Simply put, a person is addicted when they continue to use a substance or activity beyond the point of common sense.
Addiction may be defined as the development of a pathological relationship between a person and a substance and/or activity; where the person loses their ability to control the use of the substance and/or activity, despite the awareness that it is adversely affecting their life.
The addicted person loses control because the addicted brain is disordered, and the loss of cognitive functioning allows the development of denial, or addictive thinking, which stops him/her from seeing how much they and others are being affected by the use of the substance or activity.
MULTIPLE ADDICTIONS
Addiction is not only a term applied to alcoholics or drug addicts. It is applied to a wide range of mood-altering activities or behaviours, which have the potential to trap the person in a compulsion.
It is possible to become addicted to food, spending, sex, soap operas, the internet, physical exercise, work, gambling, nicotine, caffeine, over the counter (OTC), prescription or illegal drugs, an unhealthy relationship or any pleasurable or mood-altering activity.
UNDERSTANDING ADDICTION
No one sets out to become addicted. In the beginning people only want to fill a natural need. A pleasurable substance or pastime to ease the pain, to bring relief, ease boredom or fill a void. Who among us has never arrived home after a busy day and said, “I could really do with a drink”? How many of us have enjoyed a night out at the casino so much that we have looked forward to repeating the experience?
Unfortunately for us, addiction patiently waits for the opportunity to wrap its tentacles around us. It waits for a weakness in our defenses, for those whose circumstances, age or genetics render them vulnerable. We have no way of knowing who will become an addict and who will not. There are some indicators or predictors, but no one can be sure. Addicts are not morally degenerate, weak-willed or inferior. They have become unfortunate victims of a powerful disease over which they have no control.
Professionals agree that addiction begins at the point when the line separating it from abuse has been crossed. The abuser still has some control, the addict does not. The addict may believe because he or she enjoys some periods of abstinence that he or she is in control, only to discover that even after some time away from the addiction, he or she will always go back...and most times the addiction will be worse.
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