Ask the Addict: What causes addiction?

In a single word: Pain; to be exact, pain avoidance/elimination. There are books, seminars and college courses that go into thorough examination of this question but the bottom line is pain. Pain, however, is a complex word that includes physical, emotional, mental and spiritual types and encompasses discomfort of all types: stress, worry, wounds, grief, anxiety, annoyance, sorrow, hunger, depression, humiliation, etcetera. Almost all addicts are simply in the process of pain reduction or elimination. What might start as a helpful medicine turns into an addiction due primarily to the combination of lack of education, lack of self-discipline and/or lack of boundaries as in the case of children or teens. A move from extreme pleasure to slightly comfortable can be experienced as a sort of pain. “Coming down or crashing” feels a lot like pain even though most people would call this feeling “normal.” When an addict is used to feeling euphoric; feeling “normal” feels painful and this pain encourages more “medicine.”

Another component of addiction is what I call a “hook.” This hook can come in many forms including physical, mental, emotional, and/or behavioral. I see a hook as a connection of any kind in me that links feeling good to a certain behavior. Once that connection is made and regularly reinforced my brain does the rest. When I feel pain my brain automatically follows the connection to create an urge to employ the usual medication. A few turns around this circle and you have a habit. A consistently followed habit can easily become an addiction.

I have some great friends who swear that they aren’t addicted to food, yet they weigh in the range of 400-plus pounds. They are certain that their eating is not the cause of their weight problem because they don’t recognize the hook in their mind that makes them hungry when they are in pain. The “neuronal pathway” that mental health care professionals call it, is completely invisible to them. Any casual observer can see that they comfort themselves with food, but they can’t see the link between food and comfort.

How to ‘Ask the Addict’: Please email your addiction-related questions to asktheaddict@yahoo.com