This guy has some interesting ideas about addiction.

It's always seemed to me that people are addicted and/or prone to addiction for some things but not others, and that everyone is addicted to some things. Some addictions are neutral for one's life overall, and some can be beneficial.

Some addictions are neutral for one's life overall, and some can be beneficial. — Terrapin Station

Well, addiction is usually defined as "a medical condition characterised by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences [my emphasis]", and so can neither be beneficial nor "neutral".

I believe that some people have a predisposition to addictive tendencies. I know that in my own family we have an addictive 'tick' on one side. Meaning as far back as Italy, members of my family on my Dad's side have become addicts to various activities such as drinking, women, drugs, infidelity, everything short of gambling but I would include that because it has the potential to have the same grip as the other addictions.
Even though the way we are raised and environment (nurture) plays a huge role in addiction, I believe that the individual's genetic make up (nature) plays a larger role in addiction, simply because it is a hidden 'trigger'. Many people before hitting rock bottom from an addiction, will think that their problem is based on their inability to control one's own free will but after recovery one might find that their own 'will' was not as 'free' as they once thought.
I have found it a benefit to know that I have an addictive personality, especially since I am a recovering addict 8-) and as a result, have been up front with my two Indians and they 'get' it. Hopefully they will know what to do with 'it'. (Y)

However, no such effect is present when for example abusing cocaine, still a cocaine habit is often called a disease. — Wilco Lensink

Huh?

Does anyone know how people have come to the conclusion that addiction is a genetic disease rather than a product of psychological conditioning? — Wilco Lensink

The same way that they have come to most other conclusions; by setting up their studies and reading the results in such a way as to confirm whatever they believed to be the case in the first place! Cynical? Moi? Well yes but only because so much 'research' in this area is absolute pants. As the experiments that are really necessary to establish the facts here are all utterly unethical we have to be content with half-truths and obfuscation. We don't know and we never will. Which of course is great for the 'experts' ...

Obviously. You just get on the pundit circuit. You all go on the chat shows and the colour supplements and violently disagree with each other about what answer I’m eventually going to produce. And if you get yourselves clever agents, you’ll be on the gravy train for life.

Deep Thought

Thanks everyone for your replies! As of yet I don't really know how to "mention" someone or even how to quote someone, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it soon. (Edit: I found out how to mention people, so I edited my post.)

Opinions seem to differ. As was to be expected. :-)

@Unenlightened, thanks for the tip! It seems really interesting and I'll watch his Ted talk sometime.

@ArguingWAristotleTiff, is it perhaps that you somehow feel that if there is a biological component to addiction, one can feel less "guilty" of having been addicted? I think there is no shame in addiction either way, whether it be psychological or genes. I know how a little partying can, before you know it, turn into a full blown hard drug addiction. I know how something so "taboo" can become "normal" very soon. I know how there can be a paradoxical freedom in using: i felt temporarily free, though while actually I was imprisoned in an addiction.

@Barry Etheridge, I basically could have written what you write though I was merely trying to state my question a little more open ended. I fully agree with your statement that the research is basically mostly designed to prove the point. When not designed entirely to prove the point, one can still prove the point by interpreting the data to mean whatever one wants (to a certain extent). "Pure" science is not very easy to come by since experiments cost time and time = money. So yes, when a company wants some research done and they pay good money of course the scales will be in favor to them.

This is actually I think one of the bigger problems in modern day science, where a lot of theory poses as objective while that status of objectivity may perhaps be questioned. Also, I think the objectivity/subjectivity pair should be explored not just by philosophers but by all scientists who claim to produce truth.

Well, addiction is usually defined as "a medical condition characterised by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli despite adverse consequences [my emphasis]", and so can neither be beneficial nor "neutral". — Michael

That's not a definition I'd agree with, obviously. One reason why is that what's adverse versus neutral versus beneficial is subjective, but I think it's useful to define addiction outside of that particular subjective assessment.

My thought is that genes do not "give us addictions" in the same way genes give us a disorder like Huntington's disease. Rather, genes shape the way the body metabolizes chemicals. Genes also shape the way we respond to stress. Genes shape the way our emotions respond. This shaping (which is a tendency, rather than rigidly determinative) may lead to addiction, or may not.

Take coffee. Genes control how fast we metabolize caffeine. Some people are fast metabolizers, some are slow. People who are slow metabolizers are going to be more affected by caffeine than fast metabolizers, who clear caffeine relatively quickly. If you are a fast metabolizer, you can afford to drink coffee in the evening -- and still sleep well. Slow metabolizers might not sleep well if they have coffee for their mid-afternoon break.

