Twenty years ago the idea of addiction as a disease wasn’t really a common way of understanding addiction, but today it is.

Part of me feels like there’s some truth to it but also some falsehood.

On the one hand, it makes sense that repeated behavior can rewire the brain, and that breaking free may require serious effort.

But on the other hand, calling it purely a “disease” might take away from a person’s sense of responsibility or willpower to change.

From an Islamic perspective, addiction hasn’t traditionally been framed as a disease in the classical medical sense.

However, scholars have long acknowledged that certain sinful harmful habits can be extremely difficult to overcome. Some even described habits as something the soul struggles to escape from without great effort (jihad al nafs) or divine help.

So there is recognition that these patterns can become deeply ingrained.

But the idea that someone is “once an addict, always an addict” doesn’t really have solid empirical proof. It’s more of a commonly held belief than a proven fact.

What we can say is this: the more a person engages in harmful or addictive behavior, the harder it becomes to stop. Each repetition strengthens the habit.

That’s why, especially from an Islamic viewpoint, it’s important to be cautious from the very beginning, because the first slip makes the second easier, and the third even easier, and so on.

There are real biological changes associated with addiction, even with non-substance behaviors like pornography or phone use.

Brain connectivity can change. But these changes are not fixed, the brain has lifelong plasticity, meaning it can adapt and recover.

So addiction isn’t something you’re necessarily born with, nor is it a life sentence. It’s often a pattern shaped by repeated behavior and one that, with effort and support, can be undone.

Dr.Francesca Bocca-Aldaqre & Shaykh Shadee Elmasry