addiction

[prplchknz]

What is it? (to you, is it just mental or does it have to have physical symptoms aswell?)
Do you have an addictive personality?
What defines an addictive personality?
Ever been addicted to anything?
what?


I'm curious, mostly because I seem to be unable to be come addicted to anything. I've smoked cigarettes in highschool for a little over a year, got bored and quit. I did lortab everyday for months, and had no withdrawl symptoms whatsoever. Games that are suppose to be addictive I enjoy, but if I can't get past a level I get bored and go do something else and might come back in a few months. Pretty much if I need to quit something I can, but then I know people who have such a hard time giving up things.

 

[Samuel De Mazarin]

addiction:

After my first night drunk, I was enamored of the possibilities, so numerous, of alcohol. It was a night of revelation; the stars seemed to peer inquiringly at me from between the Park Avenue apartment buildings, wondering how I had it so good.

Then I tried pot. From 15 to 18 I smoked pot whenever I could. In between classes at a friend's place, or on a stoop.

Cigarettes I'd have only every so often.

But by this time, alcohol was a problem. Suspensions, expulsions, and imposed deferrals from several colleges (like UChicago)... they wanted me to take time off based on my boarding school expulsion to look at myself. Got kicked out of a liberal arts college for excessive drinking (and excessive actions and reactions)...

In the meanwhile I'd also tried several other drugs, including but not limited to cocaine, DXM (cough tablets... yes... cough tablets... they get you really high), percosetz (splg?), vicatin, codeine, nutmeg, smoked heroine once...

Okay... so 18, no place to go... was off of college for a year. So I quit cold turkey, worked hard, studied hard, exercised, picked up yoga, picked up some cool friends, repaired my desperate relationship with my parents... went back to school, went right back to the drugs.

3 years hard use... a year-long clean break... and then back.

Another year of school, another season of nutty behavior and too much reliance on drugs... my ideal night involved smoking some weed, downing some shots of vodka and a few cups of beer, and hitting whippits while playing SFII on the snes original and eating really awesome barbeque wings (hot sauce and honey mustard)...

did a fair amount of acid... I tried salvia several times... cocaine again then too...

Left school after freshman year... moved to Wall Street with an older woman.

DRANK DRANK DRANK... now THIS, my friends, is drinking. A virtually unlimited tab (thanks be to our kind stockbrokerly boss, a Korean who pulled in high six figures every year) in a bar surrounded by lots of money... (it was Ulysses, if you want to know... occasionally Delmonico's and a sports bar near the firm...) I also became highly addicted to DXM, which is a hallucinogen with strong, jarring effects on perception of the world and perception of self... made some money, lost more money... did a lot of coke... loved the stuff... you can't be on Wall Street and not do coke... (you can, but you're on Wall Street, for Chrissakes!)

Left after a long while... too long... arrests (and acquittals or ACD's) and all... back to school... 3 months clean... in school... doing well... BOOM... DXM and drinking... smoking pot... occasionally coke....

And the story continues...


The only other things I'm addicted to are books I don't understand (try Heidegger or Deleuze and Guattari), Prison Break (what's Scofield... an ISTP?), and... ummmmm.... no food.... some video games when I was younger like SMB3.... cigarettes (SMOKE BIG TIME)

INTERNET.... addicted to the internet...

______________________________________________________________________

In short... I'm a simple ENTP who just can't quit...

 

[Samuel De Mazarin]

What's an addiction and, in turn, an addictive personality?

According to A.A. (I've been a few), an addiction is the chronic inability to say no to drugs and alcohol despite suffering repeated, severe consequences for prior use. They say it's largely physical, though the emotional component is important to dealing with the addiction and getting out of it... also, they believe: once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. There are no recovered addicts, though there are addicts in recovery.

