Addiction Behavior:
Behavioral Addiction Basics
Behavioral Addiction Basics
- What is "behavioral addiction"?
- How do I go from participating in a behavior to developing a behavioral addiction to it?
- How is a behavioral addiction similar to a substance behavioral addiction?
- Is the physical experience of behavioral addiction the same as the physical experience of substance addiction?
- What is an "addictive personality"?
- What can be done about an addictive personality?
- What is the cognitive-behavioral approach to behavioral addiction?
- What does "obsession" or "obsessive" mean?
- What does "compulsion" or "compulsive" mean?
- Am I at risk for behavioral addiction?
- What role do genetics play in behavioral addictions?
- Is behavioral addiction driven by the mind or by the body?
- Why are some behaviors more addictive than others?
- Why does an addict cling to a behavioral addiction, even when their life is in danger?
- Why is it so difficult to give up a behavioral addiction?
- If I'm deeply involved in a behavior but am functioning well, am I an addict?
- What is an "impulse control disorder"?
- Could a person who has control of their behavior become an addict?
- What is a "cross-behavioral addiction" or "dual-behavioral addiction"?
- How do friends and family influence behavioral addictions?
- How do addicts lose control of themselves?
- Can a person suddenly become an addict?
- What is the cognitive-behavioral view of behavioral addiction?
- What is the cognitive-behavioral goal for an addicted patient?
- Are addicts allowed to continue their behavior in cognitive-behavioral therapy?
- How does cognitive-behavioral therapy work for behavioral addicts?
- What happens to a behavioral addict in a cognitive-behavioral therapy session?
- What are the "stages of change" and how do they apply to behavioral addiction treatment?
- How does the cognitive-behavioral approach work for behavioral addiction?
- To recover from a behavioral addiction, do you have to go through all the stages of change?
- What does "harm reduction" mean in behavioral addiction therapy?
- How does harm reduction work in behavioral addiction therapy?
- What are the consequences of untreated behavioral addiction?
- Is behavioral addiction just a developmental stage?
- What are the warning signs of behavioral addiction in a friend or family member?
- How do I know if I need help with a behavioral addiction?
- What is the role of family in a person's behavioral addiction?
- What role can a family play in helping a behavioral addict?
- What changes do family members need to make to support the recovery of an addict?
- What is "behavioral addiction"?
Addictions are not neccessarily bad things, or at least they never intend to be bad things. They are ways people look to "elixers", I call them, to cope with life, bad feelings, bad events, and they're always adaptive at first.
The way I define addiction is "an adaptation to life that has gone awry." What happens over time is that adaptation goes down a wrong road or a bad road or a "Y" and the person is locked into it. - How do I go from participating in a behavior to developing a behavioral addiction to it?
Virtually everybody has addictions. It's normal to have habits, and people engage into these habits all the time. And we actually need habits to survive, otherwise we would wake up every day and say, "Well, how do I tie my shoe?" We have to habituate.
So people go into these activities pretty much like they go into any new activity: they learn it, it works, they do it again. Now, what evolves over the course of time is they learn to lean on that one methodology, that one coping skill, all too much.
There is sort of a back end that addiction has, where you can't extricate, you cannot unravel yourself, and a force called tolerance starts to act, where you need more and more of the same thing to get the same outcome. So there is a snowballing effect, where you're locked in and you can't do anything to go forward. - How is a behavioral addiction similar to a substance behavioral addiction?
In actuality, all addictions are the same and a substance is no different than a behavior. There must be something reinforcing, it must make you feel better for you to do it again.
If you go gamble and you go to Las Vegas, you get excited, you win a big amount of money, you're gonna feel good, it's just like doing a drug. There is an emotional component or people don't to return to it.
People don't become addicted to celery because it doesn't make them feel better. So a process or a behavior is just as addicting as a substance because it has the ability to change the way the person feels or experiences something. - Is the physical experience of behavioral addiction the same as the physical experience of substance addiction?
Pharmacologically, biologically, it's exactly the same with substance versus a behavior. One is just with the outside substance; the other one is sort of part of the process, part of doing it over and over again.
There is a reward in it. People do not do things if there's no reward in it unless they feel better after it's all done. Like video games, it's fun. What's fun? A feeling. - What is an "addictive personality"?
That's a very controversial topic in the field. Research has not shown to be that there is a specific addictive personality but the reality is there are some people that are looking for good feelings all the time.
They kind of organize their life around good feelings. So, there's part of that addictive personality, part of the addictive personality is very impulsively do things without a lot of forethought, there's not thinking about consequences. - What can be done about an addictive personality?
That's a very controversial topic in the field. Research has not shown to be that there is a specific addictive personality but the reality is there are some people that are looking for good feelings all the time.
They kind of organize their life around good feelings. So, there's part of that addictive personality, part of the addictive personality is very impulsively do things without a lot of forethought, there's not thinking about consequences. - What is the cognitive-behavioral approach to behavioral addiction?
First of all, it's a distinct discipline. It is based on the assumption that thinking leads to feelings that leads to behavior. It's sort of like a triangle. And that if you change one's thinking about something, you can change the way they feel about it.
You can change the way feel about it, you can change the way they act upon it. An addiction is just a thinking method or a belief method. Certain beliefs lead to feelings that lead to behaviors, and they are often irrational, illogical, excessive, exaggerated beliefs.
A cognitive behavioral therapist will focus primarily on the thinking component, will intervene first, talk about the thinking that leads to these feelings or behaviors. - What does "obsession" or "obsessive" mean?
It's just sort of a high faluting technical term that just sort of means sort of excessive thoughts.
