Addiction and Its Psychological Side
Addiction cannot be described as a simple habit; it is a state that has crossed the line of habit and gone out of control. This week we look at its psychological roots.
This week I want to talk to you about the psychological roots of addiction, one of the most important threats to health. Addiction cannot be defined as a simple habit. Addiction is a state that has now crossed the line of habit and gone out of control; indeed, it is a sign. Even if everything seems fine from the outside, it is a sign that shows what is happening inside, in our inner world. From the outside it appears as uncontrolled and excessive smoking or drinking, drug use, or uncontrolled weight gain. But this situation is most likely an indication that the person has lost inner control, and it is an abnormal state of mind. If a person becomes attached to a substance (cigarettes, alcohol, food, etc.) and loses control, this is an expression of their trying to suppress certain feelings.
Generally, people use these substances as a "painkiller" to push aside feelings they do not know how to cope with. To deal with stress, boredom, loneliness, fear, guilt, pain, rejection, grief, self-pity or any other trouble, a person may make a habit of using certain substances, and if this goes out of control, "substance addiction" develops. For individuals who have not learned to recognize and express their feelings, addiction becomes a kind of emotional-regulation tool. It silences anxiety, numbs anger, and makes loneliness temporarily forgotten. In the short term it seems to work, but in the long term, instead of solving problems, it deepens them. The paradox here is this: the thing one becomes addicted to relieves at first, then becomes the only way to feel relief.
Sometimes the addiction is not to a substance but to a behavior
Sometimes this addiction is not to a "substance" but to a "behavior." A person may become addicted to unhealthy relationships, shopping, sexuality, gambling, betting, or the phone screen. Some people, because they are overweight and addicted to being thin, even become addicted to vomiting after eating. This addiction, which we call "bulimia," can reach such dangerous dimensions that it can threaten life. Certain psychological and social abnormalities (pressure about weight and appearance from family and the environment, constantly thinking one is overweight and feeling ashamed of it, low self-esteem, perfectionism) can trigger this illness. The person first eats to the point of bursting to fill the emptiness inside, and after eating, feeling guilty, vomits to regain control and find relief. If this situation becomes extreme, because the minerals and vitamins the body needs remain deficient, it leads to neurological and cardiological problems and carries a 4% risk of death. As an illustration from clinical practice, a young patient with advanced bulimia, who only months earlier had been an energetic university student, had become severely weakened, with loss of consciousness, uncontrolled movements and a vacant gaze; sadly, this patient passed away a few weeks later. Such cases show how serious this illness can be.
Feelings that are not expressed and are hidden away make a person ill
The substances or behaviors that become an addiction are, in fact, a kind of "silencer" used to numb feelings that are hard to face. Our emotions are one of the greatest blessings that set us apart from animals. Every emotion needs to be expressed and experienced "in an appropriate way." If we cannot express the emotions we feel (anger, irritability, sadness, joy, etc.), they accumulate in the subconscious, and after a while we have difficulty coping with our feelings. Then, uncontrollably, these emotions take over our lives and begin to affect our personality and behavior. After this stage, not only our mental health is affected; these tangled emotions also cause intense stress and can turn into physical illnesses.
Philosophers define virtue as "avoiding extremes." That is, virtue is not being without anger, but becoming angry in the right place and in moderation. A suppressed emotion does not disappear; it only changes form. And most of the time it returns in a more primitive, more uncontrolled way. Thus the illnesses we call psychosomatic emerge; first the deterioration of mental health occurs, and then this deterioration slowly affects the body and brings out certain illnesses. Anger that cannot be expressed can turn into passive-aggressive behavior, sadness that cannot be expressed into withdrawal or depressive symptoms, and anxiety that cannot be expressed into bodily complaints. Migraine, tension-type headaches, blood pressure that rises with stress, palpitations that increase with anxiety, chest pain and tightness in the chest without heart disease, shortness of breath and asthma attacks triggered by stress, irritable bowel syndrome, digestive disorders such as heartburn and gastritis, unexplained nausea and vomiting, stress-related reflux, eczema, urticaria (hives), unexplained hair and beard loss, unexplained eye twitching and eye hemorrhages are some of the dozens of psychosomatic illnesses.
In my next article I will talk about how the foundations of addiction are laid in childhood and how it can be dealt with.
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