From the Huffington Post:

 

 

The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think

Lots of food for thought in this article.

Fascinating article.

 

 

So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.

"Human beings are bonding animals. We need to connect and love. The wisest sentence of the twentieth century was E.M. Forster's -- "only connect." But we have created an environment and a culture that cut us off from connection, or offer only the parody of it offered by the Internet. The rise of addiction is a symptom of a deeper sickness in the way we live -- constantly directing our gaze towards the next shiny object we should buy, rather than the human beings all around us."

I think I am going to buy this book....nothing else has worked.

Interesting read. It probably makes sense to approach this problem differently, because our present approach isn't effective.

 

I have long believed, at least early drug use and smoking for that matter, are much more socially (or peer) motivated than physical. My observation is that for ~90% of the social users, it does not become a long term problem, but the other 10% become horribly addicted which negatively impacts their life's pursuits. Do these 10% have underlying social issues or physical issues, or both?

 

Smokers are one of the most social groups of all, or at least they used to be. If I wanted to know something going on in my company or the rumor mill, all I had to do was ask a smoker...because they hang around together outside. I am not sure if that substantiates or debunks his theory about addition.

That's one heck of an article.

There's a lot of truth to this article. Addiction has changed in many ways over time and the way that it is treated professionally has too. From a professional perspective, anyone involved with treating addicts of anything used the moral model, which has changed substantially. Another significant change in the treatment of addiction involves going away from "intense" therapy to working with them where they are at in their situations.

 

Either way, human connection, relationships, social support, etc. plays a big role in the sobriety of addicts. The environment that they are in or around also plays a big role.

 

If interested in learning about addiction, you may also want to check out things involved with behavioral addiction, which doesn't involve drugs, alcohol, etc. The advancement in research and several other things has spawned a lot in regards to this that many are unaware of.

I think it's interesting how addiction affects all socioeconomic levels. You can feel worthless, unconnected and unloved no matter how much money you have--- turning to drugs to fill that void.