The Thing We Call Addiction - (part 2)
Nominalizations are powerful distortions of reality.
By turning a set of actions or symptoms into a static label (like drug addiction) we often miss the dynamic reality of the problem itself. In the case of addictions, we are often so blinded by the label that we miss the underlying utility of the behavior and the fact that it serves or has served some practical use in the life in question. Perhaps, initially, it was a practical escape from a bad situation. As we continue to use this "escape" we consider it an addiction. In NLP, these are described as positive intentions (O’Connor and Seymour, 1990; Bandler and Grinder, 1975), and a whole set of repetative behaviours.
Over the course of a lifetime, ‘addictions’ ebb and flow. For some persons, allegedly chronic, progressive addictions disappear for years and then suddenly reappear. For others, a terrible drug addiction can suddenly goes away forever. These are not the behaviors of things. They are qualities of concepts.
In many cases, just being away from certain people or contexts ends the need to engage in the behavior. For others, the geographical cure, moving away, works. Stanton Peele reports how the Veterans Administration prepared huge resources to meet the anticipated flood of addicted GIs returning from Viet Nam.
They knew that many soldiers had developed significant heroin addictions while in the service and expected that they would need a great deal of help when they returned home to the US. When they returned, however, levels of addiction dropped dramatically to the precise levels appropriate to the communities in which the GIs lived.
Diseases do not
respond to social context (Peele and Brodsky, 1991).
If we think of an addiction as a set of (often unconscious) preferences,
we may then be able to discover another set of preferences that are more
valuable than the problem substance or behavior. This
analysis was suggested by Bandler and Grinder in the mid 1970s.
If we can find an ultimate set of criteria, we stand the chance of ‘outframing’ the entire problem (Bandler and Grinder, 1979, 1982; Hall, 1996).
When we think of addictions as learned skill sets that come to be preferred patterns of action, what happens is, we find a generalized pattern of behavior that works more effectively. If we create a new set of behaviors, beliefs or experiences that serve the purposes of social integration, positive self-regard, transcendence, etc., what happens to the addiction?
The idea that drug use inevitably leads to addiction is conceptually the same as saying that kissing makes you pregnant. While it is necessarily true that you have to have the first drink in order to become an alcoholic, it does not follow that having a drink will inevitably lead you to alcoholism.
Addiction is not a property of chemical agents, it is about how people use the substances and behaviors. One of the key things that modern neuroscience tells us is that addiction is a property of brains that are functioning normally.
