Question: For reply post, engage in conversation with your peers about how social connections influence the development and maintenance of addiction. Consider asking a question or sharing your own personal experience.--When I listened to Johann Hari discuss the Rat Park experiment, I came to the conclusion that addiction can develop and continue for many different reasons, including isolation and a lack of meaningful connections. One part that stood out to me was his discussion of the television show Intervention, where family members sometimes tell a person experiencing addiction that they will cut them off if they do not stop using drugs. Hari argued that instead of threatening to remove love and support, people should continue showing the individual that they are loved while encouraging them to receive help (Hari, 2015). This connects to the earlier rat experiments because rats that were isolated in small cages consumed more morphine-laced water. However, when Bruce Alexander and his colleagues placed rats in a larger and more social environment, the socially housed rats consumed less of the morphine solution than the isolated rats (Alexander et al., 1978). The experiment suggests that addiction is not caused only by exposure to a drug. Isolation, stress, and disconnection may contribute to the development of addiction, while continued loneliness and a lack of support may help maintain it. Need Assignment Help?