Title: Classical Conditioning and Addiction
Headings: Classical Conditioning and Addiction
Classical Conditioning and Addiction
Classical Conditioning: A Review
How Classical Conditioning and Addiction Relate to One Another
Possible Treatment Options
Reboot Your Recovery

Content: While salivating when seeing the food stimulus may be seen as an automatic response, there is a learning aspect to classical conditioning that also needs to be taken into consideration. In one of his most famous experiments, Pavlov rang a bell every time he fed some dogs. The bell in this situation was paired with the arrival of the food. While food in of itself can be considered an unconditioned stimulus since food itself can cause the salivation, the ringing of the bell paired with the arrival of the food is seen as a conditioned stimulus. Eventually, the dogs learned to associate the ringing of the bell to the delivery of their food and after enough repetitions the ringing of the bell could elicit the same response as the food itself: salivation. How Classical Conditioning and Addiction Relate to One Another
The question is how does classical conditioning and addiction relate to one another? Like the example of the bell ringing when the food was on its way for the dogs, there can be certain relapse triggers that can have the same effect on the addicted person. Those relapse triggers can be certain smells, places, and situations that have a strong connection to the actual act of using. For example, someone could come home from work and always drink in front of the television or they may always smoke marijuana in the car.