An important discovery shows that an effective rehabilitation model in a drug treatment program is for about 90 days. It turns out that this is just about how long it takes for the brain to reset itself and shake off the immediate influence of a drug. Researchers at Yale University have documented what they call the sleeper effect a gradual re engaging of proper decision making and analytical functions in the brain's prefrontal cortex after an addict has abstained for at least 90 days.

The research on cognitive enhancers, or compounds that may amplify connections in the prefrontal cortex to speed up the natural reversal give the higher the brain a fighting chance against the amygdale a more basal region that plays a role in priming the dopamine reward system when certain cues suggest imminent pleasure anything from the sight of white powder that looks like cocaine to spending time with friends you used to drink with, it is that conditioned reflex identical to the one that caused Ivan Pavlov's famed dog to salivate at the ringing of a bell after it learned to associate the sound with food that unleashes a craving.

Even if the smells triggered a strong desire to drink, the 90-day drying out period turns out to parallel the brain’s recovery cycle such a strategy is in line with other new theories of addiction.
Scientists say extinguishing urges is not a matter of getting the feeling to fade but of helping the addict learn a new form of conditioning, one that allows the brain’s cognitive power to shout down the amygdale and other lower regions. While such relearning has not been studied formally in humans, but researchers and experts believes it will work, on the basis of studies involving, of all things, phobias. It turns out that Phobias and drugs exploit the same struggle between high and low circuits in the brain. Studies shows that people placed in a virtual reality glass elevator and treated with the antibiotic D-eycloserine were better able to overcome their fear of heights than those without benefit of the drug.  

Such surprise has even allowed experts to speculate whether addiction can ever be cured. That notion goes firmly against current beliefs. A rehabilitated addict is always in recovery because cured suggests that resuming drinking or smoking or shooting up is a safe possibility-whose downside could be devastating. But there are hints that a cure might not in principle be impossible. A recent study showed that tobacco smokers who suffered a stroke that damaged the insula (a region of the brain involved in emotional, gut-instinct perceptions) no longer felt a desire for nicotine. It sounds so exciting, but because the insula is so critical to other brain functions perceiving danger, anticipating   threats damaging this area isn’t something one would ever want to do intentionally. With so many of the brain’s system s entangled with one another, it could prove impossible to adjust just one without throwing the others into imbalance.

Addiction needs medical attention. We have to recognize that medications can reverse the pathology of the disease. We have to force ourselves to think about a cure because if we don’t, it will never happen.