Addictive behavior and its forms – what prevention is most effective

No person can be called a completely independent being. We are Tamagotchis. We depend on air, water, food, we all need our own territory, relationships with other people, we all need to belong to society.

When we talk about addictive behavior, we mean a certain bias towards strong dependence on something that ceases to nourish our life, and begins to destroy it. Be it chemicals, food, some activity, relationships, etc.

Everything that nourishes us and gives us life, “eaten” in a higher proportion, can begin to destroy us. Then we are faced with addiction therapy - as a way to restore balance with the environment, in other words - we want to depend “in moderation”. To that “measure” when the environment is a way to support life, and not a way to support the destruction of the body.

What is addiction

Photo by Matilda Wormwood: Pexels
Addiction is an irresistible attraction to something, that is, to objects, substances, even people.

There are several signs of addictive behavior:

• a person feels the need to perform certain actions, without which he feels discomfort;
• directs all his activity precisely towards satisfying his addiction, while refusing self-development, relegating any other life goals and dreams to the background;

• a person loses social connections, they lose significance for him;
• denies the fact that he has a problem;
• suffers setbacks in his career, personal life, in severe cases of addiction he finds himself in a situation of financial disadvantage, since all his money is spent on satisfying his addiction.

The more a person indulges in their addictive behavior, the more it gets worse. The body quickly adapts, so a person has to increase the “dose” more and more. Ultimately, the body can no longer exist without the source of its dependence, and the person gets used to it both psychologically and physiologically.

And if earlier a person understood that, if necessary, he could control himself, then, unnoticed by himself, he loses this control. His life begins to be completely subordinated to additive behavior.

Dependency as a failure of separation

Margaret Mahler's theory of separation and individuation describes the development of a child up to 2 years of age. The condition for healthy development is separation from the mother and gaining reliance on one’s own individual qualities, knowledge, skills, abilities and results.

If a child is completely “saturated” with his mother in the first six months of his life, he develops a healthy intrapsychic image of his mother. It is thanks to this assigned image of a good mother that the child can safely gradually separate from her. At the same time, it feels good to be with yourself and do your own thing. It is the assigned intrapsychic image of a good mother for ourselves that allows us to feel confident and satisfy our needs in adulthood.

If a person does not have an image of his own “good caring mother” for himself, he will not be able to feel autonomous, fulfilled and confident in life, he will forever search for his “lost mother”.

In fact, dependent people were unable to undergo primary separation from their mother in early childhood. They did not have enough external manifestations of a real, caring, empathic mother to form and appropriate the image of a good internal parent for themselves.

Dependents are eternal “orphans”, looking for and never finding their “good mother”, suffering due to the inability to be independent and happy.

Forms of addictive behavior

When it comes to addictive behavior, most people think of alcoholics or people suffering from drug addiction, however, addictions have many forms. Some of them are socially unacceptable, while others, if not encouraged by society, are certainly not condemned:

• dependence on chemical substances - alcohol, tobacco, drugs, etc.;
• psychological dependence and codependency on another person;
• food addiction;
• addiction to telephone, computer, Internet addiction;
• gaming addiction;
• workaholism;
• shopaholism;
• addiction to adrenaline and so on.

Kinds

Psychology has established that addictions are expressed in different ways. This means that addictive behavior can take different forms; they are united by similar mechanisms for the formation of addictive behavior. From an epidemiological point of view, the severity of pathological consequences varies among different types of addictive behavior.

All addictive behavior can be divided into 2 large groups: chemical (associated with the use of certain substances that alter consciousness and have an impact on the psyche) and non-chemical (behavioral pathologies).

In order to form a complete concept of addictive behavior, it is necessary to describe its most common types.

Alcohol addiction

This is the most common model of addictive behavior. The state of alcoholic intoxication is associated with high spirits and euphoria. In addition, often in the first stages of the formation of alcohol dependence, a person notices an improvement in his performance and the disclosure of his creative potential. This state is remembered by a person as extremely pleasant. That is why the brain subsequently requires the person to drink alcohol again in order to experience these pleasant sensations again.

At subsequent stages of the formation of alcoholic addictive behavior, not only creative abilities, but also life skills disappear. They are replaced by apathy, despondency, and depression.

