It is not hyperbole to say that drugs have been the chief source of consolation that Claire, now in her thirties, has ever found. Ever since she began using in adolescence, they’ve offered her relief from searing emotional pain, loneliness, anxiety and a deep-seated fear of the world. As a result, her OFC has been trained to create a powerful emotional pull toward the drug from the second she even thinks about “fixing.” Addiction research refers to this dynamic as salience attribution: the assignment of great value to a false need and the depreciation of true ones. It occurs unconsciously and
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