So, it seems likely that some people are prone (but not guaranteed) to become addicted to a given chemical IF they try it, and IF they decide to use it several times to obtain desired results. So, X tries a narcotic (probably not the first drug ever tried) to obtain an tranquility. Genes determine how fast the narcotic will be metabolized. Genes shape how quickly the person becomes habituated. Some people "know" they have found the drug they were looking for when they first take a narcotic.

Most people who receive narcotics for pain, experience relief, and when, through healing, the pain is diminished feel no further desire for the drug. They get no kick from the narcotic. They are very unlikely to be come addicted. I've had narcotic drugs several times for surgical pain and it didn't do anything remarkable other than reduce pain.

Alcohol, narcotics, and stimulants present a strong likelihood of addiction -- given the right set of circumstances. For instance, people who are depressed might resort to alcohol for self-treatment. Alcohol does dull discomfort for a short period of time. To maintain the effect, one needs to maintain a certain level of alcohol. Pretty quick the person becomes dependent on alcohol to function. They are addicted. Had they not experienced depression, they might not have resorted to alcohol as a solution.

Most people get through all the difficulties of life successfully (or not) WITHOUT becoming addicted to any chemical. A minority seem doomed to addiction.

@Bitter Crank, thanks for your reply. I appreciate it! What I deduce from what you say is that genes affect the way in which we respond to our environment? Have I understood you well? You also say they "shape" our emotions, right? I may be nitpicking here, but I wonder how we (as humankind) have come to these conclusions. I am not at all saying I know better or something like that, I really don't know and I'm just always very curious how people have come to conclusions like that. I just want to learn. :-)

For example, I have to wonder: what are feelings and emotions? Are they the same or somehow different? I always thought of feeling as a personal inner experience and emotion as a sort of externalization of this feeling, a way by which we may communicate our feelings to others. If we take the two basic feelings, happiness and sadness... Are these phenomena "simply" chemicals having a mental effect? Does every psychological phenomenon have a biological counterpart or neural correlate or something like that? I somehow believe this must be true in a way, yet, is it possible for humans to know all of these mechanisms? And, does that mean that consciousness can in essence be reduced to chemistry? 

Like I said, I really don't know. All I know is that this either/or thinking, either biological or psychological, may be harmful or at least not productive. When it comes to the nature/nurture debate I think it is clear that it's not really a matter of the one or the other. We can't deny that we as humans have a body that is made up of all sorts of interacting materials (chemicals), we also can't deny that we have inner experiences of conscious awareness that we perceive as being somehow different from the "outer world" in a sense that they are personal.

Humans seem to think in dualities - biological/psychological, nature/nurture, inside world/outside world' etc. - while these dualities are always somehow connected or even intermingled; at least related. I myself am convinced that all dualities can also be viewed as pairs (of opposites) that somehow complement each other and form a unity. Though that is just a little alchemical theory, which may be totally irrelevant here.

Humans seem to think in dualities - biological/psychological, nature/nurture, inside world/outside world' etc. - while these dualities are always somehow connected or even intermingled; at least related. I myself am convinced that all dualities can also be viewed as pairs (of opposites) that somehow complement each other and form a unity. Though that is just a little alchemical theory, which may be totally irrelevant here. — Wilco Lensink

Actually that's a classic them in philosophy. Hegel comes to mind.

Modern philosophy, culture, and society seemed to Hegel fraught with contradictions and tensions, such as those between the subject and object of knowledge, mind and nature, self and Other, freedom and authority, knowledge and faith, the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Hegel's main philosophical project was to take these contradictions and tensions and interpret them as part of a comprehensive, evolving, rational unity that, in different contexts, he called "the absolute Idea" (Science of Logic, sections 1781–3) or "absolute knowledge" (Phenomenology of Spirit, "(DD) Absolute Knowledge").

According to Hegel, the main characteristic of this unity was that it evolved through and manifested itself in contradiction and negation. Contradiction and negation have a dynamic quality that at every point in each domain of reality—consciousness, history, philosophy, art, nature, society—leads to further development until a rational unity is reached that preserves the contradictions as phases and sub-parts by lifting them up (Aufhebung) to a higher unity. — Wiki

I may be nitpicking here, but I wonder how we (as humankind) have come to these conclusions. — Wilco Lensink

Not nitpicking at all -- it's a fundamental question.

