Understanding Addiction

If you happen to click here and listen to B. B. King sing “The Thrill is Gone,” you might notice that he does not look happy. Nor does he sound happy. And he’s sweating. A lot! He says he’s free, but I somehow doubt it. What happens when the thrill is gone? That’s a central […] (Read the rest.)

By  Elizabeth from the blog…. I am very pleased to present a guest post, created by Elizabeth, who has been a member of this blog community for at least a year. Thanks, Elizabeth, for your contributions until now, and especially for this fascinating post– The present “obesity epidemic” has given rise to public concern about […] (Read the rest.)

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.)