4/26/2021

What Is Addiction?

 


           Scholars do research studies about why human beings work. From the psychological point of view, I am trying to find a way to heal the stress and wounds generated in psychology due to work, rather than analyzing the reasons for working. Work has an important value for PIRs (person in relationships) when doing self-actualization. You have covered the four categories previously: the case of working without thoughts, the case of working even though you don't want, the case of working as the means for purpose and goal, and the case of working because of immersing yourself with fun in work. I put 'work addiction' aside because I consider it as the case of working with a psychological disorder.

           Work addiction is a psychological disorder just like other general kinds of addiction. Thus, operations of mind and psychology of people who are addicted to alcohol, gambling, drug, exercise, the Internet, games, etc. need to be considered when analyzing the mind and psychology of workaholic. In other words, the mind operation of a workaholic is the same as that of other kinds of addiction. So, it is important to understand first what addiction is.  

           In cases of immersing oneself in work and having an excessive amount of work might be considered as workaholism, but it is different from work addiction occurred by operations of stress and wounds. Immersing oneself excessively in work is the same, but addiction is a psychological disorder caused by compulsions and anxieties due to stress and wounds. So, a person cannot be judged as a workaholic just because he or she enjoys work and works a lot.  

           The core of the work addiction is compulsions being operated by stress and wounds about the work. When stress and wounds are generated, compulsions operate to bail out of the stress and wounds; work must be done to get away from the stress and wounds. One might and might not recognize that something is wrong with him or her, but it is impossible to control oneself by his or her own will even if he/she knows that.

           People tend to misunderstand work addiction as working excessively all night up, but working a lot isn't actually work addiction. It is just excessive working or immersing oneself excessively in work because he or she like the work. It can't be work addiction. If it is work addiction, the object of compulsion and that of relieving the compulsion is the same, which is work. Like this, having compulsions on a specific object is called addiction.

           Thus, work addiction has the compulsion about work; exercise addiction has the compulsion about exercise; alcohol addiction has the compulsion about alcohol. In the case of having an exercise addiction, a person suffers in the agony of stress and wounds that are not endurable if he or she cannot do exercise. Being unable to do any other things, this person suffers from compulsion and feels anxiousness. This person must do exercise in order to get away from the compulsion and have his or her psychology stabilized. If the anxiousness lasts without getting away from the compulsion, phenomena like suffocating, and illness anxiety disorder occur, making oneself not being able to endure them; he or she ends up with exercising by fair means or foul to get away from the compulsion. Like this, addiction is having the object of compulsion and the object of overcoming the compulsion the same.

           The symptom of addiction doesn't always occur on a daily basis. The time and number of occurrences of the symptom are not the important matter. Regardless of the cycle, once compulsion about a certain object is formed, the object must be carried out in order to be free from the compulsion.

           This kind of addiction isn't really recognized well because it appears as either male's passion or female's love. Just for reference, passion and love do not generate stress but heal the stress and wounds. On the contrary, addiction forms compulsions about a certain object, making a person feel difficult and have wounds and stress operated. At this moment, the person with an addiction cannot do anything else but looks for the object he or she is addicted to in order to get away from the compulsion. This kind of addiction occurs commonly in our daily life.

           For example, a person addicted to exercise cannot do anything ever since the moment he or she perceives any information related to exercise at his or her workplace even if he or she is supposed to work. The stress that is strong enough to stop everything related to a daily life is generated. Also, a person addicted to work has compulsions with thoughts like 'I should get to sleep early, so I can get back to work early tomorrow' when he or she sees broadcasting related to work. It is because of various problems or ideas related to work that come to his or her mind so suddenly. This person cannot control himself or herself.

           The social phenomenon of 'hurry up' in Korea shows that we are suffering from compulsions that much. This social phenomenon is caused by sudden changes in Korea. People are suffering from compulsions that they must to do something, work, go to college and have jobs. If not, they think they cannot survive in this society without economic values. This is not a matter of right or wrong but just interpreted from a psychological point of view.

