I don't know anything about the science behind addictions or their effects on the brain, but I do know something about addictions themselves. I've been mentally and physically addicted to many things in my short life. I'm intimately aware of what it's like to have something that was once done for the simple pleasure of doing it become an all-consuming habit; and that even when able to stop indulging in such destructive habits, how the craving and desire to indulge in those old comforts are always present in the background.
I think that while the superficial aspects and objects of each individual's addictions are as different and complex as the stars in the sky, the mechanisms underlying those addictions are basically the same. The body itself is nothing but a lifeless shell without the mind, and even though addictions can be physical in the sense that the body can become trained to need certain substances present in its system in order for it to function as it did before it became 'addicted,' the mind is where all of our choices and decisions are made.
When seen in this way, it's easy to see that the mind plays an important role no matter what the addiction. For someone to physically pick up an alcoholic beverage and drink it, the mind must have already had the intention to do so. For one to physically light up a cigarette and smoke it, the mind must have already had the intention to do that too. For someone to physically do almost anything, the mind must have already had the intention to do so. With my own addictions, whether or not my body was dependent upon the object of my addiction, there still was a choice in my mind to give in to those cravings and desires.
For the most part, addictions are nothing more than a means for the temporary relief of our daily suffering, pain and unhappiness in that they either ease the mental and/or physical symptoms of our suffering, or they serve to take our attention away from those symptoms. Addictions can also become near and dear to us when they induce pleasant mental states and bodily sensations or act as a security blanket for our fears and social anxieties.
But all too often, we don't see that the short term suffering of denying our unskillful cravings is preferable to the long term suffering of being a willing slave to those unskillful cravings. The difficult part is that even if we know this the case, we're still unable to deny those unskillful cravings for very long.
In the Suttas, the Buddha often talks about clinging, but the Pali term 'upadana' (literally 'fuel'), can also be translated as 'addiction'—what we cling to, what our mind takes as its sustenance, is also seen as what we're addicted to. The four types of clinging that the Buddha mentions are: (1) clinging to sensual passion for sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations, (2) to views about the world and the narratives of our lives, (3) to precepts and practices and (4) to doctrines of the self.
What this basically means is that suffering comes down to the feeding habits of the mind. One reason we're unable to simply let go of these addictions when we realize they're bad for us is that the mind isn't strong enough to stop feeding on them. And even if do we manage to pry it from one source of nourishment, it just keeps finding new (and usually unskillful) ways to feed and cling. In other words, we relentlessly feed our addictions or we simply substitute one unskillful addiction for another.
In my experience, the answer to freeing ourselves from our unskillful addictions lies in replacing them with more and more skillful one by training the mind. When we become addicted to more skillful things — e.g., being generous, jogging, practicing mindfulness, etc., — we slowly but surely change the types of 'food' that our mind feeds upon. We rewire ourselves to find pleasure and happiness in more and more skillful ways, which will eventually help us to abandon our unskillful addictions once and for all.
When we train our mind, when we develop its powers of mindfulness and cultivate more and more refined states of concentration, we help to make it strong enough to overcome its addictions. A strong mind can ignore the voices of craving and, if the what the texts say is true, eventually silence those voices forever.
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