What defines addiction?

_db

It seems like a rather slippery slope to attempt to define the standard for addiction.

1.) We all would recognize that the heroin junkie in the red-light district downtown is addicted to this substance.

2.) Some of us would probably see common activities as addictions, like video games (particularly mmo's), taking selfies, and energy drink consumption.

3.) Most of us would at least initially be adverse to saying the brilliant composer is addicted to music, or the prolific reader is addicted to books, or every organism is addicted to food.

But what is the difference between these cases? The first case is a clear example of addiction. The second examples are gray areas, that may or may not be considered addiction. And the final examples almost seem like equivocations of the word addiction.

Addiction is basically defined as the dependency on something. For any good to arrive from an addiction, there must be a certain deprivation. The organism learns that it likes or dislikes certain stimuli, and plans to continue to experience these stimuli in the future. This habit evolves into a need.

But this means that all three sets of examples are of addiction. The only difference between them, then, is how much they negatively impact the organism.

Yet this can be further deconstructed - the composer with no job opportunities, no instruments, no pencil or paper, is going to suffer just as much as the heroin addict. The only difference between these three sets is the ease in which these dependencies are satisfied (which causes the organism to suffer in some sense).

Does this apply to everything in life? Is everything we do, simply an instrumentalized addiction?

Talk of this reminds me of Nagel's claim that anything can be seen as absurd. Perhaps everything we do is addiction - how do we deal with this aesthetic disillusionment? Can we? Can we rise above this aesthetic without succumbing to the aesthetic itself?

Everything we feel as good is just dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin (and a few more minor neurotransmitters) mixing around in the gloopy brain. Yet perhaps we need to keep in mind that the experience of disillusionment and pain is also caused by neurotransmitters.

So on one hand, we have the aesthetic disillusionment of pleasure by identifying it as merely a chemical "high" - yet when we try to apply this same aesthetic to pain or disillusionment by identifying them as merely chemical "lows", we aren't as easily persuaded back into the manifest image. Strange.

Shawn

To necromance an old thread this is somewhat pertinent to the recent discussions popping about drug use, pleasure, and happiness, along with my own struggles with addiction...

I guess Schopenhauer would say that we are addicted to all these stimuli due to the hedonic impulse, which is misguided in the pursuit of happiness. We tend towards these addictive tendencies due to their salience of producing what is most pleasurable or satisfying. The heroin addict tends towards his or her addiction due to impulses that originate due to heteroreceptor internalization that is instilled through the first use of heroin. If you do the literature, it's actually nicotine that is pretty darn addictive, which I have adopted as a masking method of coping with more serious addictions due to my ADHD. It's a rather complex issue between dopamine and acetylcholine; but, to distill the gist of it, people with ADHD, anxiety, depression, and obsessive tendencies, which I've heard every male has obsessive tendencies, have a profound disposition towards the hedonic impulse, which is aberrant in their condition.

Some cope with alcohol, which is a rather stupifying drug is you don't mind me saying so.

It seems like a rather slippery slope to attempt to define the standard for addiction. — darthbarracuda

So, I hope I have defined the ambiguity when one starts slipping towards addiction.

My own personal struggles with treating ADHD, depression, and anxiety, have led me to believe that the issue of salience, which is governed by dopamine, is quite a pertinent issue.

Anyway, I hope I've jumpstarted a dead thread into existence with this input. There are countless other psychological factors at play here, which I will refrain from talking about due to the lack of knowledge I have about them.

Cheers.

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fishfry

We all would recognize that the heroin junkie in the red-light district downtown is addicted to this substance. — darthbarracuda

I'll take the contrary view. It's my nature.

There was a great experiment performed in the 1960's and early 70's. It was called the Vietnam war. We took a large number of young men and sent them against their will to a jungle with people shooting at them in a war widely regarded, even by our political leaders, as pointless [The historical record shows that LBJ knew we couldn't win yet kept pouring troops in anyway].

Morale was so bad that fragging, throwing fragmentation grenades into the tents of officers, was a frequent occurrence. Heroin use was rampant. The military leaders were terrified that all these men were going to come home to the US and fuel a massive heroin epidemic.

Instead, when they got home, they never used heroin agin. Turns out that what we call substance addiction is, in many cases, nothing more than a rational response to awful external circumstances.