Thoughts that go around and around and around that are about a particular topic, over and over again, obsessing about a belief or a thing that happened.
It's just more of a repetitive idea, or can even be thought of as an obsession. - What does "compulsion" or "compulsive" mean?
Compulsive means to do the behavior over and over again.
I know people who find comfort, a good feeling, by straightening out pencils on a desk. That could become compulsive if that's the only way you can bring about calm inside and good feelings.
So behaviors are compulsive, and thoughts are obsessive. - Am I at risk for behavioral addiction?
At risk is a very interesting term. The reality is that anybody could, in theory, become, be at risk for developing a behavioral addiction.
Certain societies though lend themselves to certain behaviors, for example, gambling is very large in certain populations. That would put someone more at risk for developing a gambling or behavioral addiction.
Looking at your mom or dad and what they did on a behavioral level or biological relatives on a behavioral level puts you at risk to develop one behavioral addiction over another behavioral addiction or a substance addiction. - What role do genetics play in behavioral addictions?
The reality is that in all addictions and behavioral addictions included, there is a strong genetic component and a strong social, psychological, component.
The research is inconclusive, but it varies to a small percentage to 5-50. If you grew up in a monastery, would you become a gambler? Chances are you wouldn't, even though you might have a biological leaning.
So both environment and biology or genetics have a strong bearing on that propensity, that leaning into a particular ritual that we are now calling a behavioral addiction. - Is behavioral addiction driven by the mind or by the body?
It's very difficult to be absolutely concrete about behavioral addiction. Everybody's different.
For some people, there's a small genetic component and a large part is psychological or sociological. For others, it's the opposite, where a large part of behavioral addiction is genetically driven and a small part is socially or psychologically driven. - Why are some behaviors more addictive than others?
The reason people get addicted to anything is because it makes them feel good.
The reason why people get addicted to gambling is there's a potential for them to feel better at the end of the involvement with the gambling, at least at first. Things don't make you feel better, chances are that you won't repeat it. But the reality is, it's what happens during the first couple of involvements with the behavior. Like, again, genereally speaking, a gambler who wins big toward the beginning of their career has a greater likelihood of becoming an addict.
A child or a kid who has video games as a child and he likes the sensations inside, the feelings that it brings about has a larger potential of becoming addicted to that versus me who will pick up a video game and oh well, you know it's kind of corny, I'll put it down. I don't get a positive warm feeling from playing video games right now. - Why does an addict cling to a behavioral addiction, even when their life is in danger?
It's part and parcel of why it's so difficult, is because you have pushed away more adaptable, healthier ways to feel good.
You have nothing left, you don't have your family, you don't have your job, you don't have your bank account. Well, you've got this one little, miniscule way of coping with life, of feeling good and you return to it over and over again because you don't have anything left.
People with a healthy life have a multitude, I call it a 5 finger approach to life, if they have a little problem with their spouse, they turn to another way of feeling good. But over time that 5 finger approach turns to a 1 finger approach, which we are calling an addiction.
It's the only way they know how to bring about a good feeling now, they don't have any other resources. - Why is it so difficult to give up a behavioral addiction?
During the course of involvement in an addiction and we start to give up friendships and ballgames and other ways of feeling good.
We go through a process I call "unlearning." We unlearn ways of coping with life. I work with many people that knew how to ask a girl to dance and by the age of thirty they are afraid to.
They have unlearned through the course of the addiction working efficiently, effectively, predictably, how to do that. They have unlearned how to go and enjoy a ball team, how to cope with life, how to do hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of things they knew at the age of fifteen, but by the age of thirty, they no longer know how to do because they didn't work as efficiently and effectively as their drug of choice.
So, they are now in a stage of unlearning. They feel completely handcuffed, not only by the reinforcement of knowing how to feel good, - If I'm deeply involved in a behavior but am functioning well, am I an addict?
- What is an "impulse control disorder"?
- Could a person who has control of their behavior become an addict?
- What is a "cross-behavioral addiction" or "dual-behavioral addiction"?
- How do friends and family influence behavioral addictions?
- How do addicts lose control of themselves?
- Can a person suddenly become an addict?
- What is the cognitive-behavioral view of behavioral addiction?
- What is the cognitive-behavioral goal for an addicted patient?
The cognitive-therapy goal for treating addiction is to reorchestrate the thoughts in such a way that they are reinforcing adaptive healthy behaviors and encouraging letting go of unhealthy behaviors and thoughts.
The goal is not necessarily to discontinue one hundred percent, though that may be the case for some people. It's easier to stop at a hundred percent, but the goal is to reorientate the thoughts into a more healthy organization that we all seem to share.
But over the course of time, an individual may have evolved into the belief that gambling is the place that makes them feel good as opposed to home life and a white picket fence. - Are addicts allowed to continue their behavior in cognitive-behavioral therapy?
- How does cognitive-behavioral therapy work for behavioral addicts?
- What happens to a behavioral addict in a cognitive-behavioral therapy session?
- What are the "stages of change" and how do they apply to behavioral addiction treatment?
- How does the cognitive-behavioral approach work for behavioral addiction?
- To recover from a behavioral addiction, do you have to go through all the stages of change?
- What does "harm reduction" mean in behavioral addiction therapy?
- How does harm reduction work in behavioral addiction therapy?
- What are the consequences of untreated behavioral addiction?
- Is behavioral addiction just a developmental stage?
- What are the warning signs of behavioral addiction in a friend or family member?
- How do I know if I need help with a behavioral addiction?
- What is the role of family in a person's behavioral addiction?
- What role can a family play in helping a behavioral addict?
- What changes do family members need to make to support the recovery of an addict?
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