           They see Korea as 'passionate and dynamic hell' and other countries with good social welfare as 'gloomy heaven with neither passion nor fun.' As such sentences can indicate a person with or without having compulsions. Fun and passion are more dynamically intense as compulsion and addiction become stronger. However, it means that there is no fun and passion without compulsions. In cases of compulsive hoarding, it is the same as treasuring a pile of trash. It is a psychological disorder of compiling trash and withstanding to discard trash because a person has a compulsive thought that it might be useful sometime. Hence, trash is the object of addiction in compulsive hoarding. For instance, hygiene is the object of addiction in germaphobes. Getting addicted to human relationships between males and females is called relationship compulsion, relationship addiction in other words. These kinds of compulsions are spread widely throughout the entire society; these are very typical phenomena that are appeared in addiction.

           When a compulsion is formed to a certain object and when the compulsion is relieved through the same object, it is called an addiction. Because of this, addiction makes you suffer in difficulties of the mind if compulsion is not removed because it is followed by very strong stress and wounds; when the compulsion is relieved, you feel very comfortable and happy. So, you end up deeply immersing yourself in the process of releasing the compulsion. Some of you recognize it as if you immerse yourself in passion or love, but make sure clearly understand that it is only releasing the compulsion.

           If a woman has obsessive-compulsive feelings about a relationship with a man, compulsions are formed when the man comes to her mind or any information related  to the man is perceived; she becomes able to do nothing until she feels comfortable and happy after relieving the compulsions through having phone calls, text messaging, etc. with him. This is called either a distorted attachment relationship or obsession. It is a type of compulsion and relationship addiction. So, if this kind of compulsion is formed, it is not controlled due to the operations of strong stress.

         A person with a compulsion due to work addiction gets anxieties without being able to do anything for daily life if he or she cannot do his or her works along with strong stress. This person can relieve the compulsion and become comfortable, fun, and happy only by doing works. This work addiction might be perceived as if it allows a person to be able to do self-actualization by pursuing values of economics, human relationships, and social activities, but is it not true. The work is the object of compulsion and of releasing the compulsion; work addiction is a psychological disorder.

          Work addiction generates stress and wounds due to the compulsion of the mind as other various addictions do; this compulsion can only be relieved by doing work. When releasing the compulsion, the work addict damages him, herself, or others by causing stress and wounds. Addiction might seem as if immersing oneself to a specific object just like male's passion and female's love; however, passion and love heal oneself or the other whereas addiction damages oneself or the other.

 Accordingly, it will be easier to understand and to categorize if the addiction harms oneself or oneself with others. When looking at people with addiction, someone only damages his or her body and mind, and someone damages not only himself or herself but also others.

           Let's look into alcohol addiction as an example of the kinds of addictions that damage both self and others. It could be perceived as a type of addictions that only damage oneself. However, in many cases, an alcohol addict not only damages his or her body and mind, but also causes serious problems to his or her spouse, children, and other people in the human relationships. This alcoholic person has formed compulsions about alcohol, causing powerful stress and wounds, and faces anxieties and nervousness, having psychological difficulties and agony. This person must drink alcohol somehow because he or she cannot relieve the compulsion unless drinking alcohol; in this process, surrounding people suffer from difficulties caused by this person. By drinking alcohol, the compulsion is relieved, allowing this person to have comfort and happiness.

           When talking about addiction, we use the word 'habitual' a lot. However, habitual alcohol drinking and alcohol addiction are different. Habitual alcohol drinking is habitually drinking almost every day, but it is not followed by either anxieties or powerful stress due to compulsion about drinking alcohol. If a person can hold himself from drinking alcohol for tomorrow's schedule, he is not addicted to alcohol. The reason we use the terms 'habitual alcohol drinking' is that it is highly potential to become alcohol addiction when compulsion is formed.

           In the case of gambling addiction, a person tries to make some money by gambling at first. If this person makes profits through gambling, he or she's high potential to become a gambler because it feels great when there is a sudden, unexpected monetary profit, and it brings the effect of an increase in economic value. If a person gambles to feel the mood of an increase in this economic value, this person becomes addicted to gambling. Gambling addiction occurs when a person tries to feel the mood of an increase in economic value by earning money in a short period of time rather than having the purpose of making profits. Due to this, a person addicted to gambling wants to feel the mood of the great increase in economic value if he or she makes a small profit. Thus, when information related to economic values is perceived, compulsions about gambling are formed, increasing the anxieties and nervousness, and powerful stress and wounds are generated. In order to relieve the compulsions, this person must gamble; because of this action, not only economic destruction but also negative impacts on other people economically occur, generating serious problems for both.