Lee Robins was one of the researchers in charge. In a finding that completely upended the accepted beliefs about addiction, Robins found that when soldiers who had been heroin users returned home, only 5 percent of them became re-addicted within a year, and just 12 percent relapsed within three years. In other words, approximately nine out of ten soldiers who used heroin in Vietnam eliminated their addiction nearly overnight.

https://jamesclear.com/heroin-habits

If you take those down-and-outers living on the street and give them a roof over their heads and a loving and nurturing environment, there's a good likelihood that they'll give up the heroin or the booze or the meth or whatever they use to get them through the night.

And if I took you out of your comfortable home life and put you on the street to live, in circumstances such that you had no hope of improving your lot in life, there's a good chance you'd use whatever substance was around to take the edge off.

It's not the substance. It's the circumstance.

ps -- This was a 3 year old thread? Didn't notice at first. But the story about the Vietnam vets is one that should be more widely known. It's wrong to blame the substances. You have to look at the circumstances surrounding the addiction.

TheMadFool

↪darthbarracuda

It's very confusing. The basic human desire, hopefully, is to understand. Maybe I'm being elitist by claiming so, afterall many people are happy to live their lives surrounded by the comforts of modern technology without wanting to know how a TV, microwave, LED, etc. works. Nevertheless, confusion or being ignorant of something is generally considered a fault and people do many things to alleviate this condition like reading books, surfing the www, etc.

What does understanding something entail? Many things probably but what is relevant here is one aspect of it viz. we understand something, x, by decomposing it into simpler parts a, b, c, etc. and how they relate to each other. Basically, reductionism.

The fashionable way to make sense of mental processes seems to be via neurotransmitters as you mentioned. You then made an interesting observation viz. that on some occasions we're satisfied with the reductionist explanation while at other times it just doesn't give as much comfort as expected.

The way I see it is in terms of layers of reality, very ''scientific'' I believe. There's atoms, they assemble into molecules, these molecules become cells, cells become organs, organs synergize into a person. At each level of this organization stuff happen and we can explain any one level of reality with the simpler one below it, I don't think we should deny the existence of any level of reality. Basically, happiness and sorrow are real stuff even if they can be explained in terms of neurotransmitters.

BrianW

↪darthbarracuda

I would define addiction as a self-destructive discipline/pattern of activity. In this way, it might be possible to exclude people like the brilliant composer who is seemingly addicted to music, or the prolific reader seemingly addicted to books, or every organism seemingly addicted to food unless those addictions are actually harming them.

hachit

An addiction has several meaning depending on the context. Then some people don't know the difference between addiction and obsession.

In all definition of addiction however, it has to do with something interfering with someone ability to function "normally".

unenlightened

Thus google:

Addiction 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. In brief: craving, relief, pleasure, suffering, impaired control.
Opioids and Universal Experience of Addiction by Dr. Gabor Maté.

So if you find yourself skipping meals and staying up all night to make posts here, you are addicted to TPF.

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Shawn

Addiction as medical problem? — tim wood

Predominantly, I think so.

Artemis

I would define addiction as a self-destructive discipline/pattern of activity. — BrianW

This.

Addiction and mental illness are typically identified (in part) by how much they infringe on your quality of life/ability to function.

Some addicts may seem functional from the outside, but a) addicts are really good at covering up their problems, b)only for a limited amount of time--it WILL ruin their lives eventually.

BrianW

↪NKBJ

Addiction (depending on the influence) could be a consequence of, and also result in mental illness or abnormalities. I think the difference is addiction implies the capacity to still be in control of one's mental faculties.

Artemis

↪BrianW

Although the specfics of how it is described are still being debated, psychologists recognize addiction as a mental illness in its own right.

Though, yes, it often co-occurs with other mental illnesses.

BrianW

Although the specfics of how it is described are still being debated, psychologists recognize addiction as a mental illness in its own right. — NKBJ

That makes it interesting. Now I'm wondering, can addiction be used as an excuse for ill behaviour? I mean in the sense that, could addiction overcome one's impulses such that judgement (intellectual) is completely beyond the capabilities of the addict? The reason I'm asking is because mental illness could obscure judgement in favour of more instinctive behaviours or responses.

Artemis

↪BrianW

I don't think that addiction necessarily explains or excuses ALL of an addicts bead behaviors, but certainly some of them. It may be hard to distinguish in some cases which actions are due to the addiction or the addict being a jerk as a person.
For example: addict steals cash from a store--probably the addiction taking over.
The addict votes for Trump--probably just a jerk.
The addict cheats on his wife--could be a mixture of being a jerk and addiction-induced behaviors.

My personal opinion is that since addicts obviously pose a danger to themselves and others, they should be treated in involuntary facilities like other mentally ill persons who've proven to be a similar risk.

What defines addiction?

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