My understanding is that "addiction" is where an action (behavior, process, etc ) creates an event, which intern produces a self validating feeling (in the unconscious mind), that has to be repeated endlessly.

example; a person running a business, thinks up an idea that will sell more goods.

The idea is turned into a promotional event and the person makes thousands of dollars (euros, etc.) profit.

The person feels a warm loving feeling of satisfaction (analogy; similar to a little child getting a pat on the head from a parent).

This outcome intern stimulates another idea and another promotion, getting another favorable payoff. The warm loving feeling of satisfaction is generated again.

Up to this point the process is not an "addiction".

In many people there is a feeling of, lack of self-worth, resulting from experience in child hood.

When the person finds them self, creating the promotions, in a manner where the payoff is minimal and has to keep repeating the process, in order to get the pay off? Then it has becomes an "addiction".........

Analogy; The little child asks the parent (in it's head), for a pat on the head, the parent in it's brain says no that was too easy, you have to try harder........................... repeating the process endlessly.........

Where the addiction has been well established i.e. repeated over a long time span, anger can come into the equation (anger for not being able to get the payoff), resulting in a ruthless need for the payoff , resulting in violence and extreme control?

anorexia, I feel is a medical condition which works on a similar process? ................

only my feeling, would love you to pull this apart &/or elaborate?............................

ant

Addiction is used to define a compulsive state in an organism where they crave doing something so much to the detriment of most other behaviours.

Previously addiction was thought of as combinations of negative and positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement increases behaviour through rewarding events which leads someone to repeat the behaviour. Negative reinforcement alleviates reinforces behaviour through the alleviation of unwanted states.
e.g., drugs
Positive reinforcemnet: Take drug get high----- repeat
Negative reinforcement: Take drug avoid withdrawal------ repeat

Unfortunately, neither of these adequately explains the dependence, you can get tolerance to getting high and withdrawal doesn't explain relapse months later nor is it as potent at reinitiating drug taking behaviour as some people think. But both types of reinforcement are still intricately linked to the development and maintenance of dependence.

Research on animals and recently in humans has implicated dopaminergic mechanisms for the underlying wanting behind dependence and also frontal cortical deficits which inhibit a person's ability to stop, making them more compulsive. Stress probably plays a large role in sensitising people for dependence, with stress systems interfering with a lot of processes involved in dependence.

Where a person has developed dependence, impairment of obtaining the object of desire leads to stress and frustration, when you don't get something you want you get frustrated which leads you to being pissed off, add to this a compulsive nature and you get quite grumpy people.

I'm fairly sure that the process leading to "addiction" is part of what makes us human. We're constantly looking to improve our lives, to make ourselves happier, to relieve the inevitable frustrations in life. The term addiction is simply what happens when people give themselves over to this impulse, although with drugs it is mostly because you want to feel the high again.

Lets forget about drug addictions and focus on the natural addictions like food, shopping, extreme sports, sex and porn. I think by doing this, it will be easier to define what an addiction is.

But when you look at all the literature, drugs have been the most widely studied of addictions. We can learn a lot from drug addiction that applies equally to food/sex/gambling; they all, to some degree, involve a similar neurochemistry and neuroscience. Food/sex/gambling/rewarding stimuli all activate dopaminergic systems in the mesolimbic area.
In a lot of ways drugs are the best starting point. Drugs show us that chemicals can superimpose upon and overide processes required for survival. Drug addictions show us where natural responses deviateinto dysfunctional behaviours and dissociate intricately linked natural systems. Some of best scientific literature on addiction, motivation and reinforcement is based upon evidence from drugs.

If you can access these, they're a good read on the concepts involved in addiction. If not, pm me and I'll e-mail them.
BERRIDGE, K.C. (2004). Motivation concepts in behavioral neuroscience. Physiology & Behavior, 81, 179-209.
ROBINSON, T.E. & BERRIDGE, K.C. (2003). Addiction. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 25-53.

To me, the addiction 'model' which I have described earlier, is based on an assumption that all people are trying to reach a state of peace, contentment, no expectation & no fear.

As most people do not get a great deal of support, during their child hood, in facing that individuals unique adventure i.e. overcoming specific fears to achieve a contented state of self worth? often the reverse i.e. criticism results in the creation of an "limiting unconscious notion" leading to a block in ones ability to achieve satisfaction.

the accumulation of these "limiting unconscious notions" results in an individual finding life a daunting challenge, rather than a fun adventure.