With prolonged systematic use of alcohol, physical dependence is formed, the main signs of which are:

• withdrawal syndrome (hangover);
• causeless change of mood;
• memory impairment;
• rigidity of thinking;
• narrowing the range of interests;
• decreased self-control;
• the need for a constant increase in the consumed dose of alcohol;
• sexual disinhibition;
• social degradation.

Female alcoholism poses a special social problem. Women who abuse alcohol try to hide their addiction because it is condemned by society. Women's alcoholism develops faster than men's. Its danger also lies in the fact that in girls it is combined with dependence on sedatives and tranquilizers.

Addiction

Drug addiction is an addictive behavior based on a thirst for new experiences. Its consequences have a detrimental effect on a person and his immediate environment. Soft drugs (such as marijuana) quickly become psychologically addictive. Subsequently, marijuana alone no longer brings the desired sensations. A person switches to ecstasy, cocaine and heroin, and taking these drugs causes physical addiction literally after the first try.

The longer a person uses drugs, the more likely they are to develop co-occurring mental disorders. Psychotropic drugs increase a person’s perception and lead to visual hallucinations. What is the distinctive feature of drug addictive behavior? The fact is that it causes persistent addiction. There is a high risk of a drug addict dying as a result of an overdose. In addition, drug addicts are characterized by a desire to get friends and acquaintances addicted to psychoactive substances and a tendency to commit crimes.

Substance abuse

Adolescence is associated with many temptations, one of which is the desire to inhale vapors of highly toxic substances. The peculiarity of this type of addictive behavior is collective use. Inhaling glue vapors puts teenagers in a state reminiscent of alcohol intoxication: they feel dizzy, their mood improves, and they experience hallucinations.

The longer a teenager engages in substance abuse, the lower his ability to voluntarily remember. A decrease in intellectual functions and deviations from the norm in the emotional-volitional sphere are gradually noted. Deviations such as a tendency to violate social norms and requirements are observed in behavior. Aggression, conflict.

If substance abusers use aerosols, gasoline, chloroform, ether, and solvents as a means of achieving an altered state of consciousness, then serious damage to the brain and spinal cord occurs. Asphyxia and paralysis of the respiratory center often cause death among drug addicts.

Food addiction

This form of addiction is based on a person’s obsession with food and their own weight. In psychology, this definition of addiction includes overeating, anorexia, and bulimia.

A person with this type of addiction may eat food not to satisfy hunger, but to gain pleasure from the process. In this case, a disruption of metabolic processes occurs at the biological level: if a person is not busy with anything, the brain sends him signals to eat something rather than do something.

There are cases when people refuse certain foods because they are forced for health reasons to follow a special diet and adhere to the clinical recommendations of the doctor. But there is a type of addictive behavior in which a person fanatically counts calories and, due to his personal beliefs, refuses meat. Self-restraint in food for such people is absurd.

Nomophobia

This term today refers to a person’s peculiar dependence on mobile phones. It manifests itself in the individual’s fear that his gadget will suddenly run out of charge, leaving its owner without communication with loved ones. If a person cannot find a phone or for objective reasons cannot use it, he begins to worry and get nervous.

Nomophobes prefer virtual communication. They like to constantly read news on social networks, as a result, their brains are overloaded with information. The thirst for new information pushes them to constantly use the phone, that is, the person increasingly loses touch with reality.

Internet addiction and computer addiction

This addiction is characterized by a person’s irresistible desire to access social networks and other sites and an unwillingness to be offline for a long time. Adolescents and young adults are susceptible to this type of addictive behavior. Gradually, the Internet is becoming their only means of communication. A common type of computer addiction is hacking.

A variant of computer addiction is a person’s pathological passion for computer games. Psychological studies have found that teenagers who are addicted to computer games are prone to aggression and cruelty towards animals and loved ones.

What is the destructive nature of Internet addiction? The fact is that virtual reality allows a person to feel like a hero, a macho, a versatile personality. In order to become the virtual idol of millions of people, no effort is required. Easy success online is contrasted with everyday work in real life. Addict follows the path of least resistance, choosing virtual reality. People dependent on virtual communication suffer from sleep disorders and are often in a bad mood.