We have been observing each other for a long time, and beginning with guys like Aristotle, we have been theorizing about how 'mind' works. We have had the means to tie our observations of behavior to the brain (and specific parts and processes) only just recently.

Functional MRI scans (fMRI) are one means. fMRI scans show which areas of the brain are active during certain activities. Subjects can be instructed to perform some mental task while they are are lying very still in the machine, and we can see what areas of the brain 'light up'. A Hungarian team trained dogs to lie still in the machines and measured their responses to different words and intonations. (human brains and dog brains work very similarly.)

Here's a picture of the dogs being instructed on how the fMRI machine works. As you can see, the dogs totally approve of the physics of magnetic resonance imaging.



CT scans, fMRIs, EEGs, many years of dissection, study of stroke and brain injury patients, study of other animal brains, and so on have yielded a much clearer picture of how we operate. Sociologists, psychologists, biologists, entomologists, et al have been piecing together how and why animals behave the way they do.

I have to wonder: what are feelings and emotions? Are they the same or somehow different? — Wilco Lensink

It depends how fussy one is. In common parlance, a feeling and an emotion are pretty much the same thing. There are some differences: "To feel" is a verb. "I felt like killing them" is the verbal expression of the emotion 'rage' or 'intense anger'. The emotion 'rage' is a noun. Some people "have emotions" other people "feel emotions". Maybe there are more "feelings" than there are "emotions". Maybe feelings are more specific than emotions. "I feel like you are putting me down because I am Chinese." he said. "He had feelings of inferiority." "He was feeling like he wasn't part of the group." "He was lonely."

One can go around and around on this.

There is a fairly specific and limited set of emotions. We experience this as feeling.



"To feel" also includes what we register from our senses. "I feel like it is too hot." "The stone feels very smooth." We feel the environment, and we feel our emotions.

Are these phenomena "simply" chemicals having a mental effect? Does every psychological phenomenon have a biological counterpart or neural correlate or something like that? — Wilco Lensink

Animal cells communicate with each other electrically and chemically. Sometimes chemicals "cause" emotions, and sometimes chemicals "communicate" emotions. For instance:

If you are walking in the woods and you see a big snake on the path in front of you, you will probably have very strong feelings. Sighting the snake is the cause. The emotion "fear" is the response. As soon as the snake is recognized, a signal is sent to the adrenal glands (located on your kidneys) to squirt some adrenalin (the fight or flight chemical) into the blood stream. In just a second you feel a tremendous reaction and you jump back away from the snake, and a couple of seconds later you are ready for action. If the big snake turns out to be a tree root, you will still feel totally charged up for a little while, until the adrenalin is used up by the body's cells.

A new mother and father feel a rush of warm fuzzy emotion when they hold their baby. You also feel warm and fuzzy when you have wonderful sexual experience with somebody you love. Where does this warm and fuzzy feeling come from? The two parents went to a great deal of trouble to have a baby and they are very happy about it. This is the objective situation. So also is the good feeling of wonderful sex with a lover. But... Brain cells use electricity and chemicals to communicate. When the parents hold their baby, when you hold your lover close, the hypothalamus emits oxytocin. Oxytocin is the messenger that brings good feelings as a result of real experiences. The baby, your lover, is the cause. The chemical messenger is the result.

Now, if a researcher squirted some oxytocin up your nose, you would then feel warm and fuzzy and your reactions to the people around you would reflect the presence of the chemical. You would, it has been shown, trust them more under the oxytocin influence than you would have without it. (The effect wears off, but the added trust might linger for a while.)

The hypothalamus doesn't just pop off some oxytocin at random. It does so on the basis of real experience. Similarly, the adrenal glands don't just pop off some adrenalin because they're bored. Something has to trigger it. (And if someone has an anxiety disorder, lots of things will trigger it, and they'll be very jumpy anxious persons.)

When it comes to the nature/nurture debate I think it is clear that it's not really a matter of the one or the other. — Wilco Lensink

Right. Nature and nurture interact in enormously complex ways all the time.

ArguingWAristotleTiff, is it perhaps that you somehow feel that if there is a biological component to addiction, one can feel less "guilty" of having been addicted? I think there is no shame in addiction either way, whether it be psychological or genes. I know how a little partying can, before you know it, turn into a full blown hard drug addiction. I know how something so "taboo" can become "normal" very soon. I know how there can be a paradoxical freedom in using: i felt temporarily free, though while actually I was imprisoned in an addiction. — Wilco Lensink

I apologize for the delay in my response as life has had my immediate attention for a while. First let me welcome you to The Philosophy Forum! Your opening post is very defined and over time you will figure out the bells and whistles of the forum, till then, keep on thinking!

