#FEEDING MY ADDICTION MEANING TV#

it employs the same neurological pathways and emotional patterns.

It can take many forms, but whatever form it takes: It is time to realize, then, addiction is neither a choice nor an inherited disease, but a psychological and physiological response to painful life experiences. The same brain circuits, the same brain systems involving pleasure and reward and incentive, the same neurochemicals-not to mention the same emotional dynamics of shame and lack of self-worth, and the same behaviors of denial and dishonesty and subterfuge. Not only is the urge to escape pain shared by all addicts, substance users or not, the same brain circuits are involved in all addictions, from shopping to eating to dependence on heroin and other opioids. This is no less true of the socially successful workaholic, such as I have been, than of the inveterate shopper, sexual rover, gambler, abject street-bound substance user or stay-at-home mom and user of opioids. All addictions are attempts to escape the deep pain of the hurt child, attempts temporarily soothing but ultimately futile. Childhood trauma is the template for addiction-any addiction. Hence my mantra: “The question is not why the addiction, but why the pain.”Īnd the source of pain is always and invariably to be found in a person’s lived experience, beginning with childhood. In short, it is a forlorn attempt to solve the problem of human pain. Such answers illuminate that the addiction is neither a choice nor a disease, but originates in a human being’s desperate attempt to solve a problem: the problem of emotional pain, of overwhelming stress, of lost connection, of loss of control, of a deep discomfort with the self. Only, whatever your addictive focus, what did it offer you? What did you like about it? What, in the short term, did it give you that you craved or liked so much?” And universally, the answers are: “It helped me escape emotional pain… helped me deal with stress… gave me peace of mind… a sense of connection with others… a sense of control.” “I’m not going to ask you what you were addicted to,” I often say to people, “nor when, nor for how long.

#FEEDING MY ADDICTION MEANING TV#

Note that this definition is not restricted to drugs but could encompass almost any human behavior, from sex to eating to shopping to gambling to extreme sports to TV to compulsive internet use: the list is endless. In brief: craving, relief, pleasure, suffering, impaired control. Most addicted people use no drugs at all and addiction cannot be understood if we restrict our vision of it to substances, legal or illicit.Īddiction is manifested in any behavior that a person craves, finds temporary relief or pleasure in but suffers negative consequences as a result of, and yet has difficulty giving up. For all the anguish around substance dependence, addiction cuts a much broader swath across our culture.

With the carnage imposed by the current epidemic of opioids and associated overdoses across North America–many dozens of people dying every day– public alarm around addiction is focused almost exclusively on drugs.

Feeding my addiction meaning