Understanding Addiction

Those first puffs of pot were so rich, so sweet, so…promising. And that first hit of smack. Granted the needle stuff was a little rough, but can anything that feels this good actually be…um, bad? One of the most universal characteristics of drug use is the chimeric quality that’s almost always present, especially the first […] (Read the rest.)

A few people commented on my last post that addiction was not the same as OCD. I agree: they overlap, but they’re certainly not synonymous. What I’ve been ruminating about is a related matter: the implication that substance addictions and behavioral addictions are the same. No, I don’t think they’re the same either. I called […] (Read the rest.)

I said I’d use the next few posts to share what I learned at a recent conference on behavioral addictions. I should emphasize that the conference, held in Budapest, was billed as the the First International Conference on Behavioral Addictions. The idea that gambling, hypersexualized behavior, eating disorders (including obesity), and internet addictions are in […] (Read the rest.)

Hi from Hungary. I’m at a conference on behavioral addictions. Two days of talks by experts — psychologists, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, clinical researchers, etc. — who want to understand behavioral addictions. These include compulsive gambling, eating disorders, hypersexuality or sex addiction, and internet or gaming addiction.  And I am really high on the flood of information, […] (Read the rest.)

Hi again. Last post I argued that the growth of addictive behaviour takes place at several scales. A “real-time” scale of minutes or hours, approximately, and a much slower scale that we can properly call “development” — something that takes place over months or years. And perhaps other scales as well. I realize now, as […] (Read the rest.)