It can start with a “little joy” and lead to a big disaster. Psychologist Anastasia Gurneva talks about how addiction is formed, dragging a person into a vicious circle, and whether ways to get rid of it are possible.
Addiction in the broadest sense is the process of attraction to something, moreover, uncontrollable, over which we have no power.
Types of addiction
From what it arises can be divided into two categories:
- an object, such as a drug, alcohol, food;
- process, such as shopping, work, and more.
By the way, computer addiction is a generalizing concept for a whole class of processes: you can be addicted to social networks, online games or Internet surfing.
The line between normal consumption and addiction is changing — in the early days of the Internet, no one sat for so long flipping through the pages, but now it seems to be normal. If before buying clothes was a simple functional activity, today for many it is a way to spend time with pleasure or relieve stress.
There is another dependency separation:
- pharmacological, it is narcotic or alcoholic;
- non-pharmacological — for example, love.
vicious cycle
What unites all these species? The psychology of addiction is that it always becomes a way to escape from reality, creates the illusion of well-being, makes it possible to forget about problems for a while and find yourself in a pleasant stream of safety and comfort.
Often the living of dependence is accompanied by a pleasant feeling of joy, captures the motives and behavior of a person as a whole, subordinates the rest of life to the “pursuit” of pleasure. And over time, absorption becomes total, a person no longer thinks about anything else. It turns out a vicious circle, more precisely, a downward spiral.
Avoidance of problem behavior. At the beginning, there may be intolerance to something, such as stress, situations of communication with unfamiliar people, publicity. By the way, avoidance seems like a good strategy, but our psyche is so arranged that the more diligently we hide from something, the more frightening it seems to us. Avoidance requires the next step.
Dive into the pleasant world of addiction. For example, I experienced stress at work — I went to buy myself a cake (food addiction, the so-called “jamming” of problems) or a new scarf (shopping). Everything seems to be very nice, a scarf is not harmful to health, and weight is a personal matter for everyone, no one will die from these actions, not heroin.
The problem is that most addictions tend to get used to the dose and need to increase it. At first, a cake or a scarf gives vivid experiences of calm and joy, but over time they become habitual rituals. With chemical dependencies it is even worse, the stop button stops working, the doses increase. But now the intoxication is over, and they are replacing it …
Guilt and emptiness due to a breakdown in addiction. This is another sign — there is no satisfaction and calmness at the exit, but there is a meeting with a bunch of unpleasant problems and experiences. For example, guilt for the fact that it happened again, regret for lost time, exhaustion, decreased energy: hangover, lethargy overeating, emptiness after watching a series or social networks.
This dependence differs from activities that increase the resource of the psyche, after which there is an upsurge, joy and satisfaction.
The unresolved issues that led to the breakdown are still in place. There is a strong contrast between the pleasant experience of being high and the accumulated complexities of real life, broken interpersonal relationships, all of which you don’t want to go back to. And it still accumulates and seems to be an unsolvable mountain of problems. This generates the next step.
An even greater need for avoidance. And avoidance leads to contact with the object of addiction, and further in a circle. The reality is more and more dull and dull, and the object of dependence is more and more reliable, guaranteed to lead away from this gray melancholy. Neural networks are trained to restore the balance of life in the same way — by meeting with the object of addiction.
We all learn this way — we fall and get up again. But what if a person is under the illusion that it is possible not to fall and there is a magic tool that teleports him to where everything is fine?
It would be great, but it’s just an illusion. And each time there are less and less resources left, not only internal, for example, one’s own resilience in the face of failures, but also external ones — the support of loved ones, good work.
Addiction consumes so much energy and time that communication, close relationships cease to have a deep value. They are replaced by the dependency object. Resilience goes down, the stress intolerance threshold goes down, and the connection to addiction deepens and gets stronger.
Due to circumstances
Family traditions also influence whether relationships will be built according to a dependent type.
For example, how it is customary to experience failures and stresses at home, is there an opportunity for this, or are family members immediately trying to “extinguish” emotions. How do parents deal with crisis moments in life: is there a possibility of direct discussion, confrontations between loved ones, or is it customary to move away from sharp corners to cozy watching TV shows, use sedatives or alcohol.
How it is customary in the family to drink, what traditions have developed, are there any: “Dad is tired, he needs a drink” or “We survived such stress, you can drink.” These kinds of habits can pass on to the next generation very specific ways of dealing with both stress, conflict, and other difficult life situations, as well as objects of addiction, such as alcohol.
Another problem may lie in the loyalty, devotion of the child to his parents. It often happens that childhood memories are associated with the time when alcohol or tobacco was an indispensable attribute of a parent’s life, the smell that, for example, beloved dad smelled. And then alcohol or smoking becomes a way for the child to show devotion.
Ways of deliverance
Addiction work can go in several directions.
One of them is to increase the “endurance” of frustration, stress, conflicts. It is easier to endure boredom, to have the right to make mistakes in communication and work.
Another is to help learn to live and enjoy simple life situations, restore bodily and emotional self-regulation, learn to recognize and notice your needs, find adequate ways to fulfill them.
Another big task is to make sure that there is enough support in life, there are close people nearby with whom it is possible to build relationships based on trust and closeness.
It is certainly not a cure for addiction, especially when it comes to chemicals. But these are the conditions under which recovery can be easier. These are the mechanisms that can cause deterioration or improvement, and which should be considered if you or a loved one is trying to get out of addiction on their own.