The Undead Desire for Life:Exploring the Parallels Between Zombiism and Addiction

The vacant expressions, the shuffling steps, the outstretched arms and, especially, the untiring craving for human flesh have come to characterize the modern zombie. Ever since George Ramero’s 1968 genre-defining hit, Night of the Living Dead, the sole goal of these creatures has been to sink their teeth into the living. They continue on their quest for flesh despite missing limbs, bullets to the torso, or even organs leaking out of their decaying skin; the only way to stop them is by destroying their brain. As instructed by Sheriff McClelland in Night of the Living Dead, “If you have a gun, shoot 'em in the head. That's a sure way to kill 'em.”What drives the zombie? Why do they endure the grotesque indecencies that encompass zombiism? Based on their characteristic behaviors, evidence suggests zombies are driven by their addition to human life. 

Addiction is a disease that manifests as compulsive drug-seeking behavior and is largely caused by disfunction of the brain’s natural reward circuitry. The happiness you feel when eating Halloween candy is caused by activation of your brain’s reward system. Addictive substances, such as nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, and heroin, also activate these neural areas. As a person develops an addiction, the brain shifts from liking these substances to feeling like it needs them. People suffering from addiction do not relapse simply because they fear the painful symptoms of withdrawal but rather because their brains have been rewired; the drug has altered their neurons in ways similar to what happens during learning and memory formation. 

Those unfortunate enough to experience a zombie apocalypse characterize the undead as lacking higher cognition. Dr. Millard Rausch of Dawn of the Dead warns that the zombies have “seemingly little or no reasoning power but retain basic skills that they learned in their former life.... These creatures are nothing but pure, motorized instinct.” All animals use instinct to stay alive, with such tendencies including the drive to find food, water, and shelter. However, zombies are already dead. Therefore, their craving for human flesh is not a survival-based need and must be an addiction-based need since the main aspect distinguishing the two is that addiction motivates the user to continue maladaptive behavior instead of the adaptive behaviors that keep one alive. 

Zombies’ pursuit of human flesh is a compulsive behavior akin to drug addiction. People suffering from addiction will actively seek and consume their drug despite severe consequences, be it health, social, personal, or economic. When rats are given the opportunity to electrically self-stimulate the reward areas of their brain, achieving the same effect as an addictive substance, they will do so compulsively until eventually collapsing from lack of food, water, and rest. Animal studies have also shown that rats are willing to tolerate pain and distress in order to receive the substance to which they are addicted. If pushing a lever to obtain their desired drug results in a shock, they will continue to push the lever regardless. Both zombies and individuals suffering from addiction exhibit similar qualities of relentlessness. Zombies will persevere in seeking flesh despite severe bodily harm to themselves. In the first episode of the television seriesThe Walking Dead, Rick Grimes witnesses a zombie using just its arms to drag its legless, decomposing torso in its endless pursuit. 

Pain does not deter addictive behavior; in fact, stress has been shown to increase substance abuse and drug seeking. Zombies so readily chase after humans perhaps partly because being undead comes with a great deal of stress. The first zombie we encounter in Shaun of the Dead is accidentally impaled and, despite a baseball-sized hole through her torso, she continues to stagger towards Shaun and Ed. Given that stress causes relapse, then there is reason to believe that zombie maintained her course for flesh not in spiteof the gaping wound but rather becauseof it. 

In addition to stress, a small dose of an addictive substance is also a reliable cause of relapse.  A small dose of life can be interpreted as the sights and sounds of a human: the evidence of human life. Characters in television and film attract zombies by making loud noises and drawing attention to themselves. In Dawn of the Dead, the protagonists bang on the glass doors of a two-level store in a mall to cause the zombies to gather at the source of the racket. Similarly, in Shaun of the Dead Shaun diverts a mob of zombies from the bar in which his friends are hiding by shouting, “Come and get it! It's a running buffet! All you can eat!” This tactic works every time; zombies will always follow the evidence of human life. However, the creatures chase after humans onlywhen they have this evidence. Zombies left to their own devices will wander around either in a seemingly mindless manner or will try to return to places they associate with their own lives.

Zombies in many contemporary films maintain some memories of their former lives. In Dawn of the Dead, while watching the infected roam about a mall, Francine asks Stephen, “What are they doing? Why do they come here?” to which he responds, “Some kind of instinct—memory of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.” Just as zombies return to places they associate with their lives, animal models of addiction have demonstrated that substance users choose to spend more time in places they associate with their drug, a phenomenon called conditioned place preference. In one study, a rat was put into a two-chambered compartment. In one compartment the animal was given a dosage of an addictive substance. The next day, the rat spent significantly more time in the chamber in which it was given the drug, even though it was not receiving any anymore. Substance users form a strong memory between their drug and its associated environment.

The same neural mechanisms underlying addiction are hypothesized to drive the characteristic behaviors of zombiism. Zombies may be suffering from over-activation of ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens in response to exposure to life. Lesioning the latter brain region will cease self-administration of an addictive substance in lab animals similarly to how zombies are only stopped by severe damage to their brain. Zombies and people suffering from addiction exhibit many of the same. Both prefer to spend time in locations they associate with their object of abuse, both are vulnerable to relapse after exposure to stress and/or small doses of whatever they are addicted, and both seem to have no limit to what they will tolerate to satisfy their craving. However, zombie addiction to life supersedes typical substance abuse in its level of intensity.  People with addiction still maintain normal functioning of the rest of their brain and can rely on that cognitive power to help them overcome their drug dependence. Zombies, on the other hand, operate purely through their faulty reward systems. The only treatment for zombie addiction is to cease the functioning of this region, resulting in undisturbed death.