Addiction is pretty much, IMO, what A.A. says it is. However, I differ in that I believe that alcoholism and drug use, generally, are just as much emotional as physical. I say this because, except in the most extreme cases (where it can certainly be overwhelmingly physical), we can beat them willpower, discipline, and positive thinking. I have... I've been clean for several months and it's no sweat.... well, maybe now it is... but it's cool.

 

[VanillaCat]

What is it? (to you, is it just mental or does it have to have physical symptoms aswell?) It's both.
Do you have an addictive personality? Yes.
What defines an addictive personality? Feeling empty and trying to find something to make you feel better.
Ever been addicted to anything? Yep.
what? People. Celebrities, Boyfriends, Music, Sleep, Food, Crying, Internet, Cutting, Exercise, Television...

I guess those are pretty normal things?

 

[nozflubber]

I'm addicted to MBTI. Help me purge my crutch!

 

[Magic Poriferan]

I would define addiction as having an intense, persistent need for something, arguably obssesive and compulsive in nature. It has to be a yearning strong enough that a person lacks the ability to resist it with conscious will. That to me is the most defining trait of addiction.

It is not actually a part of the definition for addiction to be maladaptive, but I think practically speaking, it almost always is. Self-control is invaluable.

 

[Mole]

Addicted

Addiction is simply two self reinforcing trances.

As you leave one trance you enter the second. And as you leave the second, you enter the first. So there is no way out. That is why it is called an addiction.

Single trances are normal. We enter and leave single trances all during the day. So we know instinctively, if not consciously, how to enter and leave a single trance.

So when we inadvertently enter a double trance, we naturally expect to be able to leave in the normal way. But when we can leave, we don't want to. And when we want to leave, we can't. We are addicted.

 

[Mole]

An Illusion

Self-control is invaluable.

Self-control makes it possible to leave a single trance, and self-control makes it impossible to leave a double trance.

So, counter-intuitively, if one wishes to leave a double trance, an addiction, one must give up, abandon, self-control. One must reach 'rock bottom'. One must abandon self-control and throw oneself on a higher power.

For the addicted, self-control is an illusion.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

Self-control makes it possible to leave a single trance, and self-control makes it impossible to leave a double trance.

So, counter-intuitively, if one wishes to leave a double trance, an addiction, one must give up, abandon, self-control. One must reach 'rock bottom'. One must abandon self-control and throw oneself on a higher power.

For the addicted, self-control is an illusion.

My point was that because self-control is invaluable, addictions generally are a negative thing because they over-power a person's self-control.

 

[Mole]

My point was that because self-control is invaluable, addictions generally are a negative thing because they over-power a person's self-control.

I understand your point however it is self-control that drives an addiction.

In fact an addiction doesn't overpower self-control, an addiction reinforces self-control.

This is why an addiction is so negative - because it turns something, self-control, which is good into something which is evil. An addiction is the very devil.

It is only when self-control is abandoned, that it is possible to leave an addiction.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

I understand your point however it is self-control that drives an addiction.

But for many drug addicts, is it not escapism and depersonalization that is the goal? To drown the self and surroundings in a single feeling?
To me, it seems like losing the will to attempt self-control leads to addiction much of the time.

 

[Mole]

But for many drug addicts, is it not escapism and depersonalization that is the goal? To drown the self and surroundings in a single feeling?
To me, it seems like losing the will to attempt self-control leads to addiction much of the time.

Yes, you are right. Before addiction takes place, self-control is good and vital.

I presume you are not addicted so for you self-control is a vital part of your happiness.

And, of course, I am right too because once addiction takes place, the role of self-control is reversed.

This is why addiction is genuinely evil.

 

[Mole]

The Front Door

I would like to say that addiction doesn't overcome self-control.

Addiction uses self-control to maintain itself.

So addiction is counter-intuitive.

And the rule is, know your enemy. So if you wish to know addiction, it is necessary to think counter-intuitively.

Intuitive thinking will lead you up to the front door, but won't take you inside.

 

[Mole]

The reason addiction is so interesting is because it reverses our moral values.

