CBT for Substance Addiction

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First, classical and operant conditioning theories pertain to Amphetamine Use Disorders in various ways. Theoretically, for example, operant learning attempts to change one's environment and is strongly influenced by consequences in terms of the acquisition and maintenance of amphetamine usage. Classical Conditioning, more respondent in nature, also reflects this disorder since the addiction becomes an involuntary behavior that is strongly triggered by the external events and motivation that the drug produces, offering learned "reflexes" from usage.
and social learning theory as they apply to the development of a substance related disorder.

There are also emotional links to usage as contextual cues often motivate drug-taking behaviors and can foster reinforcement. In sum, classical conditioning works by having an Unconditional Stimulus (US) as the drugs interact with addicts' nervous systems and then the Unconditional Response (UR) serves as the drugs' effects to then trigger Conditional Stimuli (CS), which deliver cues for continued use and then a Conditional Response (CR). Experts also suggest that addictive drugs directly activate brain reward circuits and can also "induce reinforcing and incentive effects" (Madsen & Ahmed, 2015, p. 433).

Research from Everitt (2014) also surmises that the development of drug addiction can be best "understood in terms of interactions between Pavlovian and instrumental learning and memory mechanisms in the brain that underlie the seeking and taking of drugs. It is argued that these behaviours initially are goal-directed, but increasingly become elicited as stimulus-response habits by drug-associated conditioned stimuli that are established by Pavlovian conditioning. It is further argued that compulsive drug use emerges as the result of a loss of prefrontal cortical inhibitory control over drug seeking habits" (p. 2163).

In contrast, Social ...