Hence "addiction" is a method of stopping a person challenging their fears, it creates a loop which keeps them in a no go process, eventually leading to body malfunction or breakthrough ie let go of addiction (letting go of the fear).


I doubt that the notion of reinforcement would answer all cases of extreme emotional states arising from prolonged dependency.



"Take drug get high" is the term "high", a euphoric state or a suppressed emotional state ( in that it allows a person to avoid pain)?

Personally I find the use of terms like [ Positive / Negative] are very limiting. As they imply that each state is equal and opposite.
Not the case in my mind, as a "Positive event" ( to me) is only one outcome, while a "negative event" is an infinite number of events other than the one called positive. (Slight digression).

In my earlier example, outcome of a promotion is "profit", which was the result of successfully challenging the fear, of loosing ones capital input (needed to create the promotion). The "limiting unconscious notion"; that the person had to challenge, is ; "that the person was worthless", hence can not achieve success.

As this "limiting unconscious notion" was created over many incidences of personal criticism during ones child hood, the amount of emotion attached to the fear can be immense, hence explaining the extreme nature of dependency.


this is where I feel that a "limiting unconscious notion", embedded during child hood, about ones self worth, is responsible for the extreme nature of dependency and hence the cyclic behavior would will reoccur if the "limiting unconscious notion" has not been fully dealt with?


personally I feel that most scientific research, using physiology to explain psychological outcomes, is often based on very limited models and hence does not explain all the variations that make up the a given set of behaviors.

I realize that all the above is pure speculation, ie not proven scientific fact. So would rather hear criticism based on peoples own experience of their own addictions, rather than some one rehashed quote which may only justifies that persons dogma.

"We're constantly looking to improve our lives", trojan_libido, what do you mean by the term "improve"?

To me most people would love to be happy/contented, though to be happy means that all obstacles would have to be removed from ones journey i.e. let go of all fears & expectations.

This is often too difficult so we distract our selves, by trying to build an island of material bits, which intern will create a feeling of security /safety, only to find later the the rules change on us and hence we get dumped in our fears............

My own feeling is that the majority of people spend most of their life trying to avoid pain, while chasing an illusive butterfly (love............)

though I do agree with you trojan_libido, "focusing on the natural addictions like food, shopping, extreme sports, sex and porn". is possibly easier to see the mechanism of addiction.

ant

I suggest that if you want to get a good grounding in motivational concepts and addiction you read those two articles I mentioned, at least. It does no good to ignore all the previous research done on motivation, reinforcement and addiction.
Which would be negative reinforcement. Avoidance is negative reinforcement
huh?

Wanna bet? Classical and operant conditioning are able to explain an awful lot with the smallest amount of complexity
The term high equates with a euphoric and enjoyable state, the absence of pain would be a negatively reinforcing state. The inflicting of pain would be positive punishment. Taking away somebodies euphoria e.g., by injecting naltrexone, would be negative punishment
Not necessarily there is a gradation of reinforcing states which may be equal or which may not be. There can be many possible positive and negative reinforcing and punishing events, sometimes at the same time. You can even reinforce behaviours in the absence of any conscious experience.
This is an interesting speculation. How exactly would you go about proving this?
I have several problems with this:
Animals develop addictive behaviours, do you think they have self worth issues? Just about every human being has self worth issues, are they all addicted? Which self worth issues are particularly involved in addictive behaviours? Why haven't you included stress, which has far more explanatory power at various levels of scientific reductionism? Are you adequately defining addiction? What exactly is a 'limiting unconscious notion'? It seems to vague to adequately represent any particular thing, it could be anything.


I strongly suggest you read those papers, the authors work is quite good and the papers are not so heavy to read compared with some other papers in the area. We have come a long way in thinking about addiction and neuroscience views have far more explanatory power than psycho-social views, which really haven't explained very much about addiction until the behaviourist and neuroscientists got together. What does your view add that is not adequately explained by theirs?

Have been away, for a while.....

Orbz, am almost envious of people who can read well. The attitude that you are expressing is similar to that of teachers in my child hood, that forced late readers to read out loud in front of a class kids (Conditioning) believing that they knew the answers and that they would benefit us late readers. what crap.

will get back to answer your post soon,

Just one comment; To me all animals have self esteem ie "peck order" is an example.

cheers ant....................

The more you read the easier it gets. Reading certain kinds of books can be addicting. Spy thrillers, for some, sci fi for others, perhaps.