So self-control is good for the normal, self-control is bad for the addicted.

So your parents will first teach you control then self-control. And so by the age of 22 when you have reached the height of control, you will even tell yourself to be self-controlled.

And so how natural to think we can avoid addiction by self-control.

So we even think that the addicted lack self-control when the opposite is the case.

The addicted are constantly practising self-control but all it does is lead them back into their addiction.

As the addicted terminate one trance through self-control, it triggers the second trance. And so the addict controls the second trance but it only leads back into the first trance. There is no way out.

 

[comicsgurl]

I think addiction can come in multiple forms, though - and I can see what Victor's saying: You trade your self-control, and the addiction becomes your form of "self-control." Except it's a delusion: You aren't really in control - your addiction is. You do whatever the addiction says. If it says "I need a drink" or "I need X-drug" you do it. And that drug could be anything from people to food to coffee to crack cocaine or anything else. I think humans in general have an addictive personality. We all have to have something to keep us going in this life, even if (with some) it's the comfort of things staying the same.

But to bring things down to a more practical, manageable level (meaning, "known" A&E Intervention-type addictions), no, I don't have any. Many in my family have drug and alcohol problems however, and I tend to have my own issues stemming from that, but I'm not addicted to substances except for maybe the Internet, and some comfort foods.

 

[Thursday]

To help shine some light, i'll cast a contrast

I have an obsessive personality
damn 4w5's

however,
i am easily bored
or at least little catches my interest
and i too end up changing my focus

so prpl-pollo
what do you think separates you from those people who are addictive ?
aside from what you said

 

[Mole]

You trade your self-control, and the addiction becomes your form of "self-control." Except it's a delusion: You aren't really in control - your addiction is. You do whatever the addiction says. If it says "I need a drink" or "I need X-drug" you do it.

Addiction is two dimensional.

So in one dimension you can exercise control and enter or leave a particular trance.

But in two dimensions you can exercise control and leave one dimension only to find yourself in the second dimension. And when you exercise control and leave the second dimension, you find yourself back in the first dimension.

So self control will take you out of one dimension but self control will keep you in two dimensions.

You might find this interesting to read, there is a little about addiction in it. Just click on -

Cults, Addictive Trance and Occult Phenomena | The Trance Institute

 

[comicsgurl]

Mm...I only agree with that a little bit, Victor. I think a controlled trance or trance state can only occur under the correct circumstances, but most people aren't in the correct circumstance. And honestly, can we really say *we* control a trance state? The whole point of a trance state is to "let go." How can you control something if you let go of it at the same time...?

Addiction is a lack of control over our circumstances - we don't/can't have the control. If we had power or control, it wouldn't be an addiction, and we wouldn't be subject to it. We'd be free of it.

 

[Mole]

Mm...I only agree with that a little bit, Victor. I think a controlled trance or trance state can only occur under the correct circumstances, but most people aren't in the correct circumstance. And honestly, can we really say *we* control a trance state? The whole point of a trance state is to "let go." How can you control something if you let go of it at the same time...?

It's nice to know you agree with me a little bit.

And you ask a very good question.

And you are quite right - most don't learn how to enter and leave a trance at will.

I was lucky - I attended a class by a Sport's Psychologist who taught us how to safely enter and leave a trance at will.

Without this class, I doubt I would have learnt to enter and leave a trance at will.

 

[Mole]

Addiction is a lack of control over our circumstances - we don't/can't have the control. If we had power or control, it wouldn't be an addiction, and we wouldn't be subject to it. We'd be free of it.

I think this is difficult to understand.

I don't know how to explain it to you.

I think because you are not addicted you experience control in a particular way. So quite naturally you think the addicted have the same experience of control.

But whereas control for you is wholesome, control for an addict is poison.

The proof of this is that when an addict gives up control, say when they reach rock bottom or hand over to a higher power, do they start to leave their addiction.

Your experience is exactly the opposite - control or self-control keeps you safe from addiction.