           Like this, there are many kinds of addictions that damage not only oneself, but also others, such as alcohol addiction, gambling addiction, drug addiction, sex addiction, relationship addiction, etc.

           Next is about kinds of addictions that only damage oneself. The representative example is work addiction. If a person is addicted to work, his or her spouse and family members welcome this work addiction because of the increase in economic values. They think the work addict works hard and tries his or her best for them. This person addicted to work has, in fact, a psychological disorder due to compulsion and relieve about work but does not either harm or damage others. Economic values can increase, but the values of human relationships might be destroyed, and social activities disappear. Even though problems might occur in the values of human relationships or social activities, the person addicted to work does not damage others if economic values are formed by work addiction. Family members might turn away from this person if he or she cannot make economic values.

          Also, even in the case of exercise addiction, most people just work out hard, a little bit excessively in some cases. So, others do not perceive that they are being damaged by the exercise addicts. Like this, exercise addiction does not give any negative perception to the other or others even if physical and psychological problems have occurred to this exercise addict. People in close relationships with this person only feel a little bit uncomfortable with this issue, which makes the exercise addict does not perceive that he or she is addicted to exercise. In many cases, we perceive a work addict as a person working very hard and an exercise addict as a person. In other words, they are doing things for themselves.

           These people have serious psychological disorders because they get powerful stress if they cannot relieve the compulsions that they have formed to the things they are addicted to. They do not recognize that their minds are being damaged. It is the same for people addicted to games, the Internet, smartphones, etc. They are just harming themselves.  

           Like work addiction and exercise addiction, the kind of addiction that is perceived as something beneficial to oneself tends to be acknowledged as living a valuable life even though it actually damages the self. Strangely, the psychological problem, work addiction especially, is acknowledged as living a valuable life.

           The reason why work addiction being acknowledged as living a valuable life is that it creates the values of life. Work allows us to make and have the values of social activity, human relationships, and economics. We can be acknowledged by others for living a valuable life and feel as if we have been successful in self-actualization. Thus, people around us are generous about work addiction. In the case of exercise addiction, same as work addiction, people think it isn't a problem because exercising is good for health. The addicts do not know that they actually have psychological disorders and that they have psychological problems of losing values of human relationships such as family, friends, acquaintances, etc. by limiting the value of human relationships into the value of human relationships related to only work.

           On the other hand, addictions like game addiction, internet addiction, smartphone addiction are different. It is because there are no values for life. People perceive these kinds of addictions are serious problems because they think there are no values of social activities, human relationships, and economics. Well, of course, a game addict can become a pro-gamer, and an internet addict can become an expert on the internet. A smartphone addict can become an expert on smartphones as well. It would be great if they can actually become professionals on the subject they are addicted to; however, chances are very remote, which is the reason why we perceive this kind of addictions as bad. They also think these additions cause losing the values of life. So, they want to stop these addictions, try to treat them, and keep talking about how serious these problems are. Simply saying, they understand that these addictions are just a waste of time and cause the seriousness as psychological disorders. This kind of addictions does not damage others.

           Therefore, we must judge whether to get treatment or not when categorizing addictions by analyzing whether the addictions damage only the self or damage the self and others as well. In the case of work addiction that only damages the self, the addict must know how to treat the self and prevent the self from the addiction accurately since it builds values of life. However, work addiction is very rarely being studied because people judge it is valuable for life. But when looking at this problem from an individual's psychological view, it is highly potential to cause a bigger problem. It is because the work addiction could become another addiction since mind operations of addictions are the same. For example, a work addict becomes a gambling addict if the person knows the fun of gambling, an alcohol addict if he or she feels the fun of drinking alcohol, and a sex addict if the person feels the fun of having sex. This person could also become a relationship addict if he or she feels the fun of having human relationships. Since addiction is having the same object of compulsion and of relieving compulsion, addiction can be changed into another kind if the object is changed. This is why addiction is very dangerous.

           Due to this, if a person feels values of life (social values, economic values, and values of human relationships) from being addicted to work, this person could be easily addicted to gambling, drugs, sex, human relationship, etc. later on. Well, of course, the person might be confident that he or she can get away from the pleasure after enjoying the fun for a while; however, this person is in the state that the operations of compulsion and of relieving the compulsion cannot be controlled if he or she is already addicted to something. Therefore, it is a matter of time that addiction that damages only oneself changing to addiction that damages not only the self but also others; it is very difficult to be recovered back to the original state.


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