Understanding Addiction
Articles on Addiction & Addiction Treatment
Definition Of Addiction
'Addiction' is a pathological love and trust relationship with an object or event. What does this mean? To be pathological is to deviate from a healthy or normal condition. When someone is described as being ill, we mean that this person has moved away from what is considered “normal.” The word pathological, therefore, means “abnormal”; and consequently, addiction is an abnormal relationship with an object or event. We find true satisfcation in life through intimate relationships with other persons. Objects and events in themselves cannot satisfy the deeper human needs. This is not to say that objects and events are unimportant. They have a normal, socially acceptable function: food is to nourish; gambling is for fun and excitement; drugs are to help manage pain or overcome illness. Anyone using these objects or events in these ways would be seen as having a normal, healthy relationship with them. In an addiction however, the addict departs from the normal function of the object and sets up an abnormally intense relationship. The food, gambling, or drugs take on a new function: the addict develops a relationship with the event or object, hoping to get his or her needs met - needs that can only properly be met through intimate relationships. Normal ways of achieving real intimacy involve reaching out to others and then inward, to ourselves. In addiction, the reaching motion is almost totally inward to the point where the addict withdraws from others. Ironically this often involves a withdrawl from the very relationships that would be able to genuinely satisfy the addicts real needs! Addiction exists within the person, and whenever addicts act in addictive ways, they are forced to isolate themselves from others. The longer an addictive illness progresses, the less a person feels the ability to have meaningful relationships with others. Addiction makes life very lonely and isolated, which intensifies the addict's need to act out. When the addict hurts, he or she will turn to the addiction for relief, just as someone else may turn to a spouse, a best friend, or to God. For the addict, the mood change created by acting out gives the illusion that their needs have been met. Because addiction is an illness in which the addict’s primary relationship is with objects or events and not with people, the addict’s relationships with people change to reflect this. Normally, we manipulate objects for our own pleasure, to make life easier. Addicts slowly transfer this style of relating to objects with their interactions with people, treating them as objects to manipulate as well. For example, the sex addict sees people as sexual objects first and as people second. People around the addict get tired, frustrated, angry, and eventually fed up with being treated as objects. This leads to greater distance between others and the addict, who thus becomes even more isolated. Addicts treat themselves as they treat others. In treating themselves as objects, addicts subject their emotions, mind, spirit, and body to many different dangers, including high levels of stress. As they continue to treat themselves as objects, they are often led to some form of breakdown. At an emotional level, what is happening to the addict is that he or she is getting intensity and intimacy mixed up. Acting out an addiction is a very intense experience for addicts because it involves going against themselves. For compulsive eaters, buying a bag of groceries, eating most of the contents, and then making themselves throw up is a very intense experience. For sex addicts, entering pornographic bookstores and knowing they’ll not leave before having sex with a complete stranger and knowing there’s a chance they could be arrested is a very intense experience. For gambling addicts, watching a football game and knowing the team they have picked must win by six points so they can make a past-due house payment is a very intense experience. During the trance created by acting out, addicts may feel very excited, very shameful, and very scared. Whatever they are feeling, they feel it intensely. Addicts feel very connected to the moment because of the intensity. Sadly, however, intensity is not intimacy. It is an illusion, and the sense of satisfaction quickly fades. An alcoholic sees his relationships with drinking buddies as deep and very personal, but the friends slip away when the drinks are gone, and the addict is left alone. All addictive objects and events, such as eating, gambling, chemicals, and sex, have the ability to produce a positive and pleasurable mood changes. The ability to produce a pleasurable mood change is indeed requisite for an object or an event to have an addictive potential. A person with an addictive personality can switch an addictive relationship from one object to another and/or from one event to another. Switching from object to object indeed helps the addict create the illusion that the “problem has been taken care of,” when in reality one addictive relationship has replaced another. All this buys more time for the addict who does not want to face the truth of their addictions. An addict may stop using speed and pot and “just” take up drinking. Similarly, the recovering alcoholic who hasn’t accepted his addictive relationship with alcohol may slowly develop an addictive relationship with food, putting on 50 or 60 pounds and remaining as emotionally isolated as he was when he was drinking. Recovering and active addicts need to recognize that at times they will want to interact with the world through their addictions. When faced with stress, for example, addicts may want to reach for an object instead of reaching to people or to their creator for the help they need. Once an addictive relationship has developed, the active addict or recovering addict will always see the world in a different perspective. Like any other major illness, addiction is an experience that changes people in permanent ways. This is why it’s so important that people in recovery attend Twelve Step and other self-help meetings on a regular basis; the addictive logic remains deep inside of them and looks for an opportunity to reassert itself in the same or a different form. Recovering addicts must continue to go to meeting and work the program because they continue to be addicts. Recovery is the continued acceptance of addiction and the continuous monitoring of the addictive personality in whatever form it may take. This is a preview click here for full article on addiction
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