Addictions
We all use something to comfort us and make us feel good in times of stress and trauma, when we are fed up or had a bad day at work.
These may be:
- Food, chocolate, carbs, sugar
- Shopping
- Gambling
- Drugs
- Caffeine
- Alcohol
- Exercise
- Smoking
- Sex
The anticipation and thrill of Gambling create a natural high that can become addictive. The internet has made gambling more accessible, allowing more people to do it from home. This is thought to be one of the reasons for the increase in the number of female gamblers.
There’s also a link between gambling and alcohol abuse. Many gambling addicts are also addicted to alcohol. Rates of depression and attempted suicide among gambling addicts are around double the national average. Gambling addicts are also more likely to go to prison.
Sexual addiction is the use of sex or pornography to address non-sexual emotional needs. Sex addicts use sexual behaviour to medicate or numb out their feelings. This happens to such an extent that their sexual acting out becomes their primary way of coping with emotional stress. It’s important not to confuse sexual addiction with sexual desire. Sexual addicts may display the following behaviour:
- Compulsive masturbation
- Sexual massages
- Anonymous sex
- Chronic affairs
- Voyeurism
For many sex addicts, their sexual addiction has its roots in childhood trauma. Research shows that 97% of sex addicts were emotionally abused during childhood, 72% were physically abused and 81% sexually abused.
Shopping addiction is not a new disorder. It was recognized as far back as the early nineteenth century.
About 6% of the population is thought to have a shopping addiction. Usually beginning in the late teens and early adulthood, shopping addiction often co-occurs with other disorders, including mood and anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, eating disorders, other impulse control disorders, and personality disorders.
Compulsive shoppers use shopping as a way of escaping negative feelings, such as depression, anxiety, boredom, self-critical thoughts, and anger.
Exercise is generally a healthy behaviour that promotes wellness. However, some individuals become addicted to physical activity and engage in compulsive, excessive exercise that is extreme in frequency and both psychological impairing
People may have a desire to control their body weight or shape.
Caffeine Reported to be the most commonly consumed psychoactive substance on earth, 90% of Americans report using caffeine on a daily basis. We are in love with the mental boost it gives.
One of the difficulties with caffeine addiction is that most people don’t think of caffeine as a drug, at least not like they think of nicotine or alcohol. But the morning coffee that “gets us going” is having the same effect that any drug has – the overnight lack of caffeine is creating withdrawal symptoms.
Weight loss 50 to 30% of people will regain the weight they have lost
Gambling 33% will relapse
Smoking 90%
Drinking 50%
Human beings have a new neo-cortex brain it can be described as our “new” or “thinking” brain. However our brain still has an “old” or “instinctual” brain that controls all of our involuntary functions, including our instinctual drives (e.g., hunger, sex. It is in this old brain that the path of addiction resides, an area that controls our moods, a reward pathway. We need sex and food to survive as a species and these are pleasurable because if they weren’t we would become extinct. Sex and food have to be pleasurable to survive.
It’s the reward pathway that governs our instinctual drives, and when this pathway malfunctions, any number of instinctual drives may also malfunction. We now know that this malfunctioning process has been associated not only with drug addiction, but also food addiction, sex addiction. Dopamine acts as a satiation or “off switch” when fulfilling an instinctual drive. Individuals who are predisposed to becoming addicted have been shown to have a variant gene that causes this reward cascade to malfunction. These people do not experience the same level of neurochemical reward when fulfilling an instinctual drive, and there is no satiation mechanism or “off switch” telling them that they have become satiated by the behaviour.