When most people hear the word addiction, they think of dependence on substances such as drugs or alcohol. But alcohol, drugs and other commonly abused substances are not the only things people abuse. Or they think they might be addicted to them.
In fact, simply replace the word “substance” with the word “behavior” and you will discover the definition of behavioral addictions, some of which may surprise you. For example, this could be the Internet, shopping or skydiving. The desire to experience a “high” becomes so strong that the addicted person loses control and seeks activity, despite all the negative consequences.
And so, let's look at the most common habits that people get hooked on.
Gadget addiction
Science has provided humanity with innovative and technological mechanisms and gadgets that are part of every person's life today. From cell phones to high-tech televisions, from multimedia gaming systems to music players, it's a gadget that holds the world right in our pocket. People have now reached a point where they cannot live without these devices. This ultimately leads to dependence on them. This addiction has become a serious problem in the world, especially among teenagers.
Addiction to gadgets is determined by getting pleasure from using a laptop, tablet, smartphone, game console, etc., and spending a lot of time and other resources on it. Today it is difficult to imagine a modern teenager without a mobile phone or any other devices. Network, email, movies, games, music, Internet - all this is available in a few clicks.
Teenagers these days are becoming gadget-addicted, they do not participate in social activities, but “sit” on social networks, they do not go outside, to parks to play, but have game consoles and video games, they do not have “human friends.” “, but there are gadgets and most importantly, they do not have hobbies and hobbies, but there is an addiction that can cause a harmful lifestyle and affect their academic performance and quality of life.
Psychological portrait of an adrenaline addict
Since childhood, adrenaline addicts have an energetic character, are difficult to control, have problems with discipline, do not tolerate objections, and love risks. These are individualists with their own value system. The main criterion for them is the excitement they experience during danger.
Physically strong, look courageous. By psychological type - extroverts, they act decisively and toughly. It is unusual for them to worry or care about others; their sense of guilt is dulled. They do not worry about the future, preferring to live one day at a time.
The highest jump was made on August 7, 1998 by Stig Günther from a height of 104.55 m into an inflatable rubber boat. And in 1999, in Copenhagen, he also set a record for the longest burning: completely engulfed in flames, he “burned” without oxygen supply for 2 minutes 6 seconds.
Shopping addiction (shopaholism)
Whether it's shopping with friends on the weekend, picking out new clothes for work or trinkets for a friend, spending holidays on gifts under the tree—shopping can even be called someone's job. It's normal to give in to the occasional impulse purchase. After all, most people love to shop. However, for some, shopping is much more than a pleasant pastime, and in some cases it is a real and destructive addiction that can turn into a disaster.
Overspending and forced purchasing can be defined as inappropriate, excessive and uncontrollable. Impulsivity is a key feature, basically lack of control over your impulses leads to damage.
Shopping addiction can wreak havoc on a person's life, family, relationships, physical and mental health, and finances. Buying in excess can get out of control and lead to more serious problems that detract from, rather than enhance, your quality of life. The more you use shopping as an attempt to fill an inner emptiness or pain, manage your feelings, restore your mood, or strive for an “ideal” image, the more likely it is that you need to take a closer look at the cost of these behaviors.
Sometimes you start using shopping as a defense mechanism against your negative emotions or feelings. You may temporarily escape your problems, but at the end of the day they are still there. Timely seeking qualified help, such as psychological counseling and cognitive behavioral therapy, will help you overcome the craving for thoughtless, impulsive purchases.
Test: test yourself
How do you know if you are addicted? Typically, a strong feeling of dependence on another person manifests itself in total control over her actions and movements, in the desire to constantly be near her, in the loss of self-control over her thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
Next TEST of 9 questions
will help you determine the presence and level of dependence on a person. Please answer Yes or No questions as honestly as possible.
- Do you often feel anxious when you think about your relationship?
- Do you find it difficult to refuse your partner?
- Do you desperately need your partner's approval?
- Does your self-esteem depend on such approval?
- When your partner praises you, your mood noticeably improves; do you like yourself?
- Do you feel afraid if your partner is unhappy with you?
- Do you panic if your loved one is in a bad mood?
- Can't imagine life without a loved one?
- Are your old interests no longer enjoyable?
- Do you no longer use passwords, do not have secrets from your partner and demand the same from him?
If you haven’t given a positive answer to any question, you are not dependent on your partner.
If you answered “Yes” 1-2 times, you have a mild stage of addiction that you can cope with on your own. Analyze your behavior from the outside, study information on this topic, think about how to correct the situation.
