RE: What You Know About Addiction Is Wrong!(you're not even close)
I like the way you talk about addiction, and not only because you depict it as monsters ;)
I find the subject really interesting. In fact, I took two courses on addiction (well, one on addiction per se and another one on drugs) and I agree with most of what you say here. Not with all of it, though, and that's completely normal. Now, I know you said not to just disagree, but I think you're being too harsh on scientists: your view and most of the 'scientific' views don't seem that far apart to me.
A great number of researches agree that addiction is a physical reaction (you said not to mention neurotransmitters, so I won't but...) and as much as the big monster/little monster analogy seems genius to me, I had to stop and give think about some points on what you call 'brainwashing'.
Addictions are hard to break.
Habits are hard to break and hard to form.
I agree with you. Hard is a relative term anyway and the so called professionals shouldn't just toss it around without a quantitative comparative analysis.
Addictions are fundamentally different for everyone.
Well, I sure don't think addiction is tailored for each and everyone of us. It's the same phenomenon. Yet, I wouldn't agree either if you had phrased it 'addiction is the same to everyone'. Maybe it's just me having a problem with absolutes, but I believe since each person is different, so has to be their reaction to addiction.
I mostly agree with the others. Other thing that I believe is that sometimes beating the little monster - the physical dependency - isn't always that easy. It's just not a matter of logic. As you put it, addiction is physical in nature.
On top of all that, I loved this post (so much that I got excited and wrote an answer this long... sorry hahaha) and again, it's a really nice POV on addiction; made me think and analyse things I thought I knew.
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I read a book that was a couple of hundred pages long and went cold turkey on an addiction that I fed for the majority of my life. Does reading one book and quitting something without the use of any willpower sound hard or difficult to you?
I'm not saying it's relative....I'm saying, it's easy. If you believe that you are "doing something that is hard." Then you won't be able to do something that is easy. It's so easy, that you are actually not doing anything. You're simply deciding not to do something.
The idea about addictions being hard to break is the same about habits. They aren't difficult, if you know how.
You form and break habits every day of your life.
If you look in Allen Carr's book he uses the example of driving in the UK and then driving in America. He has to break the habit of driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right. He says that he has no trouble doing this and thousands of people in the UK, don't either. That is both forming and breaking a habit.
When I say addictions are NOT fundamentally different from anyone, let me explain. On a fundamental level, they are not. There's the big monster, the little monster, and it's all held together by the glue of fear. That is the same for every addiction for everyone.
Now, there might be some personal touches. The big monster is brainwashing. So let's say, you're an alcoholic and you believe that two glasses of wine is good for your health. So that's the point that always drags you down. You can't seem to consistently talk yourself out of drinking because you believe and can't argue against this idea.
Take another alcoholic, he drinks because he believes that alcohol in general gives him a boost of happiness. Without alcohol his life will be too sad without that boost.
Both are brainwashed. Both are living in a fear of something that is not true. Fundamentally, it's the same.
Thanks for chiming in with some feedback. Let me know of any specific literature that you found intriguing on the subject.
Thanks for your answer!
Well, I'm not a fan of psychology as a science. Too much generalisation applied to a subject with too much standard deviation, in my opinion. Even so, I still admit that some behavioural theories make sense, among them, Skinner's operant conditioning. So, while I agree with your statement that an addict indulges in his addiction to quell the negative response the body gives to the absence of the stimulus (commonly, withdrawal) there's also a positive reinforcement in most of the addictions, the reason the addict fell into it in the first place, i.e. an alcoholic (before becoming one) didn't start drinking because he misses the boost of the alcohol but because it did gave them a boost of happiness of some sort.
I'm not saying the negative reinforcements don't play a big part in the addiction cycle, I'm just saying they are not all what's into it. It's somewhat more complex. Not necessarily hard, as you say, but not easy for everyone either. Even if the structure of the addiction can be explained with the same big-monster/small-monster/fear analogy, internally they are different for everyone. Not every addiction can be cured by cutting the stimuli 'cold turkey' (I've always thought this is a really weird expression btw), the phenomenon is physical and sometimes the body needs time to adapt to changes.
Again, I agree with most of what you say, I'm just not too much into the whole generalisation and absolute affirmations.
About the literature, I had a bunch of material pertaining drug addiction specifically, but I lost it along with most of my data last week * tears flow *. Still, for addiction as a subject there's a lot to read on the internet, some really interesting, some... eh... jalados por los pelos (?) I cant't find an adequate translation for that now... not-so-plausible, or something like that. Anyway, some of it is really worth it, some not. I'm sure you'll spot which one is which from afar.
Also, congratulations for beating your addiction! Even if it was easy for you :)
No, thank you Isa for your input. And thanks for the congrats. It's an odd feeling to suddenly be free of multiple life-long addictions.
The positive affirmations of smoking and drinking like "it gives me a boost," "it relaxes me," "I enjoy the taste," are the brainwashing.
As far as cold turkey or dropping it completely, there is a lot of false information out there that the body "needs" time to adjust. I can't say that I know of any drug where this is the case. Cigarettes and alcohol are not. Allen Carr claims that heroine addicts that he's helped have dropped the habit cold turkey and did not report any actual "pain" during their withdrawal period, just stress.
I have found extremely little on the internet that I find interesting or plausible on addiction.