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When too much of a good thing starts becoming a bad thing, you need to take stock. Food, drink, drugs and gambling can make anyone feel good for a while, but when you need it to feel good all the time, you're heading for disaster. This is usually described as abuse. Addiction, while very similar in many respects, has an associated out-of-control quality. This means indulging in an activity against your own will, insight and better judgment.
The effects of addictive behaviors are addiction-specific. Alcohol causes a loss of inhibition; drugs, euphoria and a sense of well-being; gambling, a heightened sense of arousal or temporary escape and eating disorders, a sense of satisfaction from either deprivation or indulgence in food. The side effects are equally specific but the commonality is that it is a doomed relationship with an activity. Many people still believe addictive behavior is a matter of choice. But, more and more evidence suggests that there is a strong neurobiological basis to it, one that medical science does not yet fully understand. The neurobiochemistry of most of the diseases of the mind are equally poorly understood, including common ones like depression or schizophrenia, yet nobody doubts their existence as diseases.
Ten percent of users or boozers are addicted. While relatively few alcoholics or drug addicts die as a direct result of the toxic effects of their poison, many die because of accidents or suicide. These deaths are not recorded as being alcohol or drug-related, but the bottom line is that addiction can kill you if it goes untreated. The tragedy of addiction - unlike other treatable illnesses - is that its fatal nature is no deterrent to the addict.
Addiction has no respect for age, gender or socio-economic status. Even intelligence does not appear to be an exclusion factor. Intelligence just means the denial system becomes more sophisticated. Most alcoholics seek help for the first time in their early forties, addicts about a decade earlier.
An undisputed factor is genetic risk for alcoholism - it tends to run in families. However, no particular personality profile seems to favor alcoholism or addiction. Alcoholism shows a complete cross section of personality types - from the bold and the beautiful to the tame and tepid.
Addiction is characterized by a need for over a longer period than intended.
1. You're overwhelmed by a persistent desire for your poison.
2. You've tried unsuccessfully to cut down or control your intake.
3. You spend a great deal of time trying to get what you want, like visiting a dealer or finding pubs you haven't been thrown out of.
4. Your habits are making it increasingly difficult to get to work on time or produce the expected results.
5. You continue smoking despite your cough, drinking despite your ulcer, using cocaine despite the fact that you know your depression is cocaine-induced. You know it's harming you and you can't stop.
The Prognosis
The statistics for getting over fatal excesses are loaded against the addict, but treatment is never futile or intervention a waste of time. » Many addicts and alcoholics recover and go on to live productive ( and useful lives. Most addicts simply underestimate the gravity of the problem. Hence, half-hearted attempts at help are made.
The illness very often follows a chronic relapsing course and in this light, a return to using or boozing is seen as part of the process of the illness and not as a treatment failure. The response to a relapse is critical, not the relapse itself.
Lifestyle
Temporary lifestyle changes are needed until you have won your battle. If several drinks after work with colleagues is how you've always relaxed, find a colleague who would rather have a game of squash. You have to find a way to live in the same world as the fodder of your addictions. Pubs, drug dealers and restaurants aren't going to disappear just because you need to stop using them.