From 3 to 5 positive answers indicate that you have an average degree of addiction and you are recommended to consult a psychologist/psychotherapist to understand in which direction you should work on yourself.
More than 5 positive answers indicate a severe degree of addiction. You need to take action and seek help from a specialist.
And we will tell you about ways to correct addictive behavior.
Eating disorder (food addiction)
Food addiction is a disease similar to drug or alcohol addiction in which a chemical reaction in the brain is triggered by a particular behavior. In food addiction, the behavior that triggers the reaction is eating a certain food or a certain amount of food. This addiction manifests itself as an uncontrollable craving for excessive eating and usually involves eating salty, sweet or carbohydrate-rich foods to satisfy an increased appetite.
Eating disorders can lead to complications in the functioning of internal organs (gastrointestinal tract, endocrine and nervous systems) and are difficult to treat. In severe cases, according to doctors, getting rid of food addiction can be more difficult and longer than overcoming drug addiction or alcoholism. People suffering from alcohol addiction, for example, can stop drinking alcohol under artificial conditions (isolation in a rehabilitation center, taking medications incompatible with alcohol, etc.).
Such long-term isolation makes it possible to overcome addiction. But people who are addicted to food still need to eat. There can be no talk of any isolation. Only in specialized clinics is it possible to recreate conditions where, with the help of trained staff, food will be taken on a limited basis.
Case from practice
Sergey, 25 years old, married, works as a taxi driver. He was a good racing athlete. His passion is driving at high speeds, for which he was constantly fined and his license was taken away, but he continued to exceed the speed limit. Sergei realized the problem and wanted to solve it.
To do this, his true needs were clarified, the illusion of fulfillment of which was created by adrenaline mania, and alternative ways were found to satisfy these needs; The trigger mechanism that includes such a behavior program has been studied, and several trainings have been conducted.
The passion for speed remained (he was the first in training at the car club and at competitions, and did not miss Formula 1 television broadcasts), but the “racing” on city streets stopped.
Addiction to risky behavior (adrenaline addiction)
Adrenaline junkie is a term used to describe people who enjoy intense and exciting activities that produce an adrenaline rush. This is the type of person who likes things like skydiving, extreme sports or potentially dangerous activities such as roofing, hooking, etc.
When you are excited, fearful, or emotionally overstimulated, your body releases the hormone adrenaline. When this hormone enters the bloodstream, it increases your heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate, which can heighten your senses and give you an energy boost.
Unfortunately, thrill seekers are now not only adults, but also teenagers. To show their “coolness” and satisfy their desires, teenagers are ready to do a lot. They often openly play with death, which doctors note in such individuals is a decrease in self-preservation instincts.
Every year in Russia there are accidents that end in disability or, in the worst case, death for those who want a thrill. Unfortunately, this does not stop adrenaline fans, and they are ready to come up with new ways to get extreme risky sensations: driving at high speed, riding electric trains, clinging to handrails, jumping from roofs, descending into the mines of abandoned buildings, etc.
Men and adrenaline
Records for the sake of records make you think. Adventure seekers cross the Sahara Desert, where the temperature usually rises to +49 degrees Celsius, embark on long journeys across the ocean, reach the North and South Poles, and travel the length and breadth of the globe in all kinds of vehicles or on foot.
Climbers call their passion for conquering peaks a disease. Divers make deep-sea dives and set records for the duration of time spent under water. Speed lovers set their highest achievements for each class of moving, floating, and aircraft.
It is generally accepted that women are attracted to the reckless behavior and senseless bravery of extreme men. But this is nothing more than a delusion. So say American scientists from the University of Maine. Their research showed that women are not at all impressed by “risky guys” who jump from bungee or from airplanes. Ladies prefer careful men. “If a man is respected by other men, women may like him because of his high status, but they don’t just like daredevils,” says one of the researchers, William Farthing.
According to one of the most common versions, men (by analogy with male animals) demonstrate their strength and courage in order to scare away potential rivals. But if this proven method works in the wild, then what can happen to civilized people?
Love and sex (sex addiction)
Sex addiction, also often called hypersexuality and compulsive sexual behavior disorder, is a condition in which the sufferer becomes overly preoccupied with thoughts or behaviors that produce the desired sexual effect.
For some people, sex addiction can be very dangerous and lead to significant difficulties in relationships. Like drug or alcohol addiction, it can have a negative impact on a person's physical and mental health, personal relationships, quality of life, and safety.
Craving for adrenaline or escape from boredom?