A type of Internet addiction is pornophilia – a person’s passion for viewing pornographic materials posted on the Internet. This addiction begins with the pleasant excitement that a person experiences while watching porn videos. Gradually he moves from simple genres of pornography to more complex ones, since the previous pictures no longer excite. Over time, watching erotic scenes on the screen becomes preferable to the individual than real life and a real sexual partner. Pornophilia affects both men and women equally often.

Pathological love and sexual addiction

A type of emotional addiction is its love form, the causes of which lie in cold parent-child relationships or childhood sexual trauma. The chosen one becomes necessary for the addict, like air. Being in the grip of this addiction, a person seems to be in a state of mild intoxication. The mottos of such relationships can be:

- “I can’t live without her (him)!” - “He offends me, but I endure it because I love him!”

The psychological criterion for addictive behavior of this type is a person’s confidence that without his chosen one his life will lose meaning. If the relationship ends, the addict begins to experience physiological withdrawal.

A person with this form of addiction suffers greatly mentally, as a result he develops psychosomatic disorders.

Sexual addiction is a human behavior in which an intimate partner is not perceived as a person. The addict regards it as a means of satisfying his sexual needs. There are different forms of manifestation of sexual addiction:

• the desire for numerous sexual contacts with as many different partners as possible;
• morbid passion for sexual perversion;
• fetishism;
• morbid addiction to photographs of erotic content;
• tendency to wear clothes intended for people of the opposite sex;
• exposure of genitals to children or persons of the opposite sex;
• spying on other people's sex lives or dressing up as people of the opposite sex.

All forms of sexual addiction disrupt the normal emotional basis of a person's relationships with other people. Such people often have sexual behavior disorders and are at high risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections.

Psychotherapy addiction

Consultations with a psychotherapist help optimize your psycho-emotional state or develop vital skills. However, it happens that a person visits a psychotherapist for years without having any special personal problems. The biological mechanism of this type of addictive behavior is a person’s desire to shift responsibility for his own life to a psychotherapist.

Gaming addiction

Gambling addiction is based on gambling. The longer a person gambles, the more time he devotes to it. Being outside the game, he experiences discomfort and anxiety. The mechanism of formation of gambling addiction is determined by the desire for competition and the thirst for positive emotions.

Alcoholism and drug addiction often develop against the background of gambling addiction.

Errors in family upbringing are a risk factor for the development of gaming addiction. Excessive demands on the part of parents and a lack of parental love create the preconditions for the development of a gaming addiction in a child.

Gamers can be divided into types:

• Laughing players. For them, the game is entertainment, and the chance to win is a kind of bonus. The game comes to the fore, crowding out all other areas of life. They perceive losses and failures in the game as an accident; they do not stop playing even when losses follow one after another. Such people, in pursuit of big winnings, can easily lose their last money and borrow huge sums at high interest rates. Such gamblers believe that one fine day they will win a large sum and all their problems will be solved.
• Desperate players. These are people who neither work nor study anywhere. They have practically no friends. They play because they cannot find any other pastime. They understand that gambling addiction destroys their personality, but attempts to stop gambling lead to physiological disorders. Outside the game, they have suicidal thoughts.

Workaholism

At first glance, dedication and complete dedication in production are positive qualities of an employee. However, this approach to work is based on disturbances in the individual’s emotional sphere and problems of interpersonal interaction: with the help of complete immersion in work, a person tries to get away from problems in the family. There is a substitution of life values: friendships, love, hobbies are lost, and professional responsibilities take the leading position in a person’s life. A workaholic cannot enjoy ordinary things; he only enjoys production activities.

Workaholics are rigid, pedantic, and conservative. They expect constant approval from their superiors, and take criticism very painfully.

Causes of addictive behavior

Addictive behavior is a way to escape reality. All people strive to experience pleasure and avoid pain.

Dependence and addictive behavior

Usually, pleasure comes from achieving goals, building harmonious open relationships with others, implementing creative plans, professional success, creating a strong family, satisfaction with one’s life, having and raising children, pursuing hobbies, and various hobbies.

