Are addictions a reflection of emotional disease?
Answer:
Addictions can be a reflection of emotional dis-ease. If you look at it in the way of a person having issues that he/she is not dealing with, and they turn to some sort of addiction such as gambling, shopping, eating, drinking, sex, drugs and so on, to surpress their emotions down then yes it is a reflection. And some people do have addictive personalities to start with which can heighten the addictions toward their emotional responses.
I understand it to be a weakness in your inherited genes. Now whether a person acts on that or not is up to how strong willed the person is. No, it's not an emotional disease.
it depends how you look at it. is there truly anyone that has never felt any kind of emotional disease. our thoughts ramble minute to minute, hour to hour, day in day out. most of our emotions we put out on people have no truth besides what we have built ourselves up to believe. and addictions, most of us have felt some kind of addiction in our lives. be it to food, drugs, thrill, love, religion, other people, etc. maybe most of us, at least in modern societies, are walking addictions with emotional disease...
While it is true that most people assocate addiction with substances (drugs and alcohol) and brain chemistry (like how gambling elevates dopamine according to research), it also has a spot as a form of behavior, and it is mainly responsible for controlling the emotions of the addict. It is the determinant of their emotions, although it can also be the other way around; the person is trying to change the way they feel by taking something outside of themselves.
They become angry, violent, or depressed if you take away their addiction, mainly because you are taking away what makes them feel good (as for drug users) and what makes them feel dominant (as for video game addicts).
Addiction can alter the reality of their lives, and it may become harmful if they find the alternate world more appealing than the real world, even though they are ruining their own lives.
Addictions are considered to be an excessive action whether it be drugs, sex, food, reading, drinking, etc. The problem with an addiction is that you are picking your poison when it comes to a behavior.
As for the drinking and drug side of addictions we are all predetermined through our genes to these addictive behaviors. Once we take a casual usage to an extreme then it changes our physiological make up. It makes no difference what the behavior, obsession, or drug used is. Once that occurs it then becomes part of our way of thinking and our bodies unnatural need to feel that same feeling over and over again.
Just try giving a kid in a candy store everything they want for a year every time you visit, then one day tell them no. The behavior between have and have not is considerable different.
What a lot of people see as a recreational usage is fine until that day the person does something that they no longer agree with. It is at that point that they believe that they had changed and no longer want to deal with them. The problem is that, yes they were changing all along and because they changed around the wrong people who did not care for them or there safety nothing was done to curtail that behavior. By the time there loved ones find out what happened, they are past being brought back to the way they used to be.
If you want to say that your emotional problems are the reasons why you turn to drugs or any of the other mentioned problems, then yes you can consider that addiction an emotional disease. It is a cover up of what you are going through. The problem with this is that you can change your situation, but once you have an addiction, it becomes a daily choice as to whether you are going to use or not. It is no longer just a decision to change.
Now going back to what I said in the beginning, an addiction can be anything that you do to excess, not just what hurts you, but also what affects your interaction with others.
Addictions are a reflection of our natural biology going askew. Usually this occurs because of emotional needs that go unmet in our lives.
Our body creates natural chemicals that reward us for doing things we like. Dopamine (has an effect a lot like cocaine) is produced when we are excited about doing something and provides the stimulant to take action. After the action is over the body creates endorphins (has an effect like heroin) that makes us feel pleasure. In our normal day these chemicals reward us in a gentle way.
If we are living a life that is not meeting our fundamental needs...
that include:
# Security — safe territory and an environment which allows us to develop fully
# Attention (to give and receive it) — a form of nutrition
# Sense of autonomy and control — having volition to make responsible choices
# Being emotionally connected to others
# Feeling part of a wider community
# Friendship, intimacy — to know that at least one other person accepts us totally for who we are, “warts 'n' all”
# Privacy — opportunity to reflect and consolidate experience
# Sense of status within social groupings
# Sense of competence and achievement
# Meaning and purpose — which come from being stretched in what we do and think
...then we are not receiving our natural rewards and life can quickly appear meaningless and dull. This is where people fall prey to addictions. Every addictive substance (alcohol, narcotics etc) or addictive behaviour (skydiving, sex, racing etc) provides a stimulation by mimicking the natural chemical reward systems in our brain. dangerous activities stimulate dopamine and other substances feel pleasurable like endorphins.
It is possible to escape addictions without being an addict for the rest of your life or become dependent upon a recovery group. To do this both the biological rewards system and living a life that ensures that our innate needs are met.
The needs listed above are taken from the Human Givens approach to emotional health and clear thinking - to find out more the web links below are informative
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