Addiction

What causes the addict to get trapped in repeated behavior?

People get addicted to a feeling inside.

I feel I understand a little of what the addict goes through as I can demonstrate that behavior myself. The external activity that is seen as an addiction is not the important factor to the subject (it is however to those observing), if an addict could get the same feeling from a different source, then he would. There are going to be a huge number of different "feelings inside" but they must all act on a certain part of the brain and fire certain pleasure centres.

When a subject is going through the motions of his addiction, the addiction is all that matters, he is striving for that feeling. The subject is unable at this point to think rationally and stop himself from repeating the addiction. When in the rapture of the addiction, nothing else matters. it is easy as an observer to say stop doing it, but the brain of the addict is re-wired at this point, and even if he regrets the actions afterward he cannot stop.

Spiraling out of Control...

I have a number of addictions which I do not feel I can be completely honest about here, but speaking from experience. Addictions start as harmless fun, and stay that way for a time, but then you enter a phase of repeating the addiction without realising it, and afterward you are happy with the way things are. After a long period you might catch yourself thinking shit, what did Ijust do? and realise that you just did something without realising it. This realisation made me watch and think about what i was doing. If i hadn't had this happen i would be continuing the addiction and getting worse and worse. These things can take you over and you do not realize as that is part of the problem.

How can an addict stop ?

In my case as in general I believe you need to prepare for the arrival of the addiction. Once you recognise the ealry signs you can learn to actively stop the way you are thinking before you go into the brain numming phase where only the actions of the addiction matter. This is not an easy thing to do and takes time, but with time i believe any addiction can be craked in this way.

29/05/03