Why the Opposite of Addiction is Connection

This beautiful video essay by Kuzgesagt — In a Nutshell makes a compelling case for reconsidering the way we think about addiction.

“We need to think about addiction differently. Human beings have an innate need to bond and connect. When we are happy and healthy, we will connect with the people around us. But when we can’t because we are traumatized, isolated or beaten down by life, we will bond with something that gives us some sense of relief. It might be endlessly checking a smartphone. It might be pornography, video games, reddit, gambling, or it might be cocaine — but we will bond with something because that is our human nature. The path out of unhealthy bonds is to form healthy bonds — to be connected with people you want to be present with. Addiction is just one symptom of the crisis of disconnection that is happening all around us. We all feel it. Since the 1950s, the average number of close friends in America has been steadily declining. At the same time, the amount of floorspace in their homes has been steadily increasing… to choose floorspace over friends, to choose stuff over connection. The war on drugs we’ve been fighting for almost a century now has made everything worse. Instead of helping people heal and get their life together, we’ve cast them out of society. We have made it harder for them to get jobs and become stable. We take benefits and support away from them if we catch them with drugs. We throw them in prison cells — which are literally cages. We put people who are not well in a situation that makes them feel worse, and hate them for not recovering. For too long, we’ve talked only about individual recovery from addiction, but we need now to talk about social recovery — because something has gone wrong with us as a group… we are going to have to change the unnatural way we live and rediscover each other.

Originally published at MindFullyAlive.com on June 27, 2016.