In response to your reply, I took some time to think about what you said about "guilt" which is something I never really equated to addiction. My first addiction was my choice and it was at a time in life when I did not have the responsibility of a family to care for. As far as I have worked through my first addiction, I quit on my own terms, at the time of my own choosing, because I was losing everything I valued and realized that my 'friends' weren't really "friends" but rather people who shared in my addiction so when I went clean in my body, I had to cut off relations with every person who was attached to the habit. I essentially had to start over, from zero. My take away was, that even though I stayed awake for a year and was experiencing the consequences, I lived a LOT in that year and if I had to do over again, I would likely make the same choices. It was a chapter in my life that gave me more "character" as I call the storms I have endured and come out the other side with something positive to compartmentalize that experience with allowing me to move onto the NEXT.

My second addiction didn't have any guilt at ALL attached as I had a Doctor prescribing me my addiction. At this point I did have a family and children to be responsible for but my injury was real as was the healing time. No guilt. Though over the years, I have come across pictures that I am in, but I have very little recollection of but I have a dear best girl friend who has filled in the spaces for me.

I can see the correlation in how a phrase like "predisposition to addiction" could offer some wiggle room when it comes to knowledge becoming a self fulfilling prophecy but I am willing to take that risk.

Is it wrong for me to not feel guilty about having an addiction?

With society as addicted as it is today, I am fairly confident that the exposure to addictive activities will arise, regardless of my warning my Indians or not. I think sharing this knowledge with them opens up a line of communication in regards to addiction.

Overcoming an acute addiction is one hell of a feat, something I personally am proud of and encourage in others. Some addicts fear sobriety more than they do death. So to stare down an addiction within yourself is absolutely an accomplishment but the chances of a relapse is enormous. Many addicts channel their addictive tendencies to another form, when they are stopping an acute addiction.

What is the difference between a habit and an addiction?

Thank you all for your insightful replies. I'm sorry for my late reply. I wanted to take my time. I also had to help someone move unexpectedly last weekend and it has been over 30 degrees Celcius here in the Netherlands. I think it actually fried my brain a little.

@ArguingWAristotleTiff, thanks for your lovely words. I myself have no guilt attached to the addictions I have suffered from or am still caught up in. I have overcome my hard drug addiction, yet, I still smoke. I feel bad about it, sometimes I feel hopeless, but never guilty. I own up to the fact that these addictions are of my own choosing, perhaps even of my own making. So I can also "make them" go away.
I do not regret my party days, which really were about ten years of my life of doing hard drugs. It was excessive, it was crazy, and it may have led to insanity, but also to healing. I saw that there is a world apart from our everyday world, that there are states of mind except our everyday state of mind. That you can feel free and liberated when dancing and talking to strangers, how you feel no fear or sadness, there is just joy, or even ecstatic bliss.
All of this can make you see things in a different persective, like in the old mystery religions where initiates would dance and drink while being told the secrets of nature.
Then comes a time where you must face your addiction (to pleasure), and try to change. This is the hard part, I know... But when you overcome your dragon, you will feel like a victor.

@Bitter Crank, thank you for your replies, I am learning a lot. I naturally like the dog picture and I especially like what you say about the oxytocin being released at special or very lovely and meaningful moments in your life.

Why I am so interested in addiction and the nature/nurture debate (which we might as well call the nature + nurture discussion) is because it somehow is a good metaphor and starting point for thinking about mental illness in general.
Addiction can be seen as a battle we have to fight with ourselves, with our own mind. Just like any mental illness is really a battle for deliverance.
I once suffered from a psychosis that lasted for about four months. It was quite the trip. Of course no one knows exactly what a psychosis is, what causes it, what makes it go away or stay, etc.
The discovery of the release of chemicals in the brain may be a partial explanation for mental illnesses like acute schizophrenia, where one "suffers" from visions, hallucinations and "strange ideas". This idea has been around for at least a century. Though I think the search should be less focussed on serotonin and perhaps more on other psychedelic substances that exist in the body, like actual DMT.
The question remains what brings about these imbalances in the chemical make up of the body. The prevailing answer nowadays is: drugs and stress. I had done quite a lot of drugs in my day, so yea, that was held against me of course.
The other important point though is: no one really knows what the function of psychosis or mental illness is. We (as people) generally believe that madness, insanity, schizophrenia or psychosis, all of these related phenomena basically are meaningless nonsense that must be treated with pills because there is no time, money or expertise to ACTUALLY treat patients and make them better, so, the problem is subdued.
I am very inclined to think though that it actually has a function and is not meaningless sickness. It may be a portal to a genuine spiritual awakening (which of course is always a subjective experience).

