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The Many Ways Addiction Manifests
Itself
When we hear the word ~addict,~ we tend to think of
people
who are dependant upon illegal drugs. But the truth
is,
addiction is not limited to narcotics. Drugs can be
terribly
habit-forming and destructive, but other substances,
too,
can cause people to become addicted to them. There are
gambling addicts, internet addicts, even exercise
addicts.
In fact, addiction is such a widespread phenomenon in
our
society that you can see evidence of it practically
everywhere you turn.
There are hundreds and thousands of citizens, for
instance, who see no danger in going out to a game
hall
for the occasional round of Bingo. It may seem
innocent,
indeed, but is it really? Among those thousands of
innocent Bingo players, there are some who are masking
their addiction to the game. These regulars make it
a habit to play Bingo nightly, shelling out wads of
cash to participate and to buy new cards to fuel their
obsessive activity. They go to a new hall every night
so as not to attract suspicion. Spending excessively,
hiding their whereabouts, sneaking around--such
actions
are the very hallmark of addictive behavior.
Addiction is not simply a physical activity, however.
No
textbook definition of this disease says that a person
must
engage in a corporeal action to be considered an
addict.
Many addictions are invisible, unseen to even the
trained
eye. Pathological liars, for example, are addicts in
the
sense that they are dependent upon lies. Those of us
who
tell white lies now and again are certainly not
addicts in
the true sense of the world, but those who tell lie
upon
lie, getting caught up in a web of deceit, are
addicted to
the drug of untruth. People who resort continually to
a
particular feeling (anger, mistrust, etc.) are equally
addicted to an emotion.
As has just been explained, addiction may be either
physical or emotional. But regardless of whether a
person
is addicted to a physical activity or a mental state,
all
addiction has at its root an emotional source. All
addicts
feel an internal drive to behave in a compulsive
manner.
That is why many addicts need medical supervision,
such as
they receive in a rehabilitation center, in order to
recover. This compulsiveness is not as rare as you
might
think.
In nearly every household across this country you
will come across at least one person who has some
obsessive
activity~playing a video game, golfing, buying shoes.
So
curing addiction is not just a matter of stopping the
activity itself ~ it~s more important to address the
root cause, the innermost need to do that activity. As
long
as we fail to see that point, we will continue to be a
nation of addicts.
Roshannah Kealey is the owner and publisher of
Addictions