But if this is not the case in a person’s life, if he feels unfulfilled, sees life in gray colors, he may develop various addictions. Any form of addictive behavior brings pleasure to a person. Unfortunately, this pleasure cannot change the overall dissatisfaction with one's life, and ends the moment a person puts down the phone, or gets sober, or refuses to eat.

Therefore, in order to return the feeling of imaginary “happiness,” a person again returns to what brings him pleasure, not ready to look within himself for the strength to change his life.

Another reason for addiction is a way to avoid suffering. When a person has an internal conflict, negative emotions, depression, increased anxiety, it is easier for him to “plunge” into his addiction than to face the truth, come to terms with internal pain and try to overcome it.

In any case, addiction is a way to avoid responsibility for your life, for making decisions, for changes.

Factors that increase the risk of addiction:

• genetic – the tendency to addictive behavior is inherited due to the tolerance of neurotransmitter systems to various substances;
• social - children who grew up in dysfunctional families, or in an unfavorable environment, or if someone in the family suffered from addiction;
• the presence of psychopathic tendencies or character accentuations;
• low self-esteem, inferiority complex, dependence on the opinions of others, inability to realize one’s own “I”, separate from parents, etc.

These are conditions that can trigger the development of addiction to something, but much depends on the individual herself, her lifestyle, the decisions she makes and her life values.

Violations of early relationships as a way of developing addiction

They can be divided into three groups - according to the types of basic needs that a child needs in the first year of life. If the child’s needs are not systematically met, the child develops that basic anxiety, which will subsequently push him to smoke, drink alcohol, take drugs, overeat, gambling addiction, work or shopaholism, “getting stuck” in relationships, etc.

So, the basic needs of a child in the first year of life and violations in their satisfaction:

1. Setting . It is important for the child that the mother’s breast “appears” systematically and regularly. It is the regular, timely appearance of the breast, as a nourishing and most important object for the baby’s life, that gives him a feeling of calm. That is, it forms the experience that “the environment responds to my needs and I am calm about this.” If the setting of nutrition and “communication with the breast” is systematically violated - the mother feeds the baby at the wrong time, not as much as he needs (underfeeds or overfeeds), that is, she is not sensitive to the child’s personal rhythms, he begins to experience constant anxiety for his survival. That is, he is not sure that when he needs it, food will definitely appear again, in the quantity and volume necessary for saturation and calm.

2. Holding . The child needs to be “held in his arms,” a feeling of comfortable physical interaction with his mother, through which he will feel safety and goodwill. If the child was not picked up enough, the necessary holding was not provided, the mother’s attitude towards the child was unkind - that is, the child could not calm down in the mother’s arms (anxious, irritable, depressed mother), could not grasp her goodwill and love, this would cause anxiety and disrupt basic trust in the world. “The world is hostile to me,” “the world does not love me.”

3. Containing . The child needs containment, that is, to accommodate, withstand, and absorb his emotional, bodily, and behavioral reactions by the mother. If the mother tolerates the child with his manifestations, he develops the experience of accepting him with different reactions, that he can be and exist with them, remaining in a relationship and receiving the necessary nutrition, touch, and friendly communication. If the mother was often irritated by the child’s reactions - that he was sick, pooped, burped, screamed or cried a lot, etc., tried to somehow forcibly force the child not to manifest himself (did not accept him like that), then the baby develops the experience of experiencing - “ I cannot be accepted with my natural manifestations.”

The less the child’s needs were met in the first year of life, the more dependent behavior will be manifested in such an adult.

Is it possible to cope with addiction?

The longer a person indulges his addiction, the more difficult it is for him to cope with it. At the initial stage, willpower and internal motivation may be enough for him, but in severe cases this becomes impossible without medication and psychological help.

However, this process is not quick and requires serious work on yourself. Medication alone will not help you cope with addiction, because when a person is discharged from the hospital, he returns to a life that does not satisfy him. Moreover, this life is devoid of the only meaning that he had in recent years, and perhaps most of his life - the object of his dependence.

At the level of psychological assistance, cognitive and behavioral therapy, gestaltherapy, working through psychological trauma, working with depression and fears are effective. A person needs to master new patterns of behavior, learn to predict and analyze situations that provoke the desire to return to addiction, and look for constructive ways to gain pleasure.