@Hoo, thanks for the Hegel reference! I didn't know about that and will certainly check it out.

I am much interested in the topic of "opposites" being made into complements and I will try to explain why I think this is relevant here.
I came to the insight through reading the works of Carl Gustav Jung, some of you may know him. He was a doctor/psychologist/philosopher who died in the previous century. He talks about the "play of opposites" in his works, especially the ones related to alchemy. Alchemy is in a way the precursor of modern chemistry in the same way that astrology gave rise to astronomy. It sought a way to explain matter and to transform it.
Jung states that this "transformation" was sometimes a physical one (ie. trying to turn lead into gold) or a spiritual one (transforming the mind). He set up a hypothesis that the alchemical theory (almost fully shrouded in mystery) is basically a spiritual philosophy that has something to do with the phenomenon of projection.
Jung writes that the psyche has been "lost" or "imprisoned" in matter (we often project our internal microcosm or our ideas about the world onto the macrocosm, not seeing this is so) and the magnum opus or "work" would refer to becoming a master of one's own projections, withdrawing them (taking responsibility) and after that seeing things more clearly.
Now on to what this has to do with modern science. Albert Einstein has said that theoretical physicists (et al) are much inclined to think of their mental constructs not as such, but as actual reality. They do not discern between observer and the observed, so to speak. They think that what they have learned about reality is absolutely true, and their theory reflects reality perfectly.
They "project" their world view onto the world, and believe this is the world. Then they try to make this into an objective truth through the scientific method. However, all of this is man-made, even the scientific method and concepts like "truth" and "objectivity". We seem to be caught up in a world of projection, meaning: we realize not that there is a subject watching.
It is clear this applies to researchers who set up (design) an experiment and from this induce universal "truths". However, through this scientific method we may contemplate the concepts of subject and object thoroughly, and we may come to realize how and what we are projecting. So, through theoretical physics for example, one may come to self-realization, by almost meditatively examining theory.
I think this is the extent to which Carl Jung's theory can be extended. :-)

I love Jung.

Hoo, thanks for the Hegel reference! — Wilco Lensink

My pleasure. Kojeve's book on H is nice.

I came to the insight through reading the works of Carl Gustav Jung, some of you may know him. — Wilco Lensink

Big influence on me.

They "project" their world view onto the world, and believe this is the world. Then they try to make this into an objective truth through the scientific method. However, all of this is man-made, even the scientific method and concepts like "truth" and "objectivity". We seem to be caught up in a world of projection, meaning: we realize not that there is a subject watching.
It is clear this applies to researchers who set up (design) an experiment and from this induce universal "truths". However, through this scientific method we may contemplate the concepts of subject and object thoroughly, and we may come to realize how and what we are projecting. — Wilco Lensink

I agree. This is the sort of thing I focus on. I also like the myths/projections that concern value. For instance, the hero myth. I think self-esteem is generally founded on identification with some myth of the hero. Maturity is the evolution of this myth. We not only change in pursuit of a possible future self. That possible future self also changes as we live and interact with others.

@Hoo, I was talking to a friend the other day about ayahuasca and how, while I never did ayahuasca, I really did understand what it was about and what these people were after to experience. It's a sort of symbolic rebirthing process. In relation to the hero myth: the hero usually succumbs to hubris and is killed, or is deemed a "false prophet" and is killed. He visits hell, he has to watch himself in all fullness, there is no escape. He comes to self-realization in the fire. The hero usually returns after a descend into the earth. He is resurrected and reborn.
This all really shows parallels to mental illness, like depression. I was depressed and addicted so I had concocted this story to make me feel better, one where I would be reborn and could try again, but also, I believed in an essence making up me that would survive death. When I withdrew the projections a painful realization dawned that I had made up everything I believed in and I was in fact mortal, would die, would perhaps not return, maybe there was no god, etc. This was devastating.
I also got sick in the process, I started hallucinating and I was living in a complex world of thought that I had made up. When the visions started I felt exalted, but that soon changed. It was at times luminous, at other times utterly and completely terrifying. Always bizarrely psychedelic. I experienced my inner world as outer world and vice versa. Everything was entangled, it was very confusing (massa confusa).
I remember things vaguely up until the clinic. I was very afraid of something I had dubbed the Chaos Demon. And I thought I was going to die. So I finally let them admit me to a mental hospital. The first two weeks there are a black hole in my mind. I really feel as if my personality, or ego, or something, was disintegrating in the chaos. But something survived, a germ, a seed, it grew into what I now call me. It resembles the old me but is different in a lot of ways.
At first there was darkness. After that, just a flat, bland, nothingness. From that grew the first fireflies which would turn to lanterns that would lead me out of the darkness. It really was a process.
To return to the hero myth: I felt like I had fought a dragon. This psychedelic experience of four months was so intense I felt like a survivor. That was the key, after that it was always meditating on the visions, writing about them, explaining them to myself, trying to understand the madness.
Carl Jung has been a mentor through the whole process. Thanks to him I found so much meaning in the madness, it's insane. ;-) also, John Weir Perry has written interesting books on this subject.
After that I was fully enlightened to the fact of how much value there is in giving meaning, to my experiences and to the world.

