Is the cause of addiction simple?

When a girlfriend posted this article last week I had wildly conflicted feelings after reading it. Luckily for me I have insightful friends and got to sit back and read their super thoughtful responses (or responses they found elsewhere).

The original post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html

Responses from round the web:


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"...I also found out that it's easier to quit substance abuse than inner thought demons borne out of habit or choices like gossip, self righteousness, greed, lust.... THAT is the real addiction that ought to be dealt with! Usually, people who practice those self indulgences call themselves 'sober' ... gosh, the lives they destroy unwittingly, ill fated by denial. Substance abuse/pain pills is not too far for these people."

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"If you still believe, as I used to, that addiction is caused by chemical hooks, this makes no sense. "
 Actually, this makes perfect sense. In the end, joy and contentedness boil down to a defined set of neurotransmitters. If you can get them from non-drug sources, you can get them from non-drug sources. If you can't, you are very ready to get them from drug sources.

However, you can also use drugs in such a fashion that you get so many "positive feeling" neurotransmitters that it's tough to adjust to a normal life again because you are used to over-stimulation. So if drug users can, in fact, simply return to normal life in a normal environment will depend quite a bit on case by case specifics."

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This article is scapegoating by also blaming whatever normal people may be in the life of the addict.
The fact is, even the above statement "addiction is an adaptation. It's not you: it's your cage" is purely illogical and pseudoscientific. We're physical beings. The above statement uses the word 'adaptation'. This means the clever among you should be asking, "What adapted to what?" Answer: the brain to its environment. It is the essence of mental illnesses, including addiction, that the brain is not adapting to its environment properly! So stop this childish attempt to redefine words to suit the agenda of the exploiters. It IS you, and you need help. The second you think it's your "cage", you are emphatically delusional and addicted. This entire article simply reinforces common psychotic delusions often induced by substance abuse, and what a shame if victims read it."

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"Interesting article. Thanks for sharing. It reminded me of a time when I met with a board of educators about where my younger brother should go to school. They wanted to send him to a truancy school and I tried to argue that he should go to a regular school. My argument was that if you send a truant to a truancy school the people they meet will be those already dealing with bad habits, and they will just influence him to do more of the same. It didn't work. I guess the fear of "bad tempting good" was to high. It was B.S. and I definitely think that there should be better systems in play to help addicts. I actually think there are a lot, but they are pricey, and to be honest a person doesn't recover unless they want to no matter how much love and support they are given. It takes a lot of work and in my experience some people don't want to do the work. I also had a problem with the definition, or lack of it, of love. Love doesn't mean you allow an addict to hurt you over and over. Love includes not allowing someone to hurt you. Because when they hurt you they are also hurting themselves. It also neglected to mention the people who grow up in "perfect" supported environments and still end up as addicts... according to the article that is an unexplained phenomenon."

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"Nicotine has a half life of only two hours, so using something like a patch only extends our withdrawal period.. you face withdrawal instantly when you stop smoking, so every time you take even the smallest dose of nicotine, you are restarting that cycle. "Phasing down nicotine exposure" is one of the most stressful and least effective ways to quit smoking, they aren't designed for you to quit though, being made by Cigarette manufacturers, they know that extending the duration of your withdrawal period and addiction reduces your odds of actually becoming freed from it."

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"I can assure you as a smoker who quit that nicotine is the least of the addictive substances in cigarettes. Vapor cigs simply don't produce the same urges as cigarettes. A real cigarette tastes of nothing but chemicals after you stop smoking for a while. I've decided they purposely add the chemicals to cigarettes to get people addicted, there's simply no other reason to add arsenic and such to them. Arsenic, for example, was used in the 1800's as a cocaine type drug and is highly addictive."

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"All this is is an article pushing Bruce Alexander's "Rat Park" claims. There's a reason why his studies were rejected for publication by both Science and Nature and he eventually published it in the Psychopharmacology journal, which is largely considered to be pseudoscientific crap.

There were a number of flaws with his studies and he was not backed up by later experimentation, no matter what he and his little group of people continually claim. They're just like any other pseudoscience group, pushing the handful of crap studies they have against the overall scientific consensus."

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"Fascinating article. I think the author's main points are right. Addiction is an intimacy disorder. That doesn't mean that someone who suffers from addiction doesn't have an emotionally available or loving spouse or that they didn't have emotionally available or loving parents/families, but it does mean that for some reason they didn't learn how to emotionally attach and receive love from their main attachments. I've also been taught that although connection and love is necessary, in some way, to heal addiction, what the author doesn't address is the necessity to keep yourselves safe, set healthy boundaries, from the damaging nature and abuse that is caused by someone suffering from addiction. Sometimes demonstrating self love, which contains self worth and self respect, is the best way to also show love for someone suffering from addiction. So, ultimately I believe that his basics are generally true but an addiction can't be healed by love alone.

The bottom line is- if you or someone you love is suffering from an addiction, reach out, get support.

You deserve it.

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"There's so much about this article that is flat-out incorrect that it's difficult to know where to begin, so I'll just touch on three points:

First, the statement that "loads of people should leave hospital and try to score smack on the streets, to meet their habit. But here's the strange thing. It virtually never happens" is simply nonsensical. My hometown of Staten Island, New York, is currently plagued with an epidemic of heroin overdoses, from people who became addicted to opiate painkillers while undergoing medical treatment, and then turned to street heroin when their prescriptions ended, rather than face withdrawal. There have been quite a few newspaper articles on the topic if the author would care to look.