Signs

What are the basic psychological characteristics of addictive behavior? Signs of addictive behavior are as follows:

• psychological instability of the individual;
• superficial perception of reality;
• formal performance of roles imposed by society;
• weak adaptive potential of the individual;
• replacement of life values ​​with invented reality;
• psychological discomfort;
• guilt;
• increased personal and situational anxiety;
• despair and low self-esteem;
• high self-esteem, bordering on self-confidence and a sense of superiority;
• deceit, secrecy, isolation;
• aggressiveness;
• tendency to blame other people for your failures;
• manipulation of relatives and friends;
• fear of being emotionally attached to someone;
• loss of previous friendships;
• the emergence of relationships with people who have the same type of addiction;
• stereotypical behavior and stereotyped thinking;
• avoidance of taking responsibility;
• infantilism;
• avoidance of problem solving;

Determining the onset of addictive behavior can be complicated by the fact that its signs and symptoms are individual and have varying degrees of severity. In addition, it is easy to confuse the signs of addictive behavior with its causes.

Prevention of addictive behavior

It is much easier to prevent addictive behavior from forming than to cope with it, which is why there is a whole range of measures aimed at preventing addictive behavior. These include:

• working with a psychologist to overcome internal conflicts and psychological trauma;
• improving the quality of life and achieving psychological comfort;
• expanding the range of interests and social connections;
• establishing intra-family relationships, including relationships with elderly parents;
• awareness of personal integrity and building adequate self-esteem;
• identifying life goals and steps to achieve them.

Addictive behavior is dangerous both for the person himself, since it has a destructive effect on his life, and for his loved ones, who, willy-nilly, are “drawn” into the fight against addiction, sometimes becoming codependent, which does not bring anything good either for them or for the person with additive behavior. Therefore, it is important to consciously approach this problem and prevent addiction from developing by taking measures to prevent and overcome it.

Therapy for addicted clients

In psychotherapy for addicted clients, we gradually immerse ourselves in an awareness of childhood experiences through the experience of stopped feelings of anxiety, resentment, melancholy and loneliness next to the therapist. The therapist in this case plays the role of a “good caring mother”, providing the client with the experience of setting, holding and containing in those forms that are possible in the client-therapeutic relationship.

In psychotherapy for addictive behavior, the client learns to maintain distance in relationships, withstand anxiety in the “pre-contact zone,” relying on himself and his autonomy, without being afraid of rejection and the subsequent feeling of “abandonment,” loneliness and helplessness.

The goal of therapy is to form and appropriate the image of a “good mother” for oneself and gradually undergo psychological separation from the symbolic mother-therapist, acquiring the qualities of one’s internal holistic identity and the experience of relying on it.

Source

My recommendations

My work experience shows that the main difficulty in treating addiction is the patient’s refusal to admit his problem. Here I rely not only on the diagnostic results, but also on the help of the client’s relatives. If through joint efforts it is possible to bring a person to admit the harmfulness of his habit, then I enter into a contract with him.

During classes, addicts systematically move towards a healthy lifestyle:

- list the reasons why they should get rid of the addiction; - describe their life regardless of dependence, make a collage “Past – Present – ​​Future”.

Despite all the efforts of psychologists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists, it is very difficult to overcome addiction. According to statistics, only 20% of addicts return to normal life after rehabilitation measures.

What is addiction in psychology - types, stages of formation and prevention in adolescents and adults

People, other objects and phenomena of the surrounding reality that cause various emotional states.

Escaping reality is always accompanied by strong emotional experiences.

Having put a person on an “emotional hook”, it is very easy to control him. Emotions are part of addiction. A person actually depends not on the drug, but on emotions. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the addiction.

Depending on the means by which escape from reality is carried out, alcohol addiction, drug addiction, substance abuse, drug addiction, tobacco smoking, gaming addiction, workaholism, computer addiction, sex addiction, and food addiction are distinguished.

All these types of behavior are nourished by the powerful force of the subconscious and this gives them such qualities as irresistible attraction, exactingness, insatiability and impulsive unconditionality of fulfillment.

Addictive behavior is characterized by a wide range of pathologies of varying severity from behavior bordering on normal to severe psychological and biological dependence.

