Addiction of all kinds is a choice

We are talking about people, very flawed people, who understand the negative effects of taking drugs, but once they've been pressured into trying the drug for the first time, "experts believe that the person loses control of their behavior" (https://goo.gl...). Money is different from heroin and cocaine because even though owning and spending causes a dopamine release, money cannot physically alter chemical levels in the brain. Money cannot bring the 42 withdrawal symptoms (YES, I COUNTED) that drug addiction does. You think that I'm saying that humans (you and me) are weak, incapable, simple creatures simply chasing pleasure. To be honest, everything we do is motivated by a desire for the release of dopamine. Even helping others has a dopamine release attached, because it makes us feel like good people and the brain loves to feel like it is a good, kind soul. However, I am NOT saying in ANY way that humans have no willpower. In fact, the strength of the human spirit is quite remarkable. Take, for instance, the miners who survived for months on end in a cave in Chile. Or the 900,000 (give or take 7% according to https://goo.gl...) people who survived the Holocaust. We humans are strong, and we are strong together. That is the key word: together. When companionship is taken out of the equation, the human spirit is considerably weakened. That is why solitary confinement is so effective and destructive on the minds of prisoners. Addicts are the metaphorical prisoners of a drug, which is putting them in a metaphorical solitary confinement. The drug alters the brain's chemicals in such a way that nothing else in the world will make a person happy while they are addicted. Therefore, being with other people (which usually is a steady and reliable source of dopamine and happiness) no longer has any value to an addict. Therefore, the addict has no choice but to continue returning over and over to the only thing that makes them happy, even though they realize that in an hour or two they will feel like crap. A study (https://goo.gl...) performed by Tristan Darland shows that addiction is not a choice. She gave cocaine to zebrafish, and they liked it so much that they hung around the part of the tank where she gave it to them more than any other part of the tank. But that's an obvious result. Remember the chromosome I mentioned earlier, that predisposes a person to addiction? Well Darland found that chromosome in the zebrafish, and she created a genetically altered zebrafish that did not have this chromosome. The zebrafish without the chromosome were easily able to resist the lure of addiction. The government's official stance on addiction from the CDC or Centers for Disease Control says the following at https://goo.gl...: "The initial decision to take drugs is typically voluntary. However, with continued use, a person"s ability to exert self-control can become seriously impaired; this impairment in self-control is the hallmark of addiction. Brain imaging studies of people with addiction show physical changes in areas of the brain that are critical to judgment, decision making, learning and memory, and behavior control.7 Scientists believe that these changes alter the way the brain works and may help explain the compulsive and destructive behaviors of addiction." That article is from DrugAbuse.gov and there is a link to that article from the CDC website. The CDC website page that contains this link is https://goo.gl.... The link that will take you to the DrugAbuse.gov article is labelled "Drugs, Brains and Behavior--The Science of Addiction." I invite you to fact check me. I have all these sources like the National Center on Substance Abuse and Addiction and DrugAbuse.gov and the CDC (a government program devoted to preventing diseases like addiction), and yet you still refuse to believe me. I can continue citing sources all day! Almost every expert on the topic agrees that addiction is characterized by "compulsive," or involuntary, drug use.