Second, there most certainly are chemical hooks at a craps table: the endorphin rush produced by risk-taking. To disregard this is to willfully ignore an inconvenient fact that doesn't fit the author's thesis.

Third, I can speak from personal experience that while the nicotine patch is useful for overcoming the psychological components of smoking, the person trying to quit will experience the same physical withdrawal from nicotine when they discontinue the patch as if they had quit smoking cold turkey without it. I was able to get through it, and have been smoke-free for 20 years, but don't try to tell me that physical addiction is "only a minor part of a much bigger picture"; it's *by far* the largest component.

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"This article is extremely frustrating to me, as someone with a LOT of first hand experience with addicts. There is a huge difference between addiction and drug dependency/drug abuse. We already know the cause of addiction, and it is not what this article states. Addiction is a genetic disease of the prefrontal cortex. Simply put this means the inability of the brain to make proper moral decisions. Addiction manifests itself in behaviors and thought processes and is passed down through generations as unhealthy behavior is reflected onto children. Addiction can be activated by outside events, but the fact of the matter is that no matter how loved an addict is or how happy their environment may be, an addict will only maintain true sobriety if he fixes his own behavior. If you dare to question me, spend as much time as I have at AA, Al-Anon, ACOA, and various medical center programs and you won't have any more questions. I recommend the DVD "Pleasure Unwoven" for an excellent scientific explanation of addiction."

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I think I've figured out why I'm so angry about this post. It's because I completely agree with him about social services response - that our government should put addicts in rehab not prison. As a society we should agree that the most helpful way to decrease drug addiction is to offer therapy and rehab to anyone who wants it.

But instead of using all his time and effort toward that end the author instead created an overly simplistic, feel good piece that would sell his book and get shared like crazy on social media. If this author really dived into all things addiction he would know it is not simple like he's made it out to be. Like how he spoke of the heroin addicts and rat park and the patch as so clear cut when each of these examples are fraught with controversy and evidence to the opposite. HE HAD TO KNOW THESE THINGS AREN'T SIMPLE. Which made me think he went this route anyway for the money. "If you want to see citations for assertions made in the article, buy my book?" Makes sense, since selling the book appears to be highest on his list of goals. Which pisses me off because he had some really great insight that is now going to hurt as many as it helps. If you really want to help addicts, then call it like it is - a complex brain disease with genetic and neurological components, an element of choice, and often a good helping of trauma or neglect. I agree, Johann, "the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, but connection." Since you understand that, it makes your click-bait premise even more offensive to those whose loved ones don't get better. To end like that:
"We should have been singing our addicts love songs all along"?

F*** you, you "addiction expert", I loved my addict all the way to her grave. You know what might help others not have to do the same?

Ethical journalism.

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"This is shaky ground, at best. I am, as some would define, an addict. Alcohol, several "hard" drugs, even cigarettes have all had their hooks in me. Only a supreme commitment to not drink and use keeps me falling back in that hole. I'm not talking about an agreement I made with myself to quit, I'm talking a 24 hour, nonstop vigilance I can never give up. I can taste that next smoke, that next drink, that next high, every waking second, even after so many years, and the pull to give in to those yearnings is always with me.

I have had my highs and lows, like everyone. I've been social and I've been solitary. I've been comfortable and I've been homeless. None of this mattered when I was drinking. Only the next drink and the shame of not being able to control myself.

As for Vietnam and the heroin use, my personal opinion is those people were not addicts, they were using recreationally and when it was no longer available, and possibly not needed as a coping mechanism, they just quit, like most people can go and have a couple drinks after work then stop and go home. Addicts can't "just quit". The compulsion to get that feeling again is too strong.

I am going to look into these studies further, but I can tell you from MY personal experience that nothing I read here comes close to describing true addiction, and it scares me that something like this can get traction when there are thousands in need of real help, not social psychobabble."

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"It reads like someone who is desperately trying to figure out "why" and unhappy with the answers and so he creates his own feel-good answer because the truth is too complicated."

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"Here's my take, it is simplistic to say that love fixes everything. Far too many parents have loved their children implicitly, and they have still ended up as addicts, far too many spouses have been loved unconditionally and still been drunks and addicts - far too many parents have been loved by their children and yet they are incapable of accepting that love - human connection can only happen when the reasons that the addiction is necessary are out of the way and the addict is refraining from using the substance that keeps human connection at bay. The steps help us to figure out how to reconnect with other humans - the addiction is in the way of that - it's not other people connecting with me, it is me having the ability to connect with them - and a higher power - I can love or be loved as much as either I or another is capable. When I was in the throes of my addictions I had no capacity to be loved, love myself...

His naivete regarding chemical hooks saddens me - the chemicals are in my body - it is the rush I receive from even thinking about my addiction and planning a binge. Yes, some addictions do add their own chemical highs, but it is enough to have my body crave and respond to its own chemical concoction that feeds my addiction.

I find far too often these "new evidences about addiction" are just ways to keep people from having to work the steps and have a relationship with a power greater than they are. So much of this is beautiful, but the underlying problem is not that addicts need more love and connection - it's that they need to understand why they can't and clearing things out of the way so they can, and keeping them clear so they don't relapse. It's work people, plain old hard work. It's not easy, but it is simple. I would challenge his main thesis, and yes, far too many addicts think that the opposite of addiction is sobriety - it's not. That isn't recovery. The opposite of addiction is serenity - and that allows me to connect on all levels of my being - physical, emotional and spiritual."