The best data known regarding the amount of time necessary for an addiction to be cured depends on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist: is the 'glass half empty' or is the 'glass half full?' The 'half-empty' belief is that perhaps up to 50% of substance abusers with serious addictions will struggle with their addictions for the rest of their lives. As for the 'half-full' part, the belief is that a small percentage of substance abusers with serious addictions will eventually move past the addiction and completely leave it behind.
Addiction may be defined as a pattern of behavior that's persistent, the result of a psychological or physical dependency that disrupts a person's quality of life. People become addicted to a wide variety of substances -- in the realm of physical addiction, a person could be addicted to tobacco, narcotics, alcohol, sedatives and stimulants; in psychological addiction, the person might take ordinary drives, such as the need for food or sex, and take these behaviors to an extreme. Everyone knows someone with an addictive streak or an actual addiction, but how do these addictions come about?