Addiction in the Pursuit of Enlightenment and Joy - (part 4)
Addicts and drug abusers are often seeking a new spiritual perspective but end up trapped in a consumerist nightmare. There is a huge literature on relapse prevention pointing to boredom and stress as crucial predictors of relapse.
In standard behavioral literature, animals who have suffered sensory deprivation will perform for rewards consisting of nothing more than exposure to novelty (Daly, Mercer and Carpenter, 2002; NIDA, 2002). A dog requires at least 30 new scents per day. So, in this state of deprivation (whilst chained up in the back yard) it will jump for it's doggy biscuit instead.
From a Jungian perspective, Luigi Zoja (1990) links addiction to a failed attempt at transcendence. This means the addict is looking to spiritually and emotionally to rise above their given situation. Find peace, joy or enlightenment (nirvana), when they may have forgotten to do it normally. Drugs such as ecstacy, actually stop the brain producing the "happy feelings" after a while.
Novelty is a crucial part of the value accorded to addictive behaviors and substances (Schultz, Dayan and Montague, 1997; Robinson and Berridge, 2001; Waelti, Dickenson, and Schultz, 2001; Robinson, 2004; Tobler, Fiorillo and Schultz, 2005). It's hard to imagine an addict taking drugs every day. finding novelty in the event.
So, it is easy to see that it is untrue that the drug "addict" will get either novelty or nirvana. So not even the basic requirments to prove addiction are satisfied by our favourite myths.
The relative intensity of addictive behaviors, as compared to normal experiences, leads the substance abuser to anticipate and prefer them over more mundane rewards. One of the important things about this observation is that the comparisons made by the dopamine systems are short term. Behavioral preferences are established when there is a sharp difference in intensity between problem reinforcers and other recently experienced stimuli.
| Part | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
.....intense exposure to the substance