All of your post was great. I'll pick out a few favorite lines.

He comes to self-realization in the fire. The hero usually returns after a descend into the earth. He is resurrected and reborn. — Wilco Lensink

I really relate to this, especially the symbol of fire. In T. S. Eliot's poem, "the fire and the rose are one." We give ourselves to death which is life. The opposite of death-life is undeath, a sort of entombment in some fixed crystallization of our selves. I found that idea in Norman O Brown, who wrote: "To be remember is the ambition of the dead." I wrestled with a hell of a lot of hell in my 20s. Now I feel self-liberation not only in fire but as fire. (A funny pop culture image is the T-1000 in T2. The self is liquid that pretends to be solid --until it stops pretending.)

When I withdrew the projections a painful realization dawned that I had made up everything I believed in and I was in fact mortal, would die, would perhaps not return, maybe there was no god, etc. This was devastating. — Wilco Lensink

I had a psychedelic experience that came on as death terror. I had to affirm this death without ressurection, there among my friends (in my mind). But then a massive flood of love "poured" through my chest. I used Christian myths (as myths or passwords) to navigate from death terror, death affirmation, and then incredible love. I can't live everyday like that, but I reaffirm my death (in theory, less viscerally, in the distance) whenever thoughts of mortality return.

To return to the hero myth: I felt like I had fought a dragon. This psychedelic experience of four months was so intense I felt like a survivor. — Wilco Lensink

I've been afflicted a few times in life with intense bouts of depression. Afterward I call such a bout "the black dragon." There's a Sugarcubes line: "with your own voice, I'll tell you lies." Well, the black dragon is a logical monster, and he wants to die, since he's too proud for the risk of humiliation that life demands for us. Here's the odd and crucial thing: it was an affair of the hear entirely. I have/had the same metaphysical system as my usual happy self as I did in these intense bouts. "Desire derailed from mortal things." That's the phrase that came to mind.

After that I was fully enlightened to the fact of how much value there is in giving meaning, to my experiences and to the world. — Wilco Lensink

Well, you certainly have a likable directness and honesty. I'm glad you're here. I get the sense that you indeed have seen/realized something.

@Hoo, I will reply in a private message, in order not to meander too much in this thread. I'm unsure whether such a thing is appreciated. However, I would very much like to continue this talk. :-)

I think so far the conclusions that have been reached in this discussion can be summed up as that body and mind are caught up in a passionate love affair, which can sometimes have crippling and at other times luminous effects. Chemicals and mental states intermingle, giving rise to each other.

Addiction being one of the seemingly crippling effects that the love affair between body and soul can have, where there is longing or desire which needs to be fulfilled repeatedly yet is never fully fulfilled.

We have also spoken though of how there is a transformative effect in addiction or even mental illness in general, where overcoming a struggle is rewarded by becoming the subject of very pleasurable mind states. Overcoming the problem is a real struggle though (#thestruggleisreal), one must first go through a period of purifying oneself which can be painful.

Any further contributions are most welcome. :-)

This is very interesting and close to home. I don't think you should give up on someone who is an addict, but surely they are fighting their own battle.

There may be a genetic link to diabetes, but it is the individual's choice to pursue that knowledge and make the understanding of what that means.

Addiction is not easy. Life sucks in a lot of ways an we all cope differently.

The problem becomes the genetics,

But it also becomes the person themselves.

I have a genetic background for diabetes...

Can I say no to sugar?

Well, it is up to me.

It is always up to the individual no matter how much the genes play a factor.