The cognitive model explantion for addiction

Outline any two cognitive model explanations of addiction. Refer to evidence and offer three criticisms for each (250-300 words).

The cognitive model suggests that addicts perceive drugsdifferently than non-addicts, they have a different schema. There are several cognitive models of addiction the two I am going to look at are the ‘self-medication’ model and the ‘expectancy theory.’
Theself medication-medication model appears to be able to explain why people start taking drugs it says that the addict makes a conscious decision to take the drug as they think it will help them relievephysical and psychological pain. An example of this is that 1/3 of Vietnam War veterans became alcoholics after returning to America, they said that it helped them to deal with the trauma of the war andso self-medicated themselves with it under this belief when realistically they are misattributing (mistakenly identifying the wrong cause of stress etc.). However, a weakness of this is that in thecase of the Vietnam War veterans the other 2/3s did not become alcoholics upon their return even though they had the same traumatic experiences as those who did, also, not every person who is an addictsuffers from traumatic memories and therefore there has to be another explanation as to why they are addicted other than self-medicating. This could possibly suggest that self-medicating is more of acoping strategy for some people.
The expectation theory suggests that people that have addictions to drugs have different perceptions and expectations of drugs and the effects they have thenpeople who are not addicted. For example, an alcoholic may think along the lines of, “drinking alcohol will guarantee that I have a good night.”- the alcoholic may exaggerate the positive effects ofalcohol (i.e. loss of inhibitions, becoming more social etc.) and minimize the negative effects by saying, “I will quickly get over the hangover (consequence), it’ll be worth it.” The problem with the...