Isn't the idea (or state) of "addiction" merely one of degree? For example, a majority of adults in the USA drink alcohol to some extent. Most of those people are not considered "addicted." Even some people might be thought to "drink too much" but might not be clinically addicted. Only those in the category of extreme consumption (daily dose in excess of, say, two ounces per 100 lb body weight) are considered addicted.

However, nobody ever said that being addicted to reading mystery novels is being "out of control." So I suppose the key discriminator in addiction is the addict's being unable to cut down or stop after he realizes his addiction-related behavior is counter-productive.

So if I am told that I am reading more than is good for me, and I am unable to stop, am I addicted? Suppose if I agree that my "spare" time could be better spent (working for a political campaign, for example), but I don't want to stop reading, am I addicted?

If you don't understand the papers or particular aspects of the papers I can help you with that, either by answering directly or pointing you to something that explains it better.


That's a good point, which does support your view. In fact animals lower in the pecking order (if I remember correctly) are more likely to develop addictive behaviours, which further supports your view. The underlying mechanism seems to be something modulating expression of dopamine receptors in the mesolimbic area of these animals with lesser self esteem, priming them for addiction. Whether pecking order comes first, or dopamine receptor expression, or some other third factor I don't know. It could be the stress of being a lower order animal.

Like all other mental health related issues.

Theories usually take this into account by making sure that there is a progressive component to developing an addiction. The major factor being repetition of reinforcing behaviour leads one to become more and more susceptible to addiction.


I think we all spend a lot of time doing things, which we know could be spent better elsewhere, like watching tv or writing on on-line forums instead of finishing this article... That could be why the language is changing from 'addiction' to 'dependence', to recognise the gradations involved. Do you have a strong craving for reading? Can you get a craving for reading? Do mystery novels at the book store particularly grab your attention? Would you define it as compulsive?

I struggle with my vices everyday. I decided before last Christmas to go see some old friends, because I was trying to get over an addiction to the online game Warcraft. This may sound trivial but I assure you it is almost on the level of Heroin for addiction. People are seriously underestimating the addictive properties of massive online multiplayer games of this calibre.

http://www.wowdetox.com/
http://www.wikihow.com/Break-a-World-of-Warcraft-Addiction
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/clic...ine/4887236.stm

I was blowing money out of my ass, then I found Warcraft and I was blowing time out my ass. My money was safe, my life was degrading. Several other friends have devoted their lives to their online avatars, and it is rewarding but ultimately empty, except ironically, the human interaction. So I have a bit of experience of the non-drug addiction.

Anyway the honeymoon period was over after two years of playing. I got back in touch with friends and found they were regularly using cocaine. I'd came in contact with this a couple of times before, and found it pleasant but overated. For the first time in my chemical life I made the mistake that cocaine was a rich mans speed. My friend became his own model of scarface, obviously in love with the perceived shortcut in making money. My usage grew, we began to go halfs on quite a lot of the stuff. Mine was for personal use only, I just bought it in bulk to improve the quality and quantity. I also bought it in bulk because I wasn't even getting good deals from my friend, despite often going halfs with him. This just meant I had it whenever I wanted it, and this meant I spiralled into cocaine addiction.

My wake up call came when I admitted myself into hospital for chest pains. As my addiction grew, I found myself mentally focused on every aspect of my breathing, sensations and the like in my chest. I had a dull ache in my chest before I began using coke, but as I used it I realised I wasn't even enjoying it. Everytime I took it I would be consciously watching my vitals, this ended up in several huge panic attacks. I stopped using it and went for help at my GPs. The verdict was Costochondritis, which is an inflamed cartilage of the ribcage. Now I have a diagnosis my panic attacks have stopped. I thought I was going to have a heart attack (family history).

The addiction itself was textbook. A little voice at the back of my head saying "wouldn't it be nice if we could just have a little bit tonight", or whenever I got spare money I would see it as grams. Its semi-automated, and it makes you agitated and aggressive. Once the thought enters your head, your constantly battling it til you go to sleep or are absorbed into something else. The speed at which this addiction appears is extraordinary, especially the need for more whilst on it. I can imagine heroin is the same, I've heard it described as returning to the womb. Escape is the thread that ties these things together.

I agree with Rick that the mechanism of addiction is something inherent in our biology. We seem to fall into patterns of behaviour, some stronger than others. If you like something you are on the first rung in the ladder of addiction. This can be anything from a style of music to a method of doing something, deviating from what you love can leave you annoyed and/or aggressive.