In a well-functioning and increasingly calm, rationalized society, danger and risk are, first of all, in demand precisely as a remedy for boredom. Hence the unprecedented desire to travel, which often culminates in extreme tourism, which has become widespread in recent years. People of post-industrial society prefer deprivation and danger to comfort and convenience. They need excitement, fearing that without it they risk gradually dying out. But where there is risk and danger, there is also uncertainty and a challenge to fate.
In 2005, circus performers brother and sister Arvydas and Diana Gaiciunas set a world record for the longest stay inside an ice block in the Lithuanian city of Palanga. Dressed only in T-shirts and sweatpants, they spent 63 hours and 31 minutes in a 12-ton ice cube measuring 1.4 x 1.2 x 2 m.
Author: Vladimir Kukk, psychiatrist, psychologist, author of the book “Encyclopedia of Addictions”
The material uses photographs belonging to shutterstock.com
Plastic surgery addiction
The desire to achieve the “highest” standard of beauty becomes contagious among us. For celebrities who are often caught on camera, enhancing their beauty is commonplace and becomes "normal". But plastic surgery can also attract non-showbiz people to the process of improving their appearance.
Addiction to plastic surgery can be classified as a behavioral addiction.
People who are attracted to both non-surgical and surgical procedures are obsessive about certain behaviors. These types of people are mainly concerned with correcting that part of their body that they consider to be faulty and/or ugly. By correcting some of their perceived shortcomings, a person can feel comfort and satisfaction. In most cases, these sensations do not last, but only stimulate the patient’s interest in repeated plastic surgery. One operation to improve beauty does not immediately lead to addiction.
Like the risk of substance abuse, the danger of excessive attraction to beauty can lead to permanent depression. These effects can lead to difficulties in a person's personal life. In addition to the possible dangers to mental health, plastic surgery can also affect a person's physical health. Excessive plastic surgery can cause permanent damage to muscles and skin.
Adrenaline mania
Adrenaline addiction: passion or addiction?
Adrenaline mania is a passion for danger and risk. But in essence, it is overcoming the feeling of fear of increased danger to one’s health and life in a state of excitement.
dependent personality disorder, adrenaline mania
Freedom and independence, one’s own choice are extremely important for adrenaline junkies. Their motto: “You have to try everything in life yourself!” Their goal is to “chase adrenaline.” This gives grounds for experts to talk about adrenaline addiction as a form of emotional dependence.
Mechanism of action and indications
Benzodiazepines suppress the functioning of the central nervous system. They affect GABA receptors, which inhibit the functioning of the central nervous system and limbic system of the brain. Next to these receptors are benzodiazepine receptors, which respond to drug intake and enhance the function of GABA. The drugs are rapidly absorbed, reaching their highest concentrations in the blood within an hour. They act for 8-10 hours and are eliminated from the body in 2-4 days.
These drugs are prescribed to patients for insomnia, epilepsy, muscle spasms, and are also used to treat panic disorder, anxiety, clinical depression, alcohol and drug withdrawal. Benzodiazepines are used for acute mental conditions associated with the use of hallucinogenic drugs.
With prolonged use and exceeding the recommended dosage, benzodiazepines cause physical and psychological addiction.
Recipe for all “diseases”
Sport saves in many situations
, including in the process of liberation from adrenaline addiction. Working out in the gym, jogging, lifting weights provide a certain amount of adrenaline - just enough so as not to get hooked.
It also stimulates self-esteem well: I did it, I ran, I pressed, I completed the required number of approaches.
In addition, during exercise, happiness hormones are released - endorphins.
.
High self-esteem as a salvation from adrenaline addiction
According to the observations of psychologists, adrenaline addicts are not “friends” with self-esteem
.
Subconsciously, a person believes that if he does not prove that he can jump above his head, he will not be worth anything. So sometimes “treatment” needs to be carried out precisely in the direction of raising one’s own self-worth.
Classification of benzodiazepines
Drugs in this class are divided into several groups:
It is important to note that benzodiazepines should only be taken as prescribed by a doctor and the recommended dosage should be strictly followed. It has also been scientifically proven that the effectiveness of benzodiazepines decreases with long-term use. If the drug is not replaced, tolerance appears. As the dose increases, there is a high risk of addiction, as in the case of Jordan Peterson, whom we wrote about above. Doctors do not recommend using these drugs for long-term treatment due to addiction and severe consequences, incl. withdrawal symptoms You should also not prescribe the course and dosage of benzodiazepines on your own. All this should be done by a doctor after a complete diagnosis.
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