Most of my issues are behavioral, though I have had minor problems with substance abuse in the past. I recognise that addiction is one mental disease manifested in many different ways and I’d like to hear everyone’s comparisons and contrasts between different forms of this mental illness.
A prime example is binge eating v. alcohol-- we need food to survive, so one can’t cut oneself off completely from temptation and needs to exercise a load of self control. Alcohol is a much stronger drug with effects of greater magnitude on the body and mind, however, one can (and sometimes must, for true healing) completely efface all access to the drug because it is not physiologically essential to life.
Other addictions I would like to explore with you are prescription medication, sex/love, nicotine/smoking, adrenaline/thrill, work, eating disorders, but anything you’d contribute would be greatly appreciated as I try to sort out the miles of tangled up knots in my head
Hi Nate. Yes I am a bit confused about the post. Maybe more of a specific question would help? Have you read any scientific literature on addictions? That may help clarify some things. I didn’t become an alcoholic until I was well into my 30s. So, I have to disagree that addiction is a mental illness that causes addictive behaviors. There are many other reasons that cause addictive behaviors.
My primary DOC is pain pills. I don’t feel my addiction was related to mental illness at all. I started taking pills prescribed for severe back pain. I built up a tolerance over time and had to increase the amount. Eventually i had major back surgery but by then I was hooked and when the doctor tried to wean me off, I turned to the streets. If it weren’t for the initial injury, I truly believe I could have avoided addiction.
I suppose this is the chicken and egg aspect to addiction. Some people have some event that caused them to take a substance, and then they got hooked. For me, addiction was a way to cope with low self esteem, anxiety, maybe what could be classed as depression and the clues were there even when very young. I think the traits of addiction, being unhappy with the self, looking outside myself for comfort, are present in many behaviours, and why I seem to have cross-addiction (edit: for me personally).
This question of behavioral addiction comes up regularly actually. (If you search “behavior addiction” / behavioral / behavioural / etc, various spellings - you’ll find many threads.)
Here’s a post from earlier this year about the devastating impact of gambling addiction:
I was always an addict, be it collections of sorts, alcohol drugs, sex and love you name it for me it’s about a dopamine high,
Ex, as a kid I collected baseball cards, I would do anything to get a pack of baseball cards,
As I grew older it became cars, guitars motorcycles etc eventually alcohol and drugs, and women. And I would find ways to justify them.
And then there is people like Lisa, who never really was chasing a high, just trying to rid of pain, it’s easy to build a tolerance to Opiod drugs and a physical dependence, heroin is much cheaper and fills the void, thus sending people to the streets to cop dope, instead of buying illegal prescriptions at 3 times the price
I mean scientifically speaking, any addiction is a pattern of behavior that moves from a conscious mode of operation, to a semi-conscious to subconscious level. This usually involves the pursuit of the release of either dopemine and serotonin in the brain. Therefore in essence, all forms of additions are rooted in the same basic functionality of the brain - we do something that triggers the release of chemicals in our brain that make us feel good.
There are plenty of examples of this playing out in our lives, that we wouldn’t consider to be problematic because we believe that we have control over the behavior. It’s only when we repeatedly engage in an activity or behavior or thought pattern that brings negative consequences time and time again, that we place the inherently negative label of ‘addiction’ on it.
In my opinion the most stigmatized and dangerous forms of addictive behavior are the ones that, as you say, we are hardwired to be addicted to in the first place - we are all addicted to eating for example because we need to eat to survive. Most of us are also hardwired to seek out sex and emotional intimacy. These from what I’ve experienced and seen are the most dangerous and damaging addictions because abstinence isn’t really an option.
I am a hardwired addict and can note addictive behaviors and thinking patterns back to when I was as young as 4. As you can guess it bleeds into every single aspect of my life. Sex, gambling, gaming, exercising, eating disorders, self injuring, shopping, etc.
Then at 13 it just wasn’t cutting it any more so the drugs came into play…
Hand in hand behavioral and substance addiction steered me through 33 years of my life. Now I fight them both on a daily and to be honest behavioral is harder for me to stay clean from.
My eating disorder is not great right now…
I have slipped 3 times with self injury in the 18 months I have been sober
And we’ll shopping pfffft good luck there.