I still have many "addictions":
Cannabis on/off for physical relaxation and to stop my mind racing, which is a habit of mine.
Nicotine, which is more a sub-addiction because of the cannabis use.
Web-Surfing because theres something mystical about the information age.
Alcohol for when I'm trying to quit the cannabis, my use skyrockets.
Sex, who doesn't love this?
Poker, I'm pretty good and have won consistently and some large competitions.

Thats a few for one person to deal with constantly. Notice that my hallucinogen usage is not in this list, these substances actually make me see problems in my life and are helpful to sustaining a balance, rather than an evil and dangerous thing. People must see the distinction, or at least recognise their ignorance is due to fear. On top of these are all the Fads we go through as we mature, from toys as a kid, to sports, to recreational pursuits.

It seems fairly obvious to me that addiction will always be with us, only clearing the memory, altering the dopamine reward system, or the persons psychology (probably using entheogens) will alter any current addictions. Suprisingly there is currently a lot of research into Iboga, an hallucinogenic plant often described as a delerium, and its effects on cocaine addiction. There is currently no drug treatment for cocaine addiction, unlike heroin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine

I think addiction is a robotic behavior.

Let him among you who is without addictions throw the first stone. (with apologies to Jesus)

As noted above, addictions are a matter of degree. It's been settled elsewhere that we have free will (are not robotic). Addicts have been known to recover, you know.

What conscious reinforcement did you get from warcrack, if you got any at all? I ask this so as to compare this with the conscious reinforcement that you get from cocaine. With cocaine you get a very noticeable conscious reinforcement (euphoria) for a while, but it is quite likely that many of the more unconscious aspects are involved in the addiction rather than the conscious effects.

Did you also get cravings?

One of the major theories of addiction at the moment postulates a sensitisation of the wanting part of the brain. This can get triggered in the absence of any conscious experience. It seems that warcrack doesn't really target hedonic parts of the brain but wanting parts. You want to level up, you want to get better equipment, there is a sense of achievement but a relative lack of enjoyment??


I've been interested for a while now in the relationship between hallucinogens, religious experience and drug dependence treatment. It seems as though a promising treatment for drug dependence may be related to a specific alteration in the perception of reality.

I definately craved warcraft. I used to get up early so I could check the Auction Houses to buy and sell before work. This is a game in itself, as I'm sure many real world auction goers know. There is also something innately addictive about the world continuing when your not there. Deals are being made, dungeons raided and items found, all while your away from the computer. This seems to strengthen the pull, because you feel like your missing out.

Its also a problem that certain areas in the game are overpopulated, because only one type of monster will drop a certain type of item that is needed right across the world. What this means is you end up having to log in at the quietest times to make sure you can farm the items you need, just to be able to play the normal game without feeling like you let the side down.

Eating and toilet breaks become a hassle. There was one case in Asia where a person called in sick and played non stop for 48 hours in an internet café. They died at the keyboard from organ failure becaues they'd be neglecting themselves so much in the weeks/months prior to that incident. That seems extreme even for drug addicts. It may be the level ground you start on, no creed or class is any different in an online world.

It really is amazing to see 40 people working together using Voice over IP, all with different tasks and all working together. It took us 4 hours to reach the end of a dungeon, after months of fine tuning. It then took us several weeks to nail the last boss, with tempers flaring all the time. But when that boss went down, the elation expressed on VOIP was excellent, that is the main dopamine release of the game. Becoming the best and most fine tuned group of players on the server.

The politics is unbearable though, as you can imagine when you put elite players behind a computer screen then have there Egos battle it out.

I wonder how hard it would be to train yourself to become addicted to something which you needed to do but did not enjoy???

Addictive substances are one of the weird occassions where you work harder for less reward. Rats trained on cocaine will press the lever twice as often to get the same reward. Also it seems that there is a set point where they will work towards getting a certain level of reward.

Interesting

I guess if it was something like business, then you'd have to be successful to get that reward. If it was something like the dishes, then I think you'd be a millionaire if you could crack that one lol.

HeHe!

Addictions turn us into slaves. When we are addicted to someting we think less and act like robots at those moments of addiction.

Hi Ant - I agree there is this need to fulfill a warm fuzzy feeling of reinforcement...Have you considered that perhaos it is necessary to go one step lower in the evaluation of it. What is the cause of needing this warm fuzzy feeling? Am I saying to myself - i am too fat - ? (anorexia) - I am not beautiful enough (addiction to plastic surgery) ...I beleive that these thoughts of self are what underlies any addiction... I call it My-Tunes.

I have posted more on my blogspot..Ill give it to you after your feedback...

Please give me your thoughts and comments here.

Back again, My puter has been dead for a while & am busy out side this forum, may not be back for some time after this post as am busy.

Vee, will attempt to answer your question after addressing Orbz first.........................

Orbz, Thank you for the consideration, & offer of support....................

rather than using physiology to answer how the mind can be measured, I prefer to talk in psychological models of how I feel the mind may be structured?

A digression for those of you who like reading = {To me, my concept of ego must be looked at as almost a separate entity with in my self, which is the main obstacle between my objective self and my long term goal of being at peace with my self.
Before attempting to answer some of your questions. I will attempt to express how 'my ego' is influencing this process, just to give you an idea of how clever my ego' is at creating addictions, & then hiding their real point of action and disguise their motives, in order to save itself from being identified and or isolated.
'My ego' is acting on my conscious mind at present, when I look at answering your questions. In trying to express my mind about the issue of ; "addiction mechanisms".
I feel that the thing I call 'ego' is constantly at work trying to sabotage my thinking, by creating typos, loss of mental focus and fatigue etc., as I try to focus on the process in mind, this ego is what I am trying to let go of and hence it is capable of defending itself using this thing I call addictions ( to me, the ego was created by the lies conditioned into me during my child hood and the ego is the guardian of the lies)? as I have to put my self in each example and feel how the ego is working to explain to you what I feel is the process.}

With out going into all your logic and understanding, posed in previous posts, I feel that the point is being lost 'in addiction'? i.e. to get an understanding of the mechanism of how addiction works, is best not to get caught up in the addiction process itself. It in itself is an addiction = avoidance.

To me, getting a bigger picture of addiction means going cosmic, spiritual, vague, off with the fairies etc is necessary?

By this I mean, out side of the day to day life of getting a meal, a place to sleep and clothes to wear, I have a bigger picture

If I were to look at my long term goal i.e. getting to a point of peace, with out distraction in all situations...... ?
Then from my point of view, anything which, distracts me from dealing with my obstacles (mental obstructions) , hence slowing my progress towards that goal, I would term avoidance (avoidance - having possibly two components i.e. choosing to not deal with an obstacle as a temporary measure to get breathing space vs. the mental avoidance created by addiction) .

What we were talking about here is the mechanism of addiction not 'time out'.

To me the addiction arises from that part of the mind (brain), which I assume the ego is located (associated with) in. If one, can make such an arrogant statement?

To me this ego, I am talking about, is designed to avoid dealing with obstacles at all cost, i.e. keep me in the one space, which I am already comfortable with,
If I could paint a picture of the ego? (analogy ; being like a child, trying to keep itself in a safe space, hence avoiding unknown territory, would allow me to describe how addictions are useful in not disturbing my current perception of acceptable reality. This is where the mental loop I mentioned earlier comes into play.

by distracting oneself (using addictions i.e. creating a loop) helps the ego avoid issues which arise in the day to day processes of living, each of these processes have an underlying fear which must be overcome first in order to do the process, like; may be making money to pay rent (fear of not getting the job when approaching the employer?) , approaching a potential new partner in a vulnerable way (fear of a knock back), or having to deal with sticky situations like, explaining a lie previously used to cover up a vulnerable moment , these are examples of obstacles which lead to the creation of addictions, associated with the existence of this thing I call 'ego'.

The example of "trojan_libido" ; "I definately craved warcraft." possibly shows an example of a loop designed to avoid a confronting situation in the day to day dealings?? Many people did not get a pat on the back as children when they exploring their scary world and hence will escape to the world of fantasy which replaces the need to face the outside world??? etc., If I keep trying to express my model the process will loose every one including me so back to ........
............... your question 'Vee" [..Have you considered that perhaos it is necessary to go one step lower in the evaluation of it?]

Vee, I feel that you and I are talking about the same process, to me the mind stores all data from time of conception to present moment, though due to the construction of this thing I call "ego" most of this information is hidden from our conscious minds and many of the beliefs which are responsible for these addictions are in this data.
As u say " - i am too fat - ? (anorexia) - I am not beautiful enough (addiction to plastic surgery) ... " to me are examples of where the "ego" has attached a large amount of emotion i.e. pain or lack of self worth to a statement like "I am too fat", this is an unconscious statement, which manifests as a feeling of self rejection when food is put into the equation (as food is associated as the reason for being too fat?).

Will try to return to this forum to see what a meal you have all made of this post??????......................

though do not hold your breath as you may die befor I get back.......?????