a substance has long baffled scientists and philosophers. Now leading researchers are getting the clearest picture yet of how addiction works in the brain and body.

Like many who have endured childhood trauma, Shannon Hicks turned to drugs at an early age. Pregnant by 16 and a mother of two by 19, she was married and living in her first home — believing she was ...

People in the United States are in the midst of an ongoing opioid epidemic and a wave of mental health problems. So funding and staff cuts to a federal agency that supports mental health care, suicide ...

Doctors have long taken for granted a devil’s bargain: Relieving intense pain, such as that caused by surgery and traumatic injury, risks inducing the sort of pleasure that could leave patients ...

Many jails and prisons around the country don't provide medication treatment for opioid use disorder. Studies show that medication makes recovery more likely and reduces the risk of overdose death.

Arriving at a 1987 Gamblers Anonymous event in Dallas, Chris Anderson was at a low point. After years of losing money on high-risk stock option trades, his mental health had deteriorated and he had ...

For decades, Americans have been told a simple story about addiction: taking drugs damages the brain—and the earlier in life children start using substances, the more likely they are to progress ...

For those who’ve experienced the legendary tow of opiates, a deepening cycle of despair and deliverance is commonplace. For the rest of us it is hard to imagine what motivates such futile and ...

Quitting smartphone addiction is good for mental and physical health. But how do you do it? Here are some of the best science-based methods. We spend 4 hours and 37 minutes on our phones each day, ...