The main cause of all addictive disorders is a controversial topic that has not yet been revealed.

Addictive behavior from the point of view of classical psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud)

“Classical psychoanalysis views individual behavior as the result of the interaction of three key personality subsystems: id, ego and superego.”

Where the id is “the unconscious, mental, it is saturated with the energy of drives and instincts, primarily sexual. The ego is the psyche connected with the outside world, controlled by the id, in accordance with the requirements of reality. Superego is a system of values, social norms, ethics.” When the demands of the Ego, the Id and the Superego do not coincide with each other. And what’s more, they contradict each other; a personal conflict arises. And if the Ego cannot rationally cope with this conflict, then the person includes psychological defense mechanisms.

If the psychological defense mechanisms do not help, then the person uses objects that can console him (take him into the world of illusions, where there are no problems). Gradually he gets used to them and becomes dependent on them.

Also, to understand addictive behavior, psychoanalysts turn to the sexual stages of personality development. Thus, “in people who have problems such as overeating, smoking, talkativeness, and alcohol abuse, psychoanalysts note fixation at the oral stage of sexual development (oral fixation of pleasure).” And psychoanalysts consider such a phenomenon as drug addiction “as masturbation, which is the main form of sexual activity in adolescence.”

Addictive behavior from the point of view of ego psychology (E. Erikson)

Central to the theory of ego psychology created by Erik Erikson is the proposition that: during his life, a person goes through eight stages that are universal for all humanity.

Each stage occurs at a specific time for it (the so-called critical period), and a fully functional personality is formed only by passing through all stages of development. The characteristic model of a person’s behavior depends on how he will solve crises at a given stage of development. From the standpoint of ego psychology, dependent behavior is explained as an unresolved conflict between dependence and independence (autonomy).

Also, from the point of view of ego psychology, the emergence of addictive behavior is influenced by the problem of identifying one’s self.

Addictive behavior from the point of view of individual psychology (Alfred Adler)

"A. Adler was the first to draw attention to the phenomenon of inferiority as a source of self-improvement.” He believed that in order to understand human behavior, it is necessary to find out in what ways a person feels inferior and how he overcomes his inferiority, as well as what goals he sets when overcoming it. From the point of view of individual psychology, addictive behavior is an escape from reality caused by a person’s desire to overcome his inferiority complex.

Addictive behavior from the point of view of the phenomenological direction of humanistic psychology (Carl Rogers)

The phenomenological direction denies that the world around us is something that exists in itself, as an unchanging reality, in itself.

It is argued that material or objective reality is a reality consciously perceived and interpreted by a person at a given moment in time. Therefore, human behavior must be viewed through the prism of his subjective perception and understanding of reality.

Accordingly, the emergence of addictive behavior is influenced by the subjective ability to comprehend reality.

Addictive behavior from the point of view of transactional analysis (E. Bern)

Transactional analysis (from the English transaction - deal) is a psychotherapeutic method developed by the American psychiatrist Eric Berne. Berne developed the concept of “psychological game”.

A game in transactional analysis is a form of behavior with an ulterior motive in which one of the subjects receives a psychological or other advantage. Addictive behavior, in his opinion, is also nothing more than a kind of psychological game. For example, “Drinking alcohol allows a person to manipulate the feelings and actions of others. At the same time, drinking alcohol is important not in itself, but as a process leading to a hangover.”

Diagnostics

There are special psychological tests that can reveal a person’s tendency towards addictive behavior: this is evidenced by certain character traits. These include:

• the need to stand out from the crowd with bright clothing accessories, an extraordinary image, and defiant actions;
• gambling and risk taking;
• mental instability;
• tendency to loneliness and solitude;
• pessimism;
• poor development of the emotional-volitional sphere.

However, the presence of a tendency to addiction does not guarantee the development of one or another type of addiction. Negative character traits only create the preconditions for addiction. It will be formed only if a person finds himself in unfavorable social conditions.

Psychiatrists diagnose the presence of addictions in an individual through a special conversation and by assessing the patient’s appearance. Signs of addiction are found in the patient’s speech and his reactions to the doctor.

Diagnosis of chemical dependencies is the competence of a narcologist. It is detected through tests.