Addiction: it ain’t what you think

Love this article which introduces the idea in the book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. There are more and more awakened ideas being applied to our sad human condition. This is in keeping with all the work I share of Gabor Mate’s and Marion Woodman as well. I’ve shared links to posts with their work at the bottom of this post.

From Huffington Post by Johann Hari:

Professor Alexander argues this discovery is a profound challenge both to the right-wing view that addiction is a moral failing caused by too much hedonistic partying, and the liberal view that addiction is a disease taking place in a chemically hijacked brain. In fact, he argues, addiction is an adaptation. It’s not you. It’s your cage.

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So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.

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This isn’t only relevant to the addicts I love. It is relevant to all of us, because it forces us to think differently about ourselves. Human beings are bonding animals. We need to connect and love. The wisest sentence of the twentieth century was E.M. Forster’s — “only connect.” But we have created an environment and a culture that cut us off from connection, or offer only the parody of it offered by the Internet. The rise of addiction is a symptom of a deeper sickness in the way we live — constantly directing our gaze towards the next shiny object we should buy, rather than the human beings all around us. READ IT ALL HERE

Johann Hari’s  book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs

Related on Beyond Meds:

• Dr. Gabor Maté ~ Who We Are When We Are Not Addicted: The Possible Human

• Addiction is not an Illness

• Ask, not why the addiction, but why the pain?

• Mental illness, addiction & most chronic illness is linked to childhood loss & trauma

• The addicted world (yeah, all of us)

For a multitude of ideas about how to create a life filled with safe alternatives to psychiatric drugs visit the drop-down menus at the top of this page.  

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