Madison County Council on  Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, Inc.

What is Addiction?
Barry E. Lentz, Community Development Specialist, BRiDGES
Reprinted from Winter 2000

Have you ever wondered if you were addicted to something? What about someone you cared about? Have you ever experienced a loss of control over a behavior that you continued despite its negative impact on your health, your relationship with your family, your work, or on your financial status? Have you ever known someone you cared about who exhibited this pattern of behavior but denied it when you tried to talk to them about it? What is addiction? What does it mean to be addicted to alcohol, marijuana, gambling, food, shopping, sex, exercise, work or the internet? Is there a common element that operates across all forms of addiction?

One approach to answering these questions involves viewing the activity that is the focus of addiction like a drug that causes a chemical change in the brain. This chemical change produces a "high" that becomes an overwhelming compulsion for the addict. Another approach extends our understanding of addiction beyond this traditional view that is rooted in the treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction. This approach involves viewing addiction as a compulsive disorder in which someone devotes an excessive amount of time or money to an activity that interferes with other areas of the addict's life, often with severe consequences.

A simple definition of addiction describes the addictive process as an unhealthy relationship between a person and a substance or activity that produces a mood altering state. This altered state fills some void in the life of the addict or helps the addict avoid certain problems. In support of this view, Craig Nakken in The Addictive Personality: Roots, Rituals and Recovery, describes addiction as an attempt to control the natural cycles of joy and sadness, peace and conflict, fulfillment and dissatisfaction that we all are subject to throughout the course of our lives. When we slip into less satisfying periods we naturally feel sad and may even "mourn" the loss of wholeness, peace or beauty that we experience during our most spiritually fulfilling periods.

Addiction can be seen as an attempt to control these natural and ultimately uncontrollable cycles of life. Regardless of the specific activity that is the focus of addiction, the addict seeks to produce the desired mood change or emotional state that results from engaging in the addictive process. For the addict this leads to a dangerous cycle that involves the compulsive pursuit of the substance or activity that produces the desired emotional state, a loss of control, the feeling of shame or guilt after the desired state fades and denial that a problem exists. Hence addiction, regardless of its specific form, can be understood as a misguided and unhealthy attempt to fulfill the very human desire to lead a satisfying and spiritually rewarding life filled with rich meaning and healthy relationships.