ON ADDICTION

It isn’t about just the drugs and we are doing more harm by framing the conversation as such.

Addiction is always an attempt to solve a deeper problem, mostly something that caused the brain to form and reinforce those neural pathways after a traumatic experience in childhood.
An addiction is any behaviour that a person develops in order to attain short term relief but that has a negative effect on their capacity to be a functional human being in society in the long run.

It has more to do with people escaping their deep rooted problems and not processing them than the behaviour itself.
By the time a child has had just 6 traumatic experiences, be it he loss of a loved one, parents violently fighting, a divorce, etc. that child’s chances of engaging in addictive behaviour later on in life goes up by 4600 times.
There is a stronger link between childhood trauma and addiction than there is between obesity and diabetes.

So let me ask you, what are you addicted to?
Watching TV? Eating junk? Yelling at your spouse or kids? Judgemental thoughts? Excessive drug consumption? Playing the lottery? Drinking alcohol? Video games? Whatever it may be, it doesn’t matter.

It’s just a symptom of the problem.

